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History of Sports & Entertainment Marketing. Questions. What are the connections between sports & entertainment? What do you know about the history of sports & entertainment marketing? Can you name the people who were instrumental in the fields?
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Questions • What are the connections between sports & entertainment? • What do you know about the history of sports & entertainment marketing? • Can you name the people who were instrumental in the fields? • What do disco & beer have to do with the history of sports & entertainment marketing?
Brief History of Leisure • Sports & entertainment marketers have always sold participation in sports and entertainment events to consumers. • Consumersare the people who use the product. • The growth of the industries has relied on consumers with free time, discretionary income, and a desire for recreation.
Pastime…. • In America, organized sports and entertainment used to be a pastime just for wealthy consumers. • In the mid- to late 1800s, only the wealthy had the time and $ needed to go to the theater, ballet, horse races, or tennis. • The working classes had little time away from daily labor.
Entertainment for Everyone • Thanks to public transportation, working class families could go across town to see an opera or game. • Thomas Edison invented the KINETOSCOPEin the late 1890s.
William “Bill” Veeck(1914-1986)(Veeck as in “wreck”) • Key figure in the development of sports marketing. • In the 1940s, he owned baseball teams… • Can you name them? • Also drafted the first African-American player to the American League… • What was his name?
Answers • The teams were the Cleveland Indians and the Chicago White Sox. • The American League hired Larry Doby in 1947, weeks after Jackie Robinson joined the Brooklyn Dodgers of theNational League.
Veeck’s Innovations • Bill Veeck was best known for his sports marketing innovations. • Believed the consumer wanted to be involved in more than just the final score. • Master of non-price promotion • Inventor of “bat day” • Themes like “ladies’ day”
Veeck as in “wreck”… • “Everyday was Mardi Gras and every fan was king.” • He recognized the need to market something other than the core product. • Give-a-way days had problems! • May hinder souvenir or concession sales. • Cap day should have a cap that doesn’t resemble the souvenir.
Ill-conceived promo event • Veeck created a 10¢ beer night in Cleveland in 1974. • The Story: • Drunken fans consumed an estimated 60,000 cups of beer -- sold for 10 cents each. • What was the result in that promotion?
The Result • Drunken, unruly fans stormed the field during the game • Ultimately led to the forfeiting of the game!
Disco Demolition Night • Bill Veeck, who owned the White Sox from 1958-61, bought the team again in December 1975 and tried every gimmick in his vast repertoire to lure people to the ballpark. • The players wore shorts on the field. • Showers were installed in the bleachers. • And then, of course, there was Disco Demolition Night. • This promotional event was held on July 12, 1979, at Comiskey Park.
Disco Demolition Night • The Sox would sell 98-cent tickets to any fan bringing a disco record to Comiskey Park and between games of a doubleheader, the records would be burned. • It resulted in the White Sox forfeiting the second game to the Detroit Tigers as about 6,000 fans poured onto the field, drinking beer, ripping up the turf, and improvising fires. • The field was destroyed, thirty-seven fans were arrested, and Bill Veeck quit his job in embarrassment.
His other ideas… • Fireworks • Dazzling scoreboards • Special-event nights • Grandstand Managers’ Day
Midget at the Plate • In 1951, his second year with the Browns, Veeck was looking for something different to celebrate the 50th anniversary of the American League. • He thought this was the perfect time to send a midget to the plate. Through a booking agency, he found Eddie Gaedel, who was three-foot-seven-inches tall and 65 pounds. • He actually signed Gaedel to a contract and paid him $100. It would be a one-time deal and then Gaedel's baseball career was over.
Early Days of TV and Marketing • Nine TV Stations and fewer than 7,000 working TV sets after WWII. • In October 1945—25,000 people came to Gimbel’s Dept. Store in Philadelphia to watch the first demonstration of TV. • In the same year, the American Association of Advertising Agencies (AAAA) encouraged TV advertising. • TV changed marketing in a BIG way.
Light up! • Cigarette manufacturers were one of the first industries to advertise widely on television. • They had deep pockets and could afford to gamble on a new advertising medium, footing the bill for a host of early classic television programs. • Ironically, in just a few short decades, they were cast away from the medium they helped create.
Did You Know? • Tobacco companies are spending more than $12.5 billion a year on advertising and promotion but U.S. sales actually fell nearly 5.5 percent from 2000 to 2005. • Every day, 2000 kids light up for the first time. Who is this?
Vendors • Vendors are the sellers of products. • They compete for a share of the money people spend on recreation.
Sports has… • Produced TV channels, movies, books, video games, theme restaurants, fashion trends, and magazines • This blurs the line between sports and entertainment industries
