The Importance of Marketing in Sports

Outline

*Introduction

*Definition of Terms

*Coverage and Limitations

*Significance

*Thesis

*Body

*Subdivisions of Sports

*College Sports

*Professional Sports

*Women Sports

*Types of Sports

*Baseball

*Basketball

*Hockey

*Football

*Tennis

*Volleyball

*Linkage of Marketing and Sports

*Conclusion

Introduction

According many business articles, sports marketing is a great big new business. In an intriguing manner, this paper discusses and validates the significance of sports marketing as a part in the sports business industry. It defines the terms surrounding sports marketing and gives situational examples in certain arenas of sports. Sports marketing and terms relevant to it are defined in this paper. The paper tackles college, professional and even women sports. It also delves into several types of sports and their application of sports marketing such as basketball, baseball, hockey, football, tennis and volleyball.

Indeed, sports as being considered a very broad topic as well as marketing in merging the two gives both industries a new light. In this, many minds have opened up to various possibilities in sports funds and more meaningfully in business. Moreover, numerous businesses have been helped by sports marketing in offering more services, diversifying and even putting up new businesses.

As per the interview of Juan Manuel de Toro, professor at the IESE business school who analyzed the various kinds of sports marketing companies, putting special emphasis on the need for segmentation in the design and development of strategies for creating and maintaining brands in the sports sector, Toro said “sport marketing is orientated toward consumers. It’s about thinking, deciding and acting in terms of the final consumer and as a result, you have to know who your consumers are, and what they want and need. As much as possible, you have to tailor your offer to their needs, so you can get to know them and provide them with a worthwhile benefit. The orientation is toward the market, not to the product” (Beech & Chadwick, 2006).

Definitely, sports marketing seem to have more business direction and plenty to offer. It also appears to be an unconnected area to marketing and takes sports its core essence. In this, it is imperative to define sports marketing in the concept of this paper and limitations to narrow down the topic for better understanding and recommendations of courses of actions.

Definition of Terms

College sports, professional sports and women sports are three subdivisions of sports widely separated by the type of athlete. Professional sports is opposed to amateur sports, are sports in which athletes receive payment for their performance and professional athleticism has come to the fore through a combination of developments with mass media and increased leisure have brought larger audiences, so that sports organizations or teams can command large incomes (Miah, 1998). In professional sports, the athletes are normally from college sports. They transition to professional sports to make it a career primarily increasing their skills, physique condition and even experience. A professional sport is every athlete’s dream and the most popular type of sports.

College sports also known as college athletics is popular in all colleges and universities around the world where in college or university students are main athletes. College athletics in the United States refers primarily to sports and athletic competition organized and funded by institutions of tertiary education (universities, or colleges in American English) and in the United States, college athletics is a two-tiered system (Rosandich, 2002).

As for women sports, this refers to the participation of woman in either amateur and/ or professional sports. In the recent times, women’s participation in all types of sports has been increasing and gender equality has been prevalent in almost all cultures.

Sports’ marketing has several subdivisions namely sport and sport associations’ advertisements/ marketing of sports, usage of sporting events including teams and athlete/s in advertising products/ services called marketing through sports and publicity of sports event for the community to take part commonly known as grass sports marketing. For the promotions of sports associations, these must be exclusively about sports while sports teams/ athletes’ advertising may deviate from sports. The latter usually employs the strategy marketing of sports. Marketing through sports refer to the sports personalities marketing of general sports, events and/ or products. Grassroots sports marketing may be disseminated through all forms of media such as print, radio or television among others.

Also, there is the term street marketing of sport which refers to sport marketing through billboards on the street and also through urban elements such as street lighters and sidewalks among others in order to help promote and gain publicity during major worldwide sporting events such as the Football World Cup, the Olympic Games, the Super Bowl or the Winter Olympic Game (Beech & Chadwick, 2006). These are indeed great forms of popularizing sports and various organizations earn from this even those non-sports related companies and groups.

In business, sport marketing is a subdivision of marketing which focuses both on the promotion of sports events and teams as well as the promotion of other products and services through sporting events and sports teams (Beech & Chadwick, 2006). The service in sports marketing can promote a product or brand.

Coverage and Limitations

The paper covers the significance of marketing in sports. In this, it will touch on the subjects of professional, college and women sports in several fields of athletics namely baseball, basketball, hockey, football, tennis and volleyball. These six popular sports are widely marketed worldwide. It is limited to answering its thesis and justifying its significance.

Significance

Absolutely, this paper on “The Importance of Marketing in Sports” is significant for it clarifies the importance of merging a business concept marketing and truly different league in sports. Below are other meanings of this paper which are equally relevant to the main substance as stated.

