Mark McAvoy commends the Bucks Platinum Columbus team after earning ED’s 2026 Overall Small Club of the Year and reveals news of the club’s plans to move up in weight class.
When Bucks Platinum Columbus was announced as the 2026 Overall Small Club of the Year at the ED Awards Show, Mark McAvoy’s first thought wasn’t about the trophy. It was about the people whose work had helped to put the club in the running: Kristen Ebright, Jason Jennings, Brad Lemley, Cory Newsom, Avalon Weaver and Maurice Wilson.
“Those are the people who showed up every day and put in the work that made this possible,” McAvoy says. “In that moment, I felt pure pride and happiness for them. This award belongs to them.”
The win capped three consecutive years of recognition. In 2024, the venue received ED’s Small Club of the Year award in the East region. Then in 2025, they took home the Bucks Championship Belt, which McAvoy describes as the award for the best pound-for-pound club in the company. And this year, they claimed the overall small-club honor on the industry’s national stage, an award that McAvoy says means everything to him and his team.
“I’m most proud of the fact that this wasn’t a one-year spike,” he shares. “It was the culmination of the last three.”
That progression gives this latest award particular significance. For McAvoy, it represents sustained effort from a team that has turned the feeling of being underestimated into motivation.
“As a team, we’ve always carried a chip on our shoulder,” he says. “Maybe we felt held back, maybe we felt slighted by another company, maybe we were told we weren’t good enough. Whatever the reason, we don’t sit with it. We use it as fuel. This award is proof that the fire we kept burning was worth it, and it belongs to every person who showed up and refused to settle.”
When you’re working in close quarters, it’s easier to be a presence. It’s easier to address a customer’s needs, easier to spot an issue before it grows, and you get a much better appreciation for working as a team when everyone is in the trenches together.
— Mark McAvoy
A team built to hunt
Ask McAvoy what separated Bucks Platinum from the other nominees, and he first acknowledges the work it took for those clubs to earn their nominations. Then he quotes a sign in their manager’s office: “Everyone wants to eat, but few are willing to hunt.”
“No disrespect to anyone else in the room that night, but they were up against a pack of wolves,” he says.
That competitive attitude runs through his account of the club’s success, but so does an emphasis on developing a strong team. And as experienced managers leave the industry, he believes clubs have an opportunity to cultivate their next generation of leaders.
“The old guard of management is leaving the industry, and it’s created a real void,” he explains. “But that’s actually an exciting time. There’s an arms race underway, and whoever develops the most talent in-house is going to win.”
He challenges club operators to look closely at the people running your shifts and your clubs.
“Do you have team builders, or gatekeepers worried about their envelope? If it’s the latter, you’re going to be left behind.”
For McAvoy, leadership at the company level helps make that development possible. He credits Rich Richardson and Curtis Wise with giving the Columbus operation room to experiment while maintaining Bucks’ standards.
“We like to say, ‘Don’t set the standard, be the standard,’ and no two people exemplify that more than our owners.”
That freedom allows the club to respond to its own market. Rather than relying on a rigid, decades-old playbook, the team can try new approaches and shape an identity that fits Columbus.
On being a presence
When it comes to operating a smaller venue, McAvoy sees a practical advantage: Management can stay close to the action.
“When you’re working in close quarters, it’s easier to be a presence,” he explains. “It’s easier to address a customer’s needs, easier to spot an issue before it grows, and you get a much better appreciation for working as a team when everyone is in the trenches together.”
That presence matters in entertainer relationships, too. McAvoy says today’s inexperienced entertainers often have preconceived notions about the industry before they walk through the door.
“In the past, if an audition walked in with no experience, you looked at her as a blank canvas, no bad habits yet,” he explains. “Now that same audition walks in with no experience, but she’s watched hours of TikTok videos, spent months on Reddit and follows the platform that claims to be her resource. She has never stepped on a stage, yet she already ‘knows’ the managers won’t help her because they’re only in it for themselves. She ‘knows’ the DJ is going to be a problem, so she shouldn’t tip more than five dollars. She ‘knows’ that if a customer doesn’t immediately put two hundred on her stage, she shouldn’t take anything off and that customer should be removed.”
His response to the new generation of entertainers is to build professional relationships and establish trust by being a presence. Managers, he says, have to demonstrate that they are available and willing to help.
“If you don’t, you’re just confirming what she already read online,” he says. “It is never going back to the way some of us remember it. Embrace the change, adapt the standard and if your name ends up in a social post or a Google review, let it go.”
McAvoy is equally quick to challenge the assumption that the strongest sales talent belongs to the largest venues. Smaller clubs, he argues, require staff and entertainers to make the most of fewer opportunities.
“Working a smaller club means fewer chances to capitalize, so we have to have a better batting average,” he says. “A sale is made on every pitch. You sell the customer, or they sell you a reason why they can’t.”
That combination — close attention to customers, accessible management and a team determined to capitalize on each opportunity — illustrates the philosophy behind Bucks Platinum’s success.
You leave your first EXPO with a much better appreciation for the business you’re in, and a real desire to show out and prove yourself.
— Mark McAvoy
EXPO takeaways
McAvoy describes the annual ED EXPO as an opportunity for newcomers to develop a deeper appreciation for the business and for veterans to reconnect with people who understand its demands.
“You leave your first EXPO with a much better appreciation for the business you’re in, and a real desire to show out and prove yourself,” he says.
And on those who return year after year?
“Old friends, bitter rivals, even enemies, for four days in August we’re all in the same place, wearing that same badge,” he continues. “There’s something special about that.”
At this year’s EXPO, McAvoy found significant value in the Owners & Entertainers seminar, featuring Deja Vu Regional Director Tami Alana-Miller, Mons Venus General Manager Bambi Wilde and feature entertainer and former club manager Justice on the panel. Jeb’s remarks on AI during the Reel to Real seminar also made an impact on him, labeling it “a beast of useful information.”
“And any time you get the chance to hear someone like Ken DeGori talk shop, you listen,” he adds.
But the biggest motivator he brought home came from thinking about the operators who left the ED Awards without a trophy. McAvoy knows that watching another club win can sharpen a competitor’s determination. Bucks Platinum has no intention of letting its own recognition dull that same drive.
“As happy and proud as we were to accept that award and stand on that stage in front of the industry, I know there were just as many people who didn’t get up there,” he explains. “That lit a fire under them to go back to their clubs and work harder so they can have that experience next year. So, our job hasn’t gotten any easier. We have to match the energy of the person who went home hungrier to run numbers. If those people are reading this, I assure you we aren’t backing down from that challenge.”
However, small clubs may not have to worry about going up against Bucks Platinum at the 2027 Awards Show, as the club is in the middle of an expansion.
“Great news for the small clubs across the country, you won’t have to compete with us anymore,” McAvoy says. “Not so great news for the bigger venues.”
After three years of recognized success, the team behind the 2026 Overall Small Club of the Year is preparing to test itself on a larger scale.
“A bigger building means a bigger trophy case to fill. We’re ready to move up in weight class and keep collecting hardware.”
For more information, visit bucksplatinumcolumbus.com. Note: This article appears in the November 2026 issue of ED Magazine.
