Football vs. Football…Parity Not Always Needed To Grow The Brand

August 29, 2010 by Joe Favorito · 1 Comment 

With the Premier League now going in the UK and the NFL just a few weeks from kicking off in the United States, it is interesting to look at the two monster branding organizations and see how they run in parallel tracks in some ways and are apart in others still. Both have global aspirations, with soccer’s foothold as the world’s largest and most popular sport helping buoy the marketing, digital  and branding rights for the top EPL clubs like Manchester United, Arsenal and Chelsea for years.  Tours to North America for clubs like Tottenham and Manchester City this past summer also help raise awareness amongst casual fans looking for a bigger soccer jines than MLS can sometimes provide, especially in major markets, and the trical following for most EPL clubs keeps awareness attendance and local and regional value going.  The aggressive push for additional outside ownership for clubs like Liverpool has been an issue as the global economy shrunk, but overall the global awareness of the Premier League, what it stands for and for many of its clubs has never been higher.

Baseball Playing The Global Card, But Do Most Know?

August 12, 2010 by Joe Favorito · 1 Comment 

There is perhaps no more global sport on the professional level than baseball. At some level of the professional game, over 35 countries on five continents are represented, and the number grows each year.  Major league Baseball International spends millions developing players around the globe, and the results can be seen in recent weeks, when Chinese Taipei edged Australia for the World Junior title, Cuba won the World University championship, and this week the Women’s World Cup is being played in Venezuela. The coming Little League World Series will also have its global look and later in the fall millions will tune in to watch the World Series.  Yet for all its domestic success, it is basketball (this week announcing regular season games in London between New Jersey and Toronto) and soccer (with Chinese investor Kenny Huang looking to add to his work in hoops) continues to grab headlines that baseball should also have.  Why is that?

Will Soccer In New York Ever Hit The Goal?

August 30, 2009 by Joe Favorito · Leave a Comment 

With the first hint of fall you start to hear the bounce in thousands of parks and recreational centers across the tri-state area of New York, New Jersey and Connecticut. It is the thwack of kids from four to their mid-teens dribbling and passing soccer balls. Like baseball and softball in the spring, fall soccer is a rite of passage more now than ever before amongst young kids. Still even with the grassroots success, the connection to the pro game still lags behind, perhaps in the New York area more than anywhere else in the United States, and it is that disconnect which has continued to slow the growth of MLS in the biggest media market in the world. While MLS has had great success in Washington, great buzz in LA, solid plans built out in Dallas and Columbus and Chicago and New England, the New York market remains a frustrating afterthought.

Global Brands Continuing To Look Toward American Sports Leadership…

July 15, 2009 by Joe Favorito · Leave a Comment 

The announcement in this week’s Sports Business Journal that Tom Fox will join Arsenal to run their startegic marketing is the latest in a series of moves by elite clubs and sports around the world to try and not only capture ways to engage their own fans, but to try and begin carving niches to make their brands interesting and meaningful to fans in North America, whether those fans are expats now living in the States, new fans or sport like cricket and rugby, and more importantly, brands that may be looking to activate more on a global level. As the digital world blurs traditional boundries and is able to unite fans of a sport or a sports brand more and more in real time, sports like Indian cricket have looked to the west to adapt their game to a more global and less traditional audience. Even rugby has looked to changes, using Rugby 7’s as opposed to the full sided game to get into the Olympics and draw fans who are more interested in a fast-paced game. Now does this mean that we will be seeing Thundersticks and cheerleaders in the Premier League? No. It means that there are many smart brands who realize there are global opportunities to expand and draw more fans, bodies and brands to them and that the economy today has created a need to bring in savvy folks to show clubs and sports how to be successful and use their connections to build brand like they have with American sport. We have seen traditional American brands like the NBA and MLB continue to make strides in establishing their global footprint for several years, so it now makes sense that the established hierarchy of sport outside the States now also take advantage of that know-how by bringing those who have been successful building brands with fans into their offices to show them how they too can be more cost-effective and forward-looking.

