Marketing
Principles Applied
to Sport
Management
Chapter 3
What Is Sport Marketing?
• Create “demand” for products and services
– Create, promote, deliver goods and services to
consumers and businesses
• Obtain the best possible understanding of who the
“target market” is and what they want
• Includes the marketing of:
– Products: Equipment, apparel, and footwear
– Services: Kill lessons or club memberships
– Entities: Leagues, teams, or individuals
– Staff: Recruitment and retention (relationships)
History of Sport Marketing
• Mark McCormack
– Founded IMG in 1960s; first sport marketing firm
– Visionary: Back in the 1990s he predicted
significant growth in Asia, South America, Africa
– Now international with broad service categories
• Categories
– Sport Broadcasting
– Sponsorship
– Promotional Strategies
– Research
Evolution of Sport Broadcasting
• Define Sport Broadcasting?
• Roone Arledge: Sport placed in “primetime” with
ABC Monday Night Football; combined
entertainment and sports
• Helped the industry evolve from pure, factual
reporting aimed at sport fans to sport entertainment
• Led to proliferation of sport channels and sport
networks
– ESPN (ESPN2, ESPN Deportes)
– Big Ten Network, SEC Network
Sport Sponsorship
• Sponsorship: The acquisition of rights to affiliate or
directly associate with a product or event for
purpose of deriving benefits related to that affiliation
• Albert G. Spalding
– First to capitalize on the use of the word official
• Mark McCormack
– Built IMG through golfer Arnold Palmer
• Nike and Air Jordan
– Packaging of the Nike brand, product, advertising,
and athlete into one personality
Ambush Marketing
• Ambush Marketing: Capitalizing on the goodwill
associated with an event without becoming an
official sponsor
• Case Study: Nike and the 1996 Atlanta Summer
Olympic Games
Product Extension and Promotion
•
•
Who is Bill Veeck?
Sport marketing pioneer in professional baseball
– Philosophy: Team must provide reasons other
than the game itself for people to attend and
support franchise.
1. Create the greatest joy for the greatest number
of people
2. Ensure a pleasurable attending experience
3. Create conversation
Research in Sport Marketing
• Who is Matt Levine?
– Credited with formalizing customer research in
sport industry; used strategies such as audience
audit, intercepts, focus groups
– Collected demographic and psychographic info
• Pass-by interviews:
– On-site interviews in heavy traffic areas such as
malls
– San Jose Sharks logo and colors changed as a
result of pass-by interviews
The Marketing Mix
• Controllable variables that company puts together to
satisfy a target market
• 4 Ps:
– Product (actual event vs. experience)
– Price (depends on value or perceived value)
– Place (preselling and exceptional locations)
– Promotion (advertising, personal selling,
publicity, sales promotion, and public relations)
Segmentation
• Segmentation: Identifying subgroups of overall
marketplace based on demographic, geographic,
psychographic, and product usage data
• Ethnic marketing
– Growth of Hispanic population, ESPN Deportes
• Generational marketing
– Generation Y and action sports
Fan Identification
• The personal commitment and
emotional involvement customers
have with sport organization
• Enhanced long-term loyalty in
sport fans
• Sponsorship opportunities
resulting from ability to tap into
strong emotional connection
between a fan and his or her sport
team
Relationship Marketing
• Builds mutually satisfying long term relations with
key parties (consumers, suppliers, distributors)
• Begins with customer and encourages integration of
the customer into the company
• Builds relationships through communication,
satisfaction, and service
• Examples:
– Loyal fan gift rewards, special access to players,
and special access to information
Key Skills
• Oral and written
communication
• Data analysis
• Computer capabilities
• Personnel management
• Sales
• Education
• Understanding of the sport
product
Current Issues: Cost of Attendance
• Drastic increase in cost of attending MLB, NBA,
NHL, and NFL games
• Increasing evidence that sport fans are not willing or
able to pay such prices
– Do not see the value of attending a game
• Significant challenge for sport marketers is to
develop relationship marketing strategies
• Key challenge for anyone in team sport marketing is
increasing revenues for sport teams
Current Issues: Cluttered Marketplace
• Numerous and varied entertainment options are
available to a consumer with leisure time.
• Added technological options for the next generation
of sport fans to consume
• Marketplace cluttered for sponsors
– Rise in number of athletes and events, increase in
number of advertising opportunities available
• Future
– Heightened focus on marketing mainstream sports
to youth; increased challenge for sport entity to
demonstrate how sponsor will benefit them
Current Issues: Image Matters
• Development and cultivation of a positive image is
becoming increasingly important in sport marketing.
• Cluttered marketplace: Imperative that
corporations identify sports, events, or athletes
that have unique images
• Corporate and athlete ethical scandals
• Result:
• Corporations are more discerning in ways that
they spend their sponsorship and endorsement
dollars; they may now spend more on nonprofit
organizations and causes and “clean” athletes.
Current Issues: Image Matters (cont.)
• Case Study: David Beckham
– Champion international soccer star
– Fashionable, tolerant, family-oriented
• Case Study: Lance Armstrong
– 7-time Tour de France winner
– Captivated audiences after overcoming cancer
– Blood doping evidenced emerged in 2012
– Many of Armstrong’s sponsors severed ties with
him quickly once the evidence emerged
– Including 7 in one day!
Summary
• Marketing of sport includes unique advantages
compared with traditional products and services.
• Free media publicity can both help and hurt an
organization’s marketing strategy.
• Sport marketers must understand their own product
as well as innovative marketing strategies and
practices.