The Unique Nature of Sport Marketing

1. chapter1 The Special Nature of Sport Marketing

2. Objectives • To understand the market forces that create the need for enlightened marketing strategies in the sport industry • To understand marketing myopia and other obstacles to successful marketing strategy • To recognize the components of the sport product and of the sport industry • To recognize the factors that make sport marketing a unique enterprise

3. Sport Marketing • All activities are designed to meet the wants and needs of sport consumers through an exchange process. • Sport consumers are involved in sport through playing, officiating, watching, listening, reading, and collecting.

4. Two Major Thrusts of Sport Marketing 1. The marketing of sport products to the sport consumer 2. The marketing of sport and nonsport products through sport

5. Challenges in Sport Marketing • Marketing myopia • Lack of market research • Poor sales training and techniques

6. Marketing Myopia • A lack of foresight in marketing ventures • A focus on producing and selling goods and services rather than identifying and satisfying the needs and wants of consumers and their markets • The belief that winning absolves all other sins • Confusion between promotions and marketing • Ignorance of competition inside and outside of sport • A short-sighted focus on quick-return price hikes or investments such as sponsorships rather than long-term investments in research and in relationship marketing

7. The Slowly Growing Sport Marketing Profession • Tex Rickard and Bill Veeck, sport promoters. • By the mid-1990s, data from 291 NCAA Division I and II programs showed that "63% of the administrators in charge of sport marketing were employed full-time in that activity." Further, 20 percent of the positions were designated "sport marketing" (see endnote 38 in book). • More professional sports organizations are employing a professional sales staff that enjoys an ongoing training and planning program. • A number of new organizations have developed to initiate collective strategies to market segments of the sport industry. • Sport marketing–specific publications have been created.

8. Bill Veeck’s 12 Commandments for Successful Sport Marketing 1. Take your work very seriously. Go for broke and give it your all. 2. Never take yourself seriously. 3. Find yourself an alter ego and bond with him or her for the rest of your professional life. 4. Surround yourself with similarly dedicated soul mates, free spirits of whom you can ask why and why not and who can ask the same of you. 5. In your hiring, be color blind, gender blind, age blind, and experience blind. You never work for Bill Veeck. You work with him. 6. If you’re a president, owner, or operator, attend every home game and never leave until the last out. (continued)

9. Bill Veeck’s 12 Commandments for Successful Sport Marketing (continued) 7. Answer all of your mail; you might learn something. 8. Listen and be available to your fans. 9. Enjoy and respect the members of the media, the stimulation, and the challenge. The “them against us” mentality should exist only between the two teams on the field. 10. Create an aura in your city. Make people understand that unless they come to the ballpark or stadium, they will miss something. 11. If you don’t think a promotion is fun, don’t do it. Never insult your fans. 12. Don’t miss the essence of what is happening at the moment. Let it happen. Cherish the moment and commit it to your memory.

10. Uniqueness of Sport Marketing • Product • Market • Finance • Promotion

11. The Sport Product • Any bundle or combination of qualities, processes, and capabilities (goods, services, or ideas) that a buyer expects will deliver “want” and “need” satisfaction • Core benefits • Health (participation) • Entertainment • Sociability • Achievement (continued)

12. The Sport Product (continued) • Playful competition, typically in some game form • A separation from "normal" space and time • Regulation by special rules • Physical prowess and physical training • Special facilities and special equipment

13. Uniqueness of the Sport Product • An intangible, ephemeral, experiential, and subjective nature • Simultaneous production and consumption • Dependence on social facilitation • Inconsistency and unpredictability • Core product beyond marketers’ control

14. Uniqueness of the Sport Market • Sport organizations simultaneously compete and cooperate. • Product salience and strong personal identification lead many sport consumers to consider themselves experts. • Demand tends to fluctuate widely. • Sport has an almost universal appeal and pervades all elements of life: • Eating and drinking • Sex • Politics • Religion

15. Uniqueness of Sport Finance • It is difficult to price the individual sport product unit by traditional job costing. • The price of the sport product itself is invariably quite small in comparison to the total cost paid by the consumer. • Indirect revenues are frequently greater than direct operating revenues.

16. Uniqueness of Sport Promotion • The widespread media exposure is a double-edged sword. • Media and sponsors emphasize celebrities.

17. Primary Marketing Function Model for the Sport Industry • To provide "packaged" events for spectators at the venue or via the mass media • To provide facilities, equipment, and programming to players, who then produce the game form • To provide "packaged" games or events for spectators as well as facilities, equipment, and programming for players • To provide general administrative support, control, and publicity to other sport organizations and people

18. Consolidation in the Sport Industry • The team–media connection • Sporting goods • Skiing • Talent or events agencies