The Twitter Jitters…Despite The Medium You Still Need To Know How To deliver The Message

March 13, 2009 by Joe Favorito · Leave a Comment 

Media Post had another disturbing story about the shrinking conventional media world with three sports/entertainment magazines…the highly regarded Best Life, along with Travel and Leisure Golf and Tennis Week all going down for the count. While that crosses more “traditional” places off the pitch list, the opportunities to place and populate news stories, and compelling activation and feature pieces still are there for those who can place effectively. Still there are the issues of how to place, and Tom Hoffrath in the LA Daily News has a great piece on the “flavor of the month” method many are trying to get noticed with their brands, without ever understanding who and what they are pitching. The piece talks about the “Twitter jitters,” with niche leagues and athletes all rushing to tell how their athletes are hip and cool by using Twitter or other social networking tools to communicate with fans. The funny thing is that those who are doing the pitching have little to no CONVENTIONAL contact with the media they are trying to pitch, and in their rush for “cool” placement the story idea gets lost. Even in today’s technology crazy world, the same basic principles for placement apply.
1- Know the person you are pitching: Try placing a call, dropping a personal note, or READING what the media person has written lately. Lots of times a little understanding goes a long way.
2- Make sure you have a story: Just because an entire team is turned on to Facebook, or a coaching staff loves text messaging, or a brand is using their website to market, doesn’t make it a story for most writers. As Tom Hanks said in the movie “Big” when looking at brands of toys made by nameless marketers… “What’s Cool About That?” If its not unique, it would have been like in the “old days” saying X All-Star is hip because he is using a cell phone. Not compelling. Sell the personality, not the gadget.
3- If you are pitching, give them a reason to use it: Go writer by writer to find a story idea…if it doesn’t work move on…but spamming a whole list with “exclusive” ideas is a waste of their time and probably yours.
4- Ask Questions: Media are people too. Take the time to ask them what they think of the story, and if it doesn’t work for them, ask why and maybe they will suggest someone else. Don’t be afraid to be a little personal. in a time when media are victims of shrinking outlets and many athletes are breaking controlled news through their choice of avenues, treating people as people can go a long way.
5- Don’t Mercilessly Spam: Even for this blog, people are sending me press releases now about “new and great” or “best ever.” Now mass emails for news stories are important for all…but for a feature, take the time to personalize and explain why. Machine gum approaches can kill ever the best story.

Local Sports Broadcast Cutbacks An Alarming Trend…Or A new Opprtunity For The Aggressive

January 23, 2009 by Joe Favorito · Leave a Comment 

With budget cuts continuing in local news, the alarming trend of newscasts eliminating sports, or namely the sports personalities on air seems to be growing.  In Friday’s New York Daily News, Richard Huff took a look at some New York area cuts and raised the questions many news groups are asking…why do you need local sports when you have so many sports specific channels in most markets?  For those casual fans who rely on the news for their inoput of sports, and more importantly, for the local sports teams (and the brands that support them) the trend is an alarming one, but is also one that can reward the creative with the build up of other platforms and inhouse vehicles to communicate both to the core and casual fan.  It also could be the impetus for the creative to make sure, just like in print,  relationships to tell stories are also developed on the local news side as well as the sports side.  The justification out forth is actually one that existed at the birth of the local news show over thirty years ago.  Anyone can read scores into a teleprompter…what is needed is the journalist and the compelling story line that makes “news” out of the games…that delivers the personalities to the viewer in ways they don’t get just by watching a game.  Some say that the local sportscaster in major markets is aging, and with it comes a reticence to leave the studio and rely on all the inbound media that can be folded into a broadcast.  Part of that lies perhaps with the sports brands themselves, which have limited access and built an us vs them and reactive attitude toward the media in this 24/7 newscycle.  So the result could be less eyeballs seeing local stories, which leads to less brand exposure, which leads to diminished brand exposure, which could lead to less awareness, attendance and sales.  Now while that may seem to be an alarmist stretch, it should serve as a wakeup call for brands to embrace new technology and ways to deliver news to the fan, or even work with the local news outlets to find cost efficient ways to deliver news for events that may not make it to a satellite or landline.  The local sportscaster is where almost all of today’s sports broadcasting icons have started…hopefully by working together that next generation of multitaskers who cut their own tape, file online stories, blog additional news, followup leads, recieve solid pitches from publicists and then bring great stories to air will give rise to whomever is next.  In the quest for more access and delivering the local story, the fan and the brand should not be denied…even if the platform shifts.

Another Vision Realized: Ebbsfleet United

November 9, 2008 by Joe Favorito · Leave a Comment 

Like the Million Dollar Arm, another example of a unique idea riding a wave of popularity is the people’s soccer club, the UK’s Ebbsfleet United.  Almost a year ago, the idea was pushed forth in Portfolio and other places by an entrepreur to have a soccer team where fans could buy in and make the day to day decisions of the club.  As chronicled in the New York Times this week, the Ebbsfleet idea has worked wonderfully in the first year, with the club achieving onfield success never seen before while garnering over 30,000 “owners” who have a say in the business.  The idea worked this time because of a perfect storm of situations prior to the recent financial crisis…growing popularity of smaller clubs in Europe, a dearth of opportunities for fans to activate with larger clubs, fans frustration wih management, the emergence of fantasy play and a price point that made sense for people to try the idea with little downside.  Although most people aren’t active owners, the ability to participate does exist, and the club manager has basically run the team with little to no issue.  But the fantasy of ownership for the common man is real, and the amount of working capital the team got through the process was tremendous.  Now will there be commerical branding oppts. for Ebbsfleet going forward?  Can the success on the pitch be sustained when they become the hunted and not the hunter?  Can the “owners” not try and get overly involved?  Most importantly can the process be replicated successfully in minor league sports in the US like baseball?  All to be seen.  A few efforts to immediately repeat the process in soccer in the U.S. have not gone well, as the Ebbsfleet model is still based on a club with a 120 plus year history.  But the fact that it did work well once, with all the pieces falling into place in year one, shows that the effort, if managed properly, can be a successful run for those who take the time to find a property and grow with it.

Global Branding: The Sun May Never Set on The Gillett Sports Empire…

November 5, 2008 by Joe Favorito · Leave a Comment 

As his Liverpool club heads toward the top of the Barclay’s Premier League standings, owner George Gillett continues to be a prime example of how sports ownership and branding will look as we move to be more global in the 21st century.  Foxsports.com ran the AP article which spells out not Gillett’s views on why or how his partnership with American owner Tom Hicks has flourished in the EPL, but why his Canadiens team has rebranded itself and is working with the people and how he is even looking to MLS for Montreal and to India for other opportunities.  The piece gives a rare look into what will become a global branding strategy for many large owners going forward…finding the plumb property in one sport and then use that brand to connect with emerging sports and  brands in other sports to create cross-exposure.  In Gillett’s case the cross exposure goes EPL-NHL-MLB-to potentially cricket and MLS, and would give him a first-ever sports branding opportunity on three continents simultaneously.  Now has this been tried with marriages between big brands like the Yankees and Manchester United before?  Yes and it hs failed.  However starting with one mega-brand and connecting to rising brands makes more sense for long-term growth, and Gillett’s model may be one to follow.

Rays Use Business Smarts To Start Off Field Transformation…

October 7, 2008 by Joe Favorito · Leave a Comment 

Maybe the most moribund franchise in North American sports, the Tampa Rays underwent one of the best turnarounds on the field in recent memory.  As the accolades for the front office staff and players pour in as the playoffs move ahead, the downside of losing and lack of brandbuilding was still evident as the season wore on.  However, the changes that have begun to take place, and will hopefully build for the future regardless of result on the field success, are now taking hold, as pointed out by Jeremy Mullman in Ad Age.  By bringing on a former P and G brand manager, the club has applied all the touch points of a successful package goods brand, and added in the emotion of sports.  It was a smart hire and applies logic and good sense for the Rays makeover, and coupled with the onfield success can spell a business upswing for the team for the future.  Now would all the good branding in the world have worked if the team remained in last?  Maybe not.  But by setting the business climate correctly, the franchise was much better positioned to reap positive results.

“Back On Topps” Gives A Traditional Brand A New Spin…

September 30, 2008 by Joe Favorito · Leave a Comment 

Complacency in any successful brand is commonplace, while innovating to make a brand more successful is always the challenge.  So when the Topps Card Company found itself not keeping up with the digital world, the brand suffered and change was afoot.  In stepped a new ownership group led by former Disney Head Michael Eisner and the result has been more interest in the card company and now more innovation.  The company, in addition to reinvigorating its traditional trading card brand has looked to create some fun in the digital world, launching “Back on Topps,” an Eisner created relatity show about a pair of brothers and the unsual goings-on at the world’s most recognizable trading card brand.  The idea of using the digital space with the traditional brand got Topps some great media coverage, including the New York Post and the New York Daily News this past weekend,  and can open the brand up to a younger crowd more interested in online than in card collecting. 

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