Transcript The Sport Product

chapter
1
The Special Nature
of Sport Marketing
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
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.
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
Challenges in Sport Marketing
• Marketing myopia
• Lack of market research
• Poor sales training and techniques
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
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.
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)
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.
Uniqueness of Sport Marketing
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Product
Market
Finance
Promotion
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)
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
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
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
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.
Uniqueness of Sport Promotion
• The widespread media exposure is a
double-edged sword.
• Media and sponsors emphasize celebrities.
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
Consolidation in the Sport Industry
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The team–media connection
Sporting goods
Skiing
Talent or events agencies