Differentiation of marketing in sports among other related terms. There are several terms revolving it as discussed in the definition of terms

Weighing its value in both sports and marketing/ business, with highlights of importance on different fields

Reviewing the linkage of sports and marketing and its relationship to the balance and success of its merging

Recommending additional actions to fortify marketing in sports with new ideas on how to improve it, inclusive of strategies

Thesis

As thesis, the importance of marketing in sports is encompassing and endlessly developing across sports and cultures alike.

Body

Marketing through sport is a concept that that has been used since the 1980s but that also has increased in importance in the last two decades due to the growth and expansion that the different types of sports have enjoyed since then (Beech & Chadwick, 2006). In the college, professional and women’s sports, sports’ marketing has been widely prevalent even nowadays. It is an element which cannot be disregarded as a strategy to popularize a brand, product line and participation in the sport whether as audience or athlete. Sport marketing is also designed to meet the needs and wants of the consumer through exchange processes and These strategies follow the traditional four "P"'s of general marketing Product, Price, Promotion and Place, another four "P"’s are added to sport marketing, relating to the fact sports are considered to be a service with the additional 4 P’s are: Planning, Packaging, Positioning and Perception; called the sport marketing mix (Rosandich, 2002). All these are implemented in college, professional and women sports, in some more prevailing than others which cannot be disregarded.

Subdivisions of Sports

For the subdivisions of sports, its marketing has been prioritized even in educational institutions. Women sports are predominant in college sports and even more in the practice of professional sports.

College Sports

In college sports, the marketers nowadays have been widely rampant in selling tickets for all sorts of sports. Marketing in sports is considered to be a fast growing manner of business communication as sales consultants have been very active in selling athletic events. Most of the time, a phone call will be done to promote the game, do the sales and even get referrals for others interested to watch the college sports. This style of sports marketing is rather aggressive and reforming the college sports industry although, billboards and brochures are still being displayed to promote college sports.

Some colleges and university do the marketing and selling in-house and others outsource to remove the burdens from the schools. Nevertheless, the point is colleges make a good business out of marketing sports even in these trying times. They get connected with understanding businesspeople willing to watch and promote their sports event. There are a number of fans of college sports enthusiasts willing to attend every college sports as long as they get to know of it.

Professional Sports

One element that sport marketing takes advantage of is that athletes tend to be brand loyal and fans tend to be loyal to their favorite athletes and teams (Miah,1998). In marketing professional sports, sponsorship is commonly utilized. A trademark of a product or company is marketed through being a professional sports sponsor.

Usually, there is designing of uniforms and other sports related items to wear for teams for example jerseys and rubber shoes. Sometime even head gears and arm bands bear the brand of the sports sponsor.

More widespread than sponsorship is the television advertising of sports event. Professional sports are known to have the richest resources and connections to market sports. Herein, popular brands like Adidas and Gillette Match have hired celebrity endorsers

Recently Adidas Group has launched its “all Adidas” global brand campaign using a Collection of adidas Game Faces with celebrities showing their game face which include: Dwight Howard, Derrick Rose, Katy Perry, Jeremy Scott, Leo Messi, Louis Smith, Cyclops, The Like, B.o.B., A-Track, Busy P and Eason Cha, Blanka Vlasic, David Villa, Jessica Ennis, Andy Murray, Ana Ivanovic and DJ Mehdi. Other adidas Group athletes include: David Beckham, Josh Smith, Chauncey Billups, Tim Duncan, Tracy McGrady, Michael Beasley, Candace Parker, Tony Allen, Kendrick Perkins, Antwan Jamison, Deshawn Stevenson, Nene, Rodney Stuckey, Corey Maggette, Anthony Randolf, Jordan Farmar, Adam Morrison, Mario Chalmers and Luc Mbah A Moute (Athletic, 2012).

For Gillette, celebrity athletes Thierry Henry for football soccer, Roger Federer for tennis and the infamous Tiger Woods for golf. Marketing of professional sports is filled with globally known celebrities, the strategy is to make the audience related to these successful people and their being fan or the celebrity would encourage product or service usage or subscription. Each celebrity endorser is unique hence the companies especially multinationals get sets of celebrities’ per target audience and/ or consumer. This is rather common and companies are known to have the biggest budget in their advertising.

Women Sports

Similarly, women’s sports are marketed like professional and college sports. In addition, women sports are being experimented on since it is in early developments. There are blogged and advertised in television. It is also well advertised to men for they are challenged in patronizing women’s sports especially in terms of basketball and other stereotyped as masculine sports.

Types of Sports

In the six types of sports expended in this paper namely baseball, basketball, hockey, football and volleyball, all these are widely accepted to be marketed since these are worldwide recognized sports in the Olympics and all nations have been knowledgeable and large portion of populations are fans. All these sports are played professionally, collegiate and even by women.

