One of the biggest problems with promoting and branding sports and entertainment properties today is that everyone wants to be “Like Mike” (the old Nike slogan with regard to Michael Jordan). The problem is that many emerging brands and properties try to grab that brass ring before they are ready, or don’t look to aggregate all the “smaller” opportunities to tell their story. best to help those emerging brands find their market are World Championship Sports Network and the Horizon League. WCSN is quickly emerging every day as THE place to go for Olympic sports (especially leading to Beijing) that the casual fan and the ardent follower can’t find in the mainstream every day. The same with the Horizon League, which is one of the few “mid-major” league to effectively speak to its core audience of alumni, families and student athletes (and hopefully sponsors) with a steady flow of hard to get very targeted live and taped video pieces. What do these emerging sources for information fin.? Steady market share for their core audience, which in turn makes them the trend setters which hopefully leads to larger non-core audience which leads to sponsors which leads to outside media coverage and capital. However by aggregating the core fan first, both groups are finding away to grow in the niche, and lead to the mainstream. Fish where the fish are. You have to tell the stories to those willing to listen and view first before you can go and get the others. Both groups do that very well.
And on to some other good reads…with baseball now here, two very good pieces on emerging agents fall into the take a look pile, especially for those looking to enter the field…the Tampa Tribune has a nice piece this week on Tom O’Connell's rise and his unique path (in business section not the sports section). while the Orange County Register has a similar career growth path for agent Mark Rosenthal.. also on the athlete representation/owner front, be sure to check out the LA Times piece this week on Russian billionair. Shabtai von Kalmanovic and his work building a women's hoops powerhouse…great piece also in the Washington Times this week on former NHLers getting involved in ownership in the Canadian Junior Hockey League…great move by the NBA and the Dallas Mavs on Friday to allow credentialed bloggers back into the lockerroom…it is a great opportunity for the blog world to give example of how those who meet standards set by the team to be legitimate news sources for major teams, another smart move by the league which has really stepped up their pr and branding vision this season.
Thanks to all those who attended and staged the SEME Conference at George Washington University the past few days…it was an honor to be on a panel Friday and get a chance to both catch up with many old friends and finally meet some of those both in the business, and smart students looking to grow a career. SIMI is one of those must attend conferences on a yearly basis for anyone looking to get involved or learn more about the industry.
