CALABASAS, Calif. (July 27, 2011) – That cheering sound you hear is the multitude of NFL fans reclaiming Sundays. But now that there will indeed be a 2011 pro football season, savvy corporations are confronting something of a dilemma: how to manage all of those suites and season tickets at the last minute. “The lockout… Read More
In Two Presentations, Spotlight CEO Tony Knopp Addresses State of Ticket Sales and Management – and Offers Teams A Vision for Making Online Ticket Administration Pay Off WOODLAND HILLS, Calif. (June 27, 2011) – Given the sputtering recovery and a continuing need to make the business case for suite purchases, professional sports teams require the… Read More
A classic marketing model assumes consumers and firms move down a funnel. The funnel starts with Awareness (Brand), moves to Interest (Brand Consideration) and then down to Desire (Brand Preference), and culminates in Action (the buying decision) as shown below. Repeat buying then creates loyalty, which must then be maintained through a variety of marketing tools including, you guessed it, sponsorships.
As teams invest in players that will make them successful, it is imperative that efforts are made to repeat the success, in order to continue to reap the rewards that come with success on the playing field as this article shows.
Even in an economy slowly recovering from hard times, it is still possible to increase prices for an improved product. As mentioned in this New York Post article the resurgent New York Knicks team has allowed Madison Square management to finally raise prices after holding them down for the past six seasons.
When it comes down to it, the NFL dispute is the same as any labor dispute and it is about salaries, employee work hours and benefits. The sums are certainly much higher, and the stakes even more so given the domino effects on the entire US economy if there is no professional NFL football next season. It can be argued that the sides are so far apart in part because they cannot agree on how to count the revenue and not because there is not enough revenue to go around. This article here captures the similarities to other labor disputes currently in the national headlines.
As companies look at ways to cut spending in recessionary times, they justifiably start with cuts to spending that cannot be tied to maintaining or growing the business. Sports marketing sponsorships are notoriously difficult to tie to specific benefits and are therefore often the early casualty of cutbacks. The financial woes of the veritable Heritage golf tournament detailed here captures the issues event organizers face.
Now that there is a push to returning to corporate business development around sports and live enterainment the focus needs to shift from reassuring those in the game and on the sidelines that sports tickets are a good idea to avoiding making the same mistakes that led to the mass migration away from sports in mid 2008.
Allegheny County Council president, Rich Fitzgerald, describes the tickets they receive from the Steelers and local executives appropriately for what they are: “it’s work”. Mr. Fitzgerald missed most of the game that he attended when talking with gas drillers about moving people downtown because there were so many industry executives present to talk to.
The New Haven Tennis Tournament has cut the men’s competition after losing Title Sponsor, Pilot Pen. The lack of funds have resulted in a women’s only tournament that will struggle to bring in the usual draw and financial benefits to the area. Smaller tournaments and competitions can’t ignore the growing need for tangible proof of sponsorship dollars.