Sports Marketing and Public Relations — Sports Management Marketing — Sports Event Marketing

CRONS prepped for the spotlight…and got a part of it…

It almost happened Thursday…almost.  Robert Morris Uni9versity almost threw Villanova a knockout punch in the first round of the NCAA Regionals in Providence, but in the end too many close calls gone the other way and one shot too few sent the Colonials back to suburban Pittsburgh.  However, as pointed out in Thursday’s New York Times, the apparel brand coach Mike Rice’s team brought... [Read more ...]

Soccer In The States Reaches It’s Tipping Point…

As mentioned in a post earlier this week, March  could be a great jump starting point for several properties.  One was IRL, the other really is soccer in North America.  Although MLS certainly has made its solid and steady strides in the past few years, the opening of a new stadium in the New York area, the launch of a new franchise in Philadelphia, the continued growth of success stories in the... [Read more ...]

Beware Sponges Filled With Cash…And Other Lessons…

Last year the brand of choice to fill displaced inventory on television and in stadia around the country was Spongetech. Their giant signs were splashed acroos all of MLB, their patches showed up on the NFL’s “Hard Knocks” show on Bengals jerseys, they appeared along the dasher boards at Madison Square Garden. Spongetech, and their pre-soaped sponges, appeared to be the cure-all for every team... [Read more ...]

IRL Gets A Chance To Get Back In The Branding Race…

February  was certainly one of the most intriguing months on the sports calendar in recent years. It began with a record Super Bowl, took us through a controversial Daytona 500, saw a very intriguing two weeks of Olympics, and a record setting NBA All-Star game.  So now as we hit the ides of March, we look to what the rest of the calendar can shape up to show us, outside of the usual hoopla of March... [Read more ...]

L.A. Doesn’t Dodge The Chance To Build It’s Global Brand

The Los Angeles Dodgers, despite the messy divorce and internal politics going on with the McCourt breakup, remain one of the world’s premier sports brands.  The front office, led by Dennis Mannion on the business side, continues to cultivate new avenues to grow the brand of the team, not just its players, into a community that is tremendously diverse and is extremely fickle in it’s dpending... [Read more ...]

“Lombardi Mania” Coming To A Theater, A Screen or a TV Near You Soon…Not Soon Enough

For a while I have been involved with the upcoming dramatic play Lombardi, which producers Tony Ponturo and Fran Kirmser will bring to Broadway in November.  The play is based on the best-selling book “When Pride Still Mattered” by Pultizer Prize-winning author David Maraniss, and is going to be a very intriguing mix of dramatic theater and the story of an amazing and engaging personality. ... [Read more ...]

Majoring In The Minors: Goldklang Group Takes A New Route With Leaders And Fans…

We have often talked about how minor league organizations often outpace the major league teams in terms of year round innovation and brand building.  The minors, especially baseball, never have the big star to rely on for long and more than their major brtheren, have to rely on the core fan and the overall game experience to keep the bottom line steady, maintain marketshare and keep fans coming back... [Read more ...]

Sports As The Unifier…Again.

Maybe in another life, 40 years ago, a political pundit like James Carville and a Super Bowl winning coach like Brian Billick would not have a lot in common.  However these days, through the world of satellite radio, digital TV and social media, they now only can share ideas but can share the same stage. Carville, who engineered many a political campaign both in the U.S. and abroad, including President... [Read more ...]

Hockey Gets Another Shot…

Thirty years ago we had the Miracle on Ice, and the sports world waited as Jim Craig, the triumphant U.S. goaltender, prepped for his NHL debut with the Atlanta Flames a week later. Coke made Craig the branding darling of the Olympics, and thousands of kids rushed out to buy hockey sticks across the country to try and relive the win of the Russians.  However at that time the NHL was suffering from... [Read more ...]

How To Keep The Olympic Athlete Fire Burning? Partner Winter and Summer Together…

Over the next few days and weeks the debate as to who the biggest marketing “winners” from the Olympics will be played out…Shaun White, Apollo Ohno, Lindsay Vonn, Julia Mancuso, even Shani Davis…will all appear on the watch list, make the TV rounds etc etc. with all the requestite experts chiming in.  Then spring comes and we are on to baseball, soccer, NASCAR…the faces... [Read more ...]

The House of Mouse Raises It’s Sports Brand…

Slowly, steadily, the good folks at Disney and ESPN have turned one of the brand’s more quizzical efforts into a mecca, not for characters, but for the character built through sport. This is a preview of The House of Mouse Raises It’s Sports Brand…. Read the full post (803 words, estimated 3:13 mins reading time)

The Professionalism of The Business of Colleges…Latest Example

In the movie “The American President,” Andrew Sheppard (played by Michael Douglas) is approached by a chubby young man with a tartan vest and a bow tie at a state dinner trying to pester the President for a minute to lobby for college football.  Sheppard brushes him off since he has to go on to meet the Prime Minister of France in another part of the room, and the movie continues on.  The snippet... [Read more ...]

Woods Takes The Next Step, But The Biggest Brand Question For Golf Remains Unanswered…

Friday Tiger Woods spoke…he controlled the message, he got his points out, he was serious and he addressed all the groups he needed to address in a statement. Another stage in the comeback is complete for him.  He did not have the long, drawn out presser with reporters, especially those who cover him in his sport, in the room and he avoided distractions and forced the media to cover just what... [Read more ...]

Looking Back At The Luge Tragedy…

The subject of crisis management and brand damage, both long and short, arose again last Friday as the world looked to Vancouver and the start of the 2010 Winter Olympics.  By now everyone knows of the tragedy, the issues of blame, the decision for networks to show or not show the footage and for how long, and all the issues of nationalism that came about. Still it bears looking back after a few days... [Read more ...]

The Mascot Fills A Bigger Branding Role…

So it’s the middle of winter and you have no idea who your players are…or you are having a terrible season and the trade deadline looms and you need to keep your brand fresh and identifiable.  What to do?  The mascot. Now more than ever, with brands looking for more ROI, fans looking for personal engagement and athletes time limited, the value of having a fun, interesting and marketable... [Read more ...]

A Cause Worthwhile…Athletes, Pols Step Up To Battle Childhood Obesity

Big time sports and entertainment events draw big time advertising dollars. We all are more than familiar with the amount of sponsorship spent on Super Bowl, Olympic and NBA All-Star ads these past few weeks, and the payoff in exposure brands got with the largest TV audience of all-time for the Colts and the Saints last  Sunday. One of the biggest categories that support those events is snack foods. ... [Read more ...]

Racing Back To The Top…

As one looks for continued signs of resurgence in sports marketing…record viewership for the Super Bowl and the Winter Olympic Opening ceremonies, more global sponsors building activation platforms, increased and more diverse ad spending dollars being but forth from ‘09…perhaps one should look to racing as a bell weather.  Yes it is true that “The Great American Race,”... [Read more ...]

Who Will Win The Battle of The Busiest Weekend On The Sports Calendar?

It is a good thing the NFL moved the Pro Bowl to the week prior to the Super Bowl this year.  The game got much-needed attention and a record crowd, and won’t have to deal with being an after-thought on perhaps the busiest big event weekend on the sports calendar.  Yes a week after the Super Bowl became the most watched television event of all-time, three major events…the opening of the... [Read more ...]

For All The Segmenting and Shrinking, Broadcast TV is Still King For Big Events…

Maybe it was the bad weather that blanketed much of the Middle Eastern states, or the rain that hit the Western United States.  Maybe it was the allure of a quarterback who has been able to flourish as a marketing maven for brands like Oreo and Direct TV despite being in a small market.  Maybe it was because America wanted to see a team from a devastated region rise higher than the flood waters did... [Read more ...]

Can Vancouver The Brand Be The Biggest Olympic Winner?

There has been much talk about Lindsey Vonn’s suggestive Sports Illustrated cover, Stephen Colbert’s great sponsor play, “The Flying Tomato” worrying about snow, Heather Mitts being a klutz and the Jamaican Bobsledders missing the cut, but can Vancouver the city and the region be the biggest winner in this year’s Winter Olympics? The coming events have not had the hype... [Read more ...]

Be It Snow or “Sol,” Niche Sports Continue To Struggle To Build Brand

Even as we move to some of the most lucrative, buzz-filled and highly anticpated events of the year in the next few weeks…Super Bowl, Daytona 500, Vancouver Olympics, NBA All-Star Game…the struggles for second tier and niche sports continue.  This past week, the Los Angeles Sol, arguably WPS’ most successful franchise in year one, folded despite leading the league in attendance. ... [Read more ...]

Why Embracing The Blogosphere Works…

On Sunday, I was part of a group that helped pull together an event to expose the new analytic products Bloomberg Sports and MLB.com are developing and will soon introduce to the consumer market for fantasy baseball, as well as  a more fun, indepth way at looking at the sport of baseball .  While the products, one for the fan and one for professional teams, are compelling on their own, what was even... [Read more ...]

NASCAR Goes To The Big Screen(s)…

As we near Daytona and the start of NASCAR 2010, it is good to see the brand is again looking for more ways to engage the brand, the consumer and grow relevance among the casual fan.  The latest offering is a program launching in  thiusands of movie screens across North America, the first of a series of “short” videos that will promote ties to brands, drive personalities of the drivers... [Read more ...]

The Nets Keep Making Chicken Salad…

You only worry about the things you can control. That should be the slogan for the Nets this year.  Their sales and marketing staff cannot worry about the injuries, the fired coach, the record losing streak, they just have to find a way to keep a brand relevant in a year of transition and uncertainty.   New owner, a Russian billionaire, new city and arena, first maybe Newark and then maybe, finally... [Read more ...]

Racing Looks To Find New Fans…Pinewood Derby Anyone?

We are coming up fast on Daytona for NASCAR’s start,  the IRL is looking to rebrand and re-emerge after unification with IZOD as a title sponsor, even Forumula One is looking to find its place again. So as the economic times start to recede and sponsor dollars are becoming a tad looser again, what can racing do to find audiences to grow and keep adding fans for life.  One idea is for one of... [Read more ...]

Why Baseball Fan Fests Work…

As we head toward pitchers and catchers reporting in less than a month, we are seeing the seeds of baseball pop up in the most remote locations, where spring seems lightyears away.  In Chicago, Detroit, Milwaukee…talk of baseball, and ticket selling and autographs are all on the minds of the die hard and the casual fan these next few weeks. Why?  Yes its because baseball remains the casual... [Read more ...]

Sports Marketing and Public Relations — Sports Management Marketing — Sports Event Marketing
571dffss