chapter
19
The Shape of
Things to Come
Objectives
• To provide insight with regard to the
challenges and opportunities facing sport
marketers in the next 5 years
• To share opinions from leaders in the sport
marketing industry about the next 5 years
• To consider projections concerning future
developments in the sport industry and the
ramifications of those developments for
sport marketers
Looking Ahead to 2011:
A Sports Business Odyssey
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•
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New media
Sponsorship and marketing
Leagues and governing bodies
Facility or stadium experiences
The leaders
Looking Back for Inspiration but Looking
Forward for Disruption
• It has been 30 years since systematic, selfadministered fan surveys were first conducted by
the NBA’s Golden State Warriors.
• In 1977 Sports Management Review surfaced as the
first periodical of original content targeted at sport
industry executives.
• In 1979 Sports Illustrated shed popular media light
on the business of sport in a seven-part series.
(continued)
Looking Back for Inspiration but Looking
Forward for Disruption (continued)
• Between 20 and 25 years ago, Major League Baseball’s
Oakland A’s, Chicago White Sox, New York Yankees, and
Houston Astros first embraced integrated, real-time,
technology-facilitated access to pitch-by-pitch
performance information for general managers, scouts,
managers, and play-by-play broadcasters.
• In the early 1980s the Major Indoor Soccer League’s
Baltimore Blast and league counterparts challenged the
arena sports grain and reinvented game presentation.
• In 1995, MLB’s Seattle Mariners and the NHL’s San Jose
Sharks launched the professional sport world’s first
franchise Web sites, foreshadowing a revolution in
franchise–fan communications and sport industry
commerce.
Driving Forces for Past Innovation
These breakthroughs are characterized by three driving
forces that will help build revenue streams and marketing
effectiveness in the decade ahead:
1. The application of new technologies to increase
entertainment values, tighten ties with fans, and
improve decision-making effectiveness
2. A hunger among more customer-conscious, higherprofile, and competitively paid marketing executives
(who are increasingly schooled outside the sport
industry) for faster, more comprehensive, and usefully
segmented fan information
3. Profit economics and innovation-motivated courage to
make testing of unprecedented practices an integral
part of every league and franchise marketing plan
Future Innovations
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Sponsored players
Microsegmentation
Speckled computing
Smartpaper
Segment relationship management
Fearless Predictions in Sport Sponsorship
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Media content consumption patterns
Technology defining the fan experience
A launching point for China
Segmenting profitability
The Future of the Team Sport
Business
• Tickets: Pricing, selling, and delivery of
tickets will change over the next five years
• Sponsorships
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Rate card reconstruction
Inventory management
Category yield
Presentations
• Media
Sport Industry Jobs
in the Near Future
• Continued need for sales experience
• Technology-based marketing and
communications
• Traditional face-to-face and online
interaction with customers
• Agencies providing services for teams and
leagues
• Sport management education at high school
level
Technology and Leadership
• Sometimes the emperor really doesn’t have
any clothes.
• Track trends and develop opinions about
what ideas work.
• Don’t take the pitch too literally.
• Think about what you wish you were being
pitched.
• Give it a try.
Predictions Made in 2000
• Growth of international exhibitions will continue.
• Women’s professional team sports will continue to
develop.
• There will be a true national championship play-off
format for NCAA football.
• College athletes will receive compensation.
• There will be more mergers among sport marketing
agencies and corporations involved in producing
sport apparel and other merchandise.
(continued)
Predictions Made in 2000
(continued)
• Multiple ownership of sport teams in
various leagues will continue—as will
corporate ownership of those teams.
• Facilities will continue to become complete
entertainment palaces.
• Sports and activities with an increasing
element of risk, challenge, and inherent
danger will continue to be developed.
• Enter the age of choice or on-demand
television.
Crystal Ball Redux: By the Year 2012
• The portability of sport viewership will provide true
connectivity and on-demand information.
• Sport facilities in Europe and Asia will take on a
decidedly American look.
• Small-market baseball owners will pressure MLB to
find a solution to the lack of competitiveness that
plagues the league.
• Corporate sponsors’ names, logos, or both will
appear on the uniform of at least one professional
league in the United States.
• Collegiate athletics programs will figure out that
they are also in the sport entertainment business
and need to sell tickets.
(continued)
Crystal Ball Redux: By the Year 2012 (continued)
• Women’s professional sport leagues will show little
“real” growth.
• Cell phones and PDAs will become the ticket and credit
cards accepted at all major worldwide sport venues
while continuing to be a valued source of interactive
marketing and participation opportunities.
• At least one more major U.S. sport league will follow the
lead of the NFL and hold its championship game at a
neutral site. In addition, more All-Star Games will be
located in major entertainment and tourism destinations
both in the United States and abroad.
• The availability of national media outlets (i.e., regional
sport television channels) and the lure of quick cash
infusions will begin having a noticeable effect on toptier high school athletics programs, which will schedule
athletics contests on a national scale and “rent”
athletes for 1- or 2-year terms to become attractions.