College football

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

March 12, 2010 by Joe Favorito · 2 Comments 

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.  However Lombardi the play will not be alone.  HBO is working on a documentary on the career of the legendary coach and leader, and this week, a movie project was revived, now with ESPN involved, that will debut in 2012 starring Robert De Niro as Lombardi.  All three projects will have a different take…the film will concentrate more on the players and the glory fo the game, the documentary will recount the facts of his life through the eyes of those who knew him and the play will really tell a larger story about the ups and downs of a mercurial figure who overcame some early setbacks to be a success.

Sports As The Unifier…Again.

March 6, 2010 by Joe Favorito · 2 Comments 

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 Clinton’s White House run of course,  and Billick, who now is doing his work behind a microphone after an uber successful NFL and college coaching career, shared some quality time and thoughts this week in Orlando, Florida as guest speakers at the Global Options Executive Forum, a two day summit for the leaders of the risk management field. And although some may have scratched their heads in seeing how these two and others could relate their experiences to those from industries ranging from the transportation to the insurances industries, there was common thread…the love of what athletics can do as a unifier for people in good times and bad.  Carville talked glowingly of what the Super Bowl Champion New Orleans Saints meant for the downtrodden and oft-beaten people of his current home, and how the team has become the true shining symbol for what can be accomplished and overcome with hard work and attention to detail.  Billick talked endlessly and fluidly about the leadership principals and the amount of risk involved in the coaching world, and how that work can apply to top level business management. Carville equated the way political races are won and lost to the way recruiting takes place in both the business and sports world, showing time and time again how successful leadership has its clear threads that run from top to bottom regardless of the industry, and how the value of team always has to come through.  is much of it rhetoric and is it overblown a bit, these sports analogies?  Perhaps.  Howver one thing again came clear.  The ability for the brand and business of sports to unify a people, be a rallying point for a coproration, or help different and competing peoples to find a common bond is still very clear and extremely relevant, especially in the most challenging of times. It is a language that people can speak together whether that language of sport is soccer or football, baseball or curling.  It can unify and rally, inspire and heal, enrage and fuel debate.  Sport gives the common ground and marks a starting point for conversations and speeches, even in some of what may be seen as the most rudimentary or complex of industries, and that showed true again this week.   That common ground, especially played out across the vast real time media platforms that we have today, is why brands use sports as the way to help tell th story, and why billions continue to watch, play and enjoy the games from the grassroots to the professional. Was that true 100 years ago?  Maybe.  But today as the world shrinks and we all have the ability to “know” one another a little more, it is truer more than ever.

The House of Mouse Raises It’s Sports Brand…

February 27, 2010 by Joe Favorito · Leave a Comment 

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.

The Professionalism of The Business of Colleges…Latest Example

February 23, 2010 by Joe Favorito · 1 Comment 

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 of the “football lobbyist,” chubby, folksy, is what many people think of what college athletics is…but it is much more of what college athletics maybe was and is no longer.  It is now big business on every level, with great branding and marketing opportunities from small town Division III schools to the largest Universities and schools are now bringing in leaders in business to show the way to profitability.

The Mascot Fills A Bigger Branding Role…

February 17, 2010 by Joe Favorito · 2 Comments 

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 mascot is higher than ever.  Ben Hill’s blog on milb.com points out dozens of minor league teams that trotted out nascot’s for Valentine’s Promotions or other teams that have unveiled new or updated mascots during the last few weeks to keep their brand top of mind with consumers.  The New Jersey Nets worked not a player, but their mascot, into a Super Bowl commercial, while NHL teams are trotting out mascots while their players are away or off during the Olympic break.  Now that it is so important to engage the entire family, older alumni may not always work as a compelling interraction, and the ability to have mascots in multiple places works as a fund rasier and a brand awareness tool.  It is true that many major market or more established brands (the Knicks, the Rangers, the Cowboys, the Dodgers) have never embraced the mascot theme, instead relying on the power of their brand and all the pieces around it to drive interest.  However for those really needing relevance, the investment in picking the right looking mascot and then marketing him, her or it appropriately, has become as valuable as any other brand campaign and one that is not taken lightly.

Why Embracing The Blogosphere Works…

February 2, 2010 by Joe Favorito · Leave a Comment 

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 more compelling was the interest in the over 50 bloggers that attended the Sunday afternoon event, further proof that brands that find ways to work with the bloggers who have achieved success and built credibility will find a solid pipeline for legitimate, timely and in-depth coverage.

MLK Day A Missed Branding Oppt. For Sports?

January 18, 2010 by Joe Favorito · Leave a Comment 

Monday is a National Holiday honoring the late Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.  It would seem a perfect time…NFL in full postseason, NBA and NHL gearing up for All-Star, college sports pushing ahead, the Olympics on the horizon, the holidays in the distance…for a brand or an organization to take ownership of the weekend, especially in the area of community service and philanthropy. Yes, the NBA does do a good job of playing during the day and looking at projects that serve the spirit of Dr. King well.  Yes, some NFL teams like the 48ers are doing community service events Monday.  However, as brands look to be more community oriented and find opportunities to partner on community programs that give back, there remains no national push.  Maybe it should not be the professional teams or leagues, who would find it hard to muster full support on a Monday in January.  Maybe it should be the NCAA or High Schools that should find a brand to turn the day into one where young athletes and coaches each give back in their community. Maybe it should be the announcement of a mentoring program by each or any of the leagues, with some kind of tie to Dr. King’s spirit. Maybe it should be MLS, coming off their draft and meetings last week, or the PBR, who just started, or tennis or golf, both looking for more diversity. It just seems like with the issues of elite athletes today, and the obvious need for brands to connect to the community, that this mid-January weekend would be a prime spot to reflect, connect and reenergize the spirit and influence that athletes can have, especially young people looking for role models on any level.

