Sports Marketing

By Jen Mylett

What is it?

Sports marketing is all about creating a popular, expressive fan base so that supporters, sponsors, media and the government pay to promote organizations in a competitive sport-related environment. This specific marketing tactic generates revenue by developing and exploiting the principal assets of a sports property: brand, stadium, facilities, championships and athletes through the image rights, advertisements, matches, merchandising licenses, products, etc.

Other topics in the sports marketing field consist of companies that promote products and services through sports radio broadcasting and advertisements, athlete endorsements, newspapers, social media and licensing.

Who is involved?

-fans/customers

-teams, clubs, leagues, and competitions

-sponsors

-retailers, merchandisers, & sportswear manufacturers

-broadcasters & media

-representative associations

-gambling services

-economic initiatives

Education level?

The ideal degree-holding sports marketer will need a good understanding in today’s business economy and with issues in the market as well as some personal sales ability. They would need to have ethical and legal knowledge applying to sports marketing and also be able to manage marketing and human resources. About 71% of marketing specialists have a bachelor’s degree, while 25% have a master’s degree.

Individuals that are interested in sports marketing would have the ability to work in a wide variety of fields. Some include, but are not limited to: college sports, major, minor or amateur leagues, franchise management, corporate fitness/ wellness jobs, event management, public relations, media relations, sports law, licensing or even fundraising.

Cons:

Over time, there have been countless mishaps in sports history. There was the forced cancellation of the World Series and most of the 1994 season because of MLB players, then the NHL shut-down in 2005 that started because of players’ disagreement to owner’s demands in its new labor contract, and also the NBA lockout of 2011 that reduced the season from 82 to just 66 games.

The power that athletes in college and professional sports do have negative sides. Everything is extremely unpredictable in the sport’s world. Coaches willingly trade teams and players for more money. Teams can just move to another city overnight if they want to. Loyalty is hard to maintain in these fluctuating situations even if the fans don’t blame the teams for trying to get all the money they can. Teams lose fans as they trade players and team names in search of making more money just as brands would lose customers when they change advertisement campaigns every year.

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