Brief History and Trends in Sports Marketing
Sports marketing is a relatively new field and dimension within the broad concept of marketing. It is constantly evolving and changing today as society battles the free market to decide the legal and ethical boundaries of business today. It is import ant to note that this discipline within marketing is not clearly defined. Sports today utilize corporate sponsorships and television money in order to compete and pay for top quality athletes. Those companies use teams, leagues, colleges, and individual s to differentiate their products in a very competitive business environment. What constitutes sports marketing to one person could be considered "selling out" to some critics. The business world keeps pushing to find a competitive advantage an d the sports world has generally welcomed the money offered. Every level of sports from peewee leagues to the pros has been affected by the sports marketing trend. It will be difficult to point out where it all began or where we are today in the develop mental cycle, but that is still easier than figuring out what will happen to this emerging discipline.
Things to be careful in this field
Now the dangers of sports marketing are becoming more apparent as the business world dives into this domain sometimes without much research. The Fuzzy Zoellers, Latrell Spreewells, O.J. Simpsons, Art Modells, and Nike university contracts all point out important lessons to those in sports marketing. If you are associated with racist remarks, violence toward superiors, domestic violence, turning your back on a community, or unfair labor practices you stand to lose a lot more than you might gai n by sports marketing. It is important to research and understand individual sponsors, as well as have an out or behavior clause in contracts. No publicity is not only cheaper, but better than bad publicity.
No marketing plan is fool proof and celebrities are famous for reasons generally other than their perfection in hawking product. Some people even resent sports taking corporate money, even thought the athletes rarely mind. Money has given sports grea t things in the past 25 years and sports have paid huge dividends for companies who have invested wisely in sports marketing. For every Winston Cup or Air Jordan, there are at least as many ineffective sports marketing campaigns, and even some disasters such as O.J. Simpson.
The threshold for message clutter, consumer ambivalence, or worse yet contempt, could be fast approaching. Some sports have teams that are more overt in their corporate relationships than others. Watching 10 minutes of Washington Capitals hockey from the MCI center on HTS this January showed at least 24 different sponsors on the players, rink, stadium, etc. Then there are the commercial breaks. A highlight reel of a Georgia Tech basketball game that same night showed 6 obvious sponsors in only 60 se conds. Cameron Indoor Stadium, home of the infamous Blue Devils seems to be sponsor free, but if you look at their scoreboard there are several sponsors there. Of course a Notre Dame basketball game had only 5 corporate logos obvious in an entire half ( and most of them were put there temporarily by ESPN), but they have their own TV deal with NBC for football that may be all the cash they need. UNC has no obvious signage in Kenan Stadium or the Dean Dome, yet Eurosport and Adidas signs are common and ob vious at soccer matches. At UNC football games you can get Beefmaster hotdogs, Subway subs, Wendy’s Frostees, Cokes, Dominos Pizza, even if there are no big signs telling you their availability. Nike only gets to have the focus of every spectator on the ir products, and a few pages in the program (low key by some standards, but still very noticeable).
In the professional realm the NBA’s Indiana Pacers play at Market Square Arena and only about 5 sponsors could be seen even occasionally on the screen. On the other hand a NASCAR race would not be very easy to count the sponsors for two reasons: there are so many and the cars move so fast. Another interesting example is The Masters. They have just three sponsors and CBS can only run advertising from Cadillac, Traveler’s Group Insurance, and IBM. Dean Smith’s campaign to eliminate beer advertising f or Carolina Basketball games seems very possible when comparing the University’s bargaining power to the Masters.
Baseball teams in the Minors have outfields full of advertising. Now the Major leagues are catching up with Gap signs in the gaps of the outfield, in addition to the huge Budweiser signs seen all over the league. Look around Shea Stadium, home of the Mets, and you’ll see all sorts of signs. Disney’s California Angels advertise prominently all the corporations many interests like ABC, ESPN, and of course Mickey. The Dallas Cowboys are possibly the most interesting case; they have shunned the NFL’s c ontracts with Reebok and Coke. The owner Jerry Jones signed with Nike and Pepsi and since he owns the stadium, not the league, he can get around those league-wide contracts. Clutter is a risk when using teams like the Cowboys to market your products, bu t consumer sentiment towards this type of sponsorship could change as people become fed up with commercialization. It is important to be aware of the risk and in touch with the consumer when attempting to market through sports.
Today and the Future
The examples of pro teams with less than overexposed teams are likely to decrease. As for college athletics, that trend should not be the same. While it is financially responsible to take sponsors, it does not seem as positive in amateur athl etics as a rule. Colleges have alumni and interests other than merely winning at all costs. Colleges will not be where sports marketing trends will usually develop; they are more at the will of the public opinion towards sponsors, unlikely to take as ma ny risks as the pro organizations.
Sports Marketing has made its way into the budgets of many companies around the world. The stakes keep rising to get into this game and the returns may be diminishing. The importance of sport and how the consumer perceives its relationship with busin ess is very important. Sports and athletes are incredibly dependent on TV and endorsements today. Those sources of capital will pull back if the consumer becomes disillusioned with sports and ratings drop. The most recent NFL TV contracts were for more money than it would cost to buy every team in the league. Players salaries will hit limits at some point (probably when TV deals decline), and players will seek even more outside sources of income.
Sports marketing cannot grow at the pace it has forever, but it still has room to expand. The sports marketing trend’s success or failure will hinge on sports’ role in society in the coming years. Many issues arise everyday between fair play and big
money. Its important for a company to stay clear of the troubles sports can be a victim to, while it is important for sports to keep their integrity to stay popular with the people. It is important for sports marketers to increasingly police themselv es in order not to ruin an effective marketing tool and sport in general.
By:-Professors Andrews, Didow, and Peacock
Source :-http://www.unc.edu/~andrewsr/ints092/weikel.html
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