Like Indochino's custom suits, every Rams staff member's championship journey is different. We'll be highlighting those stories in a three-part series with each installment focusing on a different member of the organization.
Up next is member services representative Johnas Pulley, who just completed his first season with the organization after working for the NHL's Tampa Bay Lightning for two years.
Johnas Pulley is on quite the remarkable run to start his career in the sports industry.
His first two years, he was part of the NHL's Tampa Bay Lightning's last two Stanley Cup victories. Last year, he joined the Rams and was part of their Super Bowl LVI-winning journey.
"It's unbelievable, to say the least," Pulley said. "Working in sports is always a pleasure, and working in the sales and a revenue-generating department, you'd never want to sell based upon team performance, but it is always good when you guys win, and even better when you guys win a championship. So very blessed, very fortunate, to go 3-for-3 early on in my sports career."
Having that unique experience of being a part of two championship-winning organizations, Pulley can see the commonalities between each one. Both the Lightning and the Rams have that teamwork not only on the field, but also off the field on the business side as well.
There's also overlap in their core values, according to Pulley.
"The Lightning, they really wanted to hit on that word (teamwork). Like, when you come with them, you're getting a world-class-plus experience. So that's everything we tried to do," Pulley said. "And then of course, our core values with the Rams, it's just sticking to our Angeleno pride. When I got with the Rams, I didn't know we had a mariachi band and all those things, and that really grows and deeps our fan engagement here in L.A. I remember Jalen Ramsey dressed up in a mariachi uniform before a game, that was a super big hit all over social media. I had family and friends calling me about it. So really sticking true to our L.A. pride, because coming into L.A., you're coming into a tough market with the Lakers and the Dodgers, so we have to really hit hard for the Rams to make noise because we're often being compared to the Lakers and Dodgers and how they run their organizations. Those are two champion organizations in themselves as well."
Logistically, though, the experiences were just a little bit different.
With the Lightning, Pulley said they were already a "well-oiled machine" with the stadium consistently sold out and being established, which allowed him to step in and hit the ground running. In his first season with the Rams, what stood out to Pulley was the uniqueness of it, having to open up what was effectively still a brand-new stadium in 2021 coming out of the fan-less 2020 season during the COVID-19 pandemic.
"Year 1, it's great to see dealing with all of those early-on struggles of opening a new stadium post-pandemic, and then winning the Super Bowl, (it) helps that," Pulley said. "Like, 'Okay, all the hard work and all the effort that went into this and the strategy behind best practices, it's great to at least see a Super Bowl come out of that Year 1."
While the championship rings have been won in different sports, they will go on the same hand for Pulley.
"Kind of like those pictures with Kobe (Bryant) and Michael (Jordan), where they're pondering with all their rings on one hand, like that," Pulley said. "Waiting for the first hand to get filled up before we slide it over to the other hand."