Baseball

Baseball is known to be a one of the sports most awaited by fans all over the world. It also has plenty of organizations and players globally and hence, sports marketing have a prominent role in making baseball even more popular and stronger sports. In the case of the Major League Baseball All-Stars, it has been touring the world. Since 1992 and continuing intermittently, several Major League Baseball teams have played exhibition games against Japanese teams (Tygiel, 2000). Baseball teams of nations compete with each other and the sports marketing involved is not only on the national level but most importantly done in the international arena.

Fox, Sportsnet, ESPN, MLB and other channels broadcast baseball playoffs. In here various baseball athletes endorse brands sports and even non-sports related. As a matter of fact, when MLB network is launched in 2009, in that year along twenty-six live games were shown. Even radio programs desire to gain exclusivity to baseball games and well-liked marketing it. It is notable that baseball subscriptions are available in the internet.

Basketball

Of all the sports, basketball is the most predominantly marketed. Since the 1920s, basketball has been played in the global arena. Today, it is more widely accepted and loved. There is even women’s basketball, not as equally common as men’s basketball but still is popular around the world. The brands on their uniforms and sneakers have been gaining extreme business success. That is why even already big brands are willing to sponsor such as Adidas, Nike and Reebok among others. Countries around the world have been competing in the Olympics and exhibition games. Media exposure is almost continuous throughout the day and even third world countries are attuned to watching, learning and participating in this game

Hockey

Sports marketing for hockey is also widespread but lesser thank basketball and baseball. It is gaining attractiveness in children as they are forming minor leagues worldwide. Hockey games are televised.

There are various forms of hockey such as ice hockey, sledge hockey, roller hockey, inline hockey and others. The most commonly played is the ice hockey and it is marketed in television. Several hockey players are also advertisers for several sports and non-sports related products.

For international play, there are sixty-six countries which are members in the International Hockey Federation also known as the IIHF. Men and women’s hockey are available and played in the Winter Olympics drawing many athletes all over the world. This is also televised.

Football

In 1888, The Football League was founded in England, becoming the first of many professional football competitions and in the twentieth century, the various codes of football have become amongst the most popular team sports in the world (Bale, 2002). As the years pass, there has been a globalization of football. There have been associations, descendants and even countries’ variations such as Irish and Australian. Many football stars have been treated as celebrities such as Emmitt Smith, David Beckham and even team. Its marketing has been proactive since players and the brands they advertise are close to sure successes. These professional football players even individually travel the world to teach and market the sports. For instance, Beckham is known to teach children from Asian countries. Even in these nations football is extensively encouraged.

Tennis

Tennis is enjoyed by millions of recreational players and is also a hugely popular worldwide spectator sport, especially the four Grand Slam tournaments (also referred to as the "Majors"): the Australian Open played on hard courts, the French Open played on red clay courts, Wimbledon played on grass courts, and the US Open played also on hard courts.

Volleyball

The history of volleyball in the Olympics goes back to 1924 wherein the Summer Olympics in conducted in Paris. This is the birth of volleyball as part of American sports and has been unstoppable since then. The participation is simply outstanding. Volleyball is commonly conducted in the Olympics and popular in almost any nation more of stereotyped as women’s sports. Nevertheless, men are also into it.

Amazingly, it is marketed even in schools and communities. Volleyball players are observed to be wearing brands of their sponsors and events are advertised on television every now and then. The growth of volleyball may be attributed to sports marketing.

Linkage of Marketing and Sports

It is remarkable how marketing and sports as two different industries work exceptionally great together in the aspect of sport marketing. In the conduct of mixing business and sports, the effects are almost more on the positive side. The athletes become loyal to their brands same to their fans and audiences in general. More significantly, the audiences become more attached to the sports. A proof of this is the manner in which sports progresses as they are advertised in all forms. Without marketing of sports, the funding of sports and financial successes of organizations, teams and athletes would be halted. All the events are involving sports marketing.

Conclusion

Sports’ marketing is important simply because sports themselves are such a huge part of American culture that any marketing centered around them is bound to be a very major player in the industry (Answers, 2012). Sports’ marketing is able to fuel the funds of sports teams and make it into not only recreation or good career but lucrative business of all forms. Definitely, the bond between marketing and sports is expected to flourish as brands and organizers continue to grow and sports enthusiasts turn on their televisions, pick up their phones, read newspapers or billboards among others.

It is not about mere watching television or buying a product, it is about making sports such as baseball, basketball, hockey, football, tennis and volleyball of women, college athletics and professional sports endure for a long time. It is about helping athletes and businesses which help the young and everyone to focus on sports not the vices and other non-healthy activities.

Hence, the thesis of this paper is validated. Indeed, the importance of marketing in sports is encompassing and endlessly developing across sports and cultures all the same.