Colleges To Take A Shot At Message Control? Be Careful What You Ask For…

January 10, 2010 by Joe Favorito · Leave a Comment 

Several years ago the Toronto Maple Leafs took what was then considered a very bold step by breaking a coaching hiring first on ther website, which at the time was unheard of.  Since then, the Washington Redskins have used their Daniel Snyder-owned sites, and radio stations to break and try and control news, a host of athletes, including Tiger Woods and Roger Clemens, have broken news with their own sites and have directed reporters there and only there for information, and many teams and  brands have gone about the business of hiring small but dedicated in-house staffs tp help tell the tale of their news from time to time.  It’s all about message control. Some teams…the Cincinnati Bengals,  Chicago Bulls, and Indiana Pacers to name a few of the first, went to the road of hiring former beat writers and columnists looking for new challenges or work to cover the team, and did not ask them to hold back during controversial times, with the thought being that it would add to the credibility and traffic for the site.  It has made for an interesting and compelling balance, with those looking to control and own media messaging (the haves) and those looking to drive interest across all media (the have nots).  Then you have colleges and even high schools.  In places where coverage and access is in great demand…major universities with large programs and large, professional-like followings…there may be value in message control, while at the Mid-Major and below, the need to drive coverage and find ways to get the information out is becoming more challenging.  Even at large Universities, the struggle to get stories told away from big time football and basketball can be tough in many instances.  So what is the solution?

Hall of Fame Voting: A New Brand Through The Power of the People?

January 5, 2010 by Joe Favorito · Leave a Comment 

This month two of the strongest, if not the strongest, Halls of Fame will reveal their 2010 selections, the Baseball and Football Halls.  The annual selection issue always operates under stealth and the very tight control over the voters, and usually has more than enough intrigue, suspicion, and debate.  However with an ever shrinking number of potential voters on the baseball side, and the need for more overall recognition on the football side, could changes in selection be in the offing? The baseball side, which includes only votes by those in the Baseball Writers Association of America, is suffering from the loss of so many fulltime newspaper  jobs recently and may have to add other segments, especially broadcasters, in order to keep the legitimacy of those who actually cover the sport on a fulltime basis intact.  That of course does not also reflect the ever-growing and more influential bloggers choices, or for that matter, the input on some level of the fan.  One interesting move this year was a vote by the Baseball Bloggers Alliance, a group of the top bloggers in the space,  to announce their Hall of Fame choices and the reasoning, in advance of the actual Hall vote.  It wasn’t in any way disrespectful, and it showed professionalism and great forethought, and could be a foreshadowing of a group that could be influential in coming years.  The opening up of fan debate and blogger interraction also gives rise to the notion that the voting system could be tied to a partner, with a full digital integration platform.  With the right safeguards put into place, and by providing all the right information, such a system could bring added revenue, more interest, more innovation and even greater visibility to the Hall, at a time when all institutions are looking to grow fan base and visitors year-round.

St. John’s Pulls Out Some Nostaligic Threads With “Ugly Sweater Night”

December 23, 2009 by Joe Favorito · 1 Comment 

College hoops in New York has been dormant for too many years. The last two years, not one local college even reached the NCAA’s or the NIT, so all the good brand equity and loyal following that had been built over years of success for Rutgers, Seton Hall, St. John’s, Manhattan, Hofstra, Fordham et al… has been lost. That doesn’t even begin to take in the losses from the casual sports fans who would follow and attend games, especially for SJU at MSG and Seton Hall at the Meadowlands, when the two were giant killers and at the top of the hoops hierarchy. The good news is that the potential to rebrand and grow as marketing properties still exists in the area, an area where hoops in the winter is still very very strong. The other piece of good news is that the teams in the area…Seton Hall, Rutgers, and now St. John’s…finally appear to be on an upswing on performance, which can lead to more interest. Still that casual fan to fill distressed seats, even on campus, can still be very elusive in this transitionary time. So what to do? Well St. John’s came up with a great promotion for a pre-holiday Tuesday, holding “Ugly Sweater Night” on the Jamaica campus. those showing up with the ugliest of sweaters get a discount on a ticket and a chance to win other prizes, including being part of a faux Guiness World record for the largest collection of ugly sweaters. The event pays homage to the Red Storm’s legendary coach Lou Carnessecca, who was known for his garish collection of sweaters during his time on the St. John’s bench. Will it fill the building? No. Does it get some buzz and create a fun visual at no cost? Yes. It also may move a few tickets at a tough time of year against an opponent, Bryant College, that no one would be lining up to see. On another level it sends a connection message to the current team and supporters of the glory days past, which is the team was stuggling may be troublesome, but in today’s positive times, is a good message and connection. Now ugly sweater nights are not new, but to tie to a sometimes forgotten tradition it is a smart and easy promotion for the Johnnies.

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