From Soccer Slam to Lottery Scandal: Brand Building Lessons from Serial Entrepreneur Terry Rich
Building a brand isn’t just about logos and taglines—it’s about creating trust, finding your audience, and having the courage to stand by your values when it matters most. Terry Rich, a serial entrepreneur and former Iowa Lottery CEO, has learned these lessons through decades of launching, repositioning, and rebuilding brands across vastly different industries.
Creating a Brand and Category from Scratch: Soccer Slam
In 2001, Rich faced the challenge every entrepreneur knows well: how do you create something people will pay for when they don’t even know they want it yet? His answer was Soccer Slam, a full-contact indoor soccer show that mixed professional athletics with WWE-style drama.
“I realized when I was done with my cable TV work, I had lots of money, but I didn’t really have an asset,” Rich explains. “I didn’t have something that I could hold on to and think about selling down the road.”
Soccer Slam was his solution—combining professional soccer players with theatrical storylines, multiple balls, and staged fights. The brand name itself was strategic: spelling out “soccer” ensured audiences understood exactly what they were getting.
The lesson?
Sometimes your initial target audience isn’t your actual audience. While soccer purists on Fox Sports World hated it, colleges loved the concept. The key is being flexible enough to pivot when you discover where your true market lies.
Key Takeaway: Don’t be afraid to fail fast and adapt. As Rich puts it: “It’s better to have tried and failed than to succeed at doing nothing.”
Repositioning an Existing Brand: Blank Park Zoo Revival
When Rich took over Des Moines’s struggling Blank Park Zoo, he faced a different challenge: revitalizing
a brand people already had opinions about. The city-run zoo was bleeding money and on the verge of closure.
His approach was methodical and creative:
Pricing Psychology: He doubled admission from $4.95 to $9.95. Result? Revenue increased because people perceived the zoo as more valuable, even though it was the same experience.
Audience Expansion: The zoo had kids ages 2-12 covered, but what about other demographics? Rich introduced “Zoo Brew”—adult-only evenings with alcohol, bands, and no children. Suddenly, the same asset was generating revenue from an entirely new market segment.
Creative Problem-Solving: Needing a new exhibit but lacking a million-dollar budget, Rich created “Scoop on Poop”—an educational display about animal waste that cost nothing but drew crowds and media attention. They even sold tiger poop as deer repellent for $25 a bucket, generating $30,000-$40,000 annually.
Community Connection: “Dream Night” invited terminally ill children and their families for free zoo experiences, generating tremendous goodwill and sponsor support.
The rebrand extended to the name itself—changing from “Des Moines Children’s Zoo” to “Iowa’s Wildest Adventure” to signal statewide, rather than local, appeal.
Rebuilding Trust After Crisis: The Lottery Scandal
Rich’s most challenging brand crisis came as Iowa Lottery CEO when a vendor rigged the system to steal $16.5 million. The fraud threatened not just Iowa’s lottery but the entire $80 billion national lottery industry.
While other state lotteries urged Iowa to “pay it and shut up,” Rich chose radical transparency. His approach:
Immediate Positioning: “We were very bold in saying we think something happened. We’re going to go to the ends of the earth to figure this out, because we want the game fair and honest.”
Consistent
Messaging: Rather than retelling the story differently each time, Rich’s team created a master timeline document, adding new information chronologically. This prevented confusion and ensured accurate reporting.
Standing with Law Enforcement: By publicly supporting the investigation, Rich separated the lottery brand from any suspicion of complicity.
The counterintuitive result? Lottery sales increased with each announcement about the investigation. “Every time we got on and people heard about Hot Lotto, we sold more tickets,” Rich notes. Industry sales grew from $80 billion to $110 billion during this period.
The COT Method: Fostering Innovation
Rich’s most practical contribution might be his “COT” system—”Consider or Throw Away.” This simple email designation allows leaders to share ideas without creating mandatory action items.
The process works in two phases:
- Idea Generati
on: Diverse teams brainstorm without judgment, aiming for quantity over quality - Prioritization: Teams collectively evaluate and select the best concepts for implementation
This system prevents the common problem where every CEO suggestion becomes an urgent directive, while ensuring good ideas from all levels get heard.
Universal Brand Building Principles
Across all his ventures, Rich’s approach consistently emphasizes:
- Authenticity over perfection: Being honest about challenges builds more trust than pretending problems don’t exist
- Audience flexibility: Your initial target market might not be your best market
- Creative resourcefulness: Constraints often spark the most innovative solutions
- Community connection: Giving back isn’t just good PR—it’s good business
- Diverse input: Homogeneous teams miss opportunities that diverse perspectives catch
Whether launching Soccer Slam, reviving a struggling zoo, or rebuilding trust after fraud, Rich’s success comes from
understanding that brands are built on relationships, not just transactions. In our age of social media scrutiny and instant communication, his emphasis on integrity and transparency feels more relevant than ever.
The lesson for today’s brand builders? Don’t just focus on what you’re selling—focus on why people should trust you to deliver it.
This blog post is based on Sue Kirchner’s interview with Terry Rich on the Turbo Branding Show podcast. To hear the full conversation, including more insights on branding, rebranding and bouncing back after fraud, listen to the complete episode here. Terry can be found on LinkedIn at https://www.linkedin.com/in/terich/.
