Holy freakin crap, you guys are acting like this is a really difficult thing. You provide pocket money for the student athelete. As a former D1 student athelete there are a lot of things you are missing. There are six primary focuses within the sports marketing business: 1.Properties (teams/leagues/events/athletes/universities) 2.Corporate Participants (advertisers/sponsors) 3.Venues (arenas/stadiums) 4.Media (radio/print/TV) 5.Merchandising (sporting goods/logoed apparel/merchandise/memorