Sports and the Business World

Sports Management

October 07, 2004

Sports and the Business World

In the wide world of sports, teams will try and find a way to better market themselves in the nation to make more revenue. There are many ways to market your team but in the newer generation teams have been taking a different approach. Most teams will advertise there big sports star in trying to have people buy there gear, buy tickets, or simply support their team. But the most effective way to market your team is getting to the kids first. In advertising for a younger generation, you will tie the kids in more at an earlier age and hopefully will stay with the team throughout the years.

Reaching tomorrow's fans, teams seek long-term benefits from marketing to kids and teens. Youth Marketing is one of the most popular ways that sports are using to market their teams. Television has become the main source of marketing pro teams, as some teams have their own T.V show. The New York Jets launched "Generation Jets," a weekly half-hour show for children that uses animated characters, Jets players and New York landmarks to teach life lessons. A few of the lessons featured in season one-preparation, patience, and faith- might also be the keys to success for pro teams that are marketing to kids and teenagers. In airing this show the Jets targeted kids six to eleven years old, in hoping that the kids would watch it before they realize what's cool. "Generation Jets" is more than a TV show, it became the opening for a comprehensive kids marketing effort that has seen the team launch a dedicated Web site, create themed merchandise, and re-brand its community relations activities and kids club. Case in

point: Like many teams, the Arizona Cardinals have a kids club through which members receive specially created newsletters and team merchandise. Many marketers figure that kids clubs are a sort of necessary evil, a way to create some connection with children and teenagers who probably aren't going to buy full-price tickets for years to come.

For pro teams, getting fans while they're still young is probably the most important now than ever because of well-established competing forces like the Internet, video games and action sports. The way teams are going about it, varies from team to team. The range of tactics includes everything from scheduling kid friendly promotional giveaway to letting kids participate in game presentation activities, to building an entire sub brand around the effort. As teams use youth marketing to make their organization grow, they must realize it's important to know the most appropriate time to deliver certain messages. Marketers must understand that marketing to a seven year old must be different than marketing to a ten year old. For example, the NFL has been working in the past few months to sharpen their focus. They have really focused on the eleven to fourteen year old group. Statistics show that the time in the life cycle when kids are making decisions about participating in football and long-lasting decisions about sports consumption and viewership.

Many teams have decided that the best way to create interest among kids and teenagers is to market to their parents, using as a hook the sporting event as the ideal family outing. Team's youth target the kids indirectly through their parents. Using print ads in regional editions of family and parenting magazines, are just some of the ways that Anaheim Angels Robert Alvarado, director of marketing and promotions uses to

incorporate families. He also runs ads targeted at kids, including spots on the local Radio Disney affiliate that promote the team's kid-friendly giveaways. In addition to those giveaways, the Angels have three main youth-focused in-stadium events: a kid's opening day, held during the season's first home stand but after the actual season opener; a Kids Run the Show day, in which children take over select stadium-operation jobs; and a kid's appreciation game at the end of the season. As more and more team's use their marketing skills as the Angels Director did. Different skills are developed as teams expand off of other teams. Now some teams, in a certain month or a home stand will have tickets be free for a certain age and younger if there is a parent buying a full adult admissions ticket. What this program did was it gave an incentive for parents to bring their kids, and it gave the kids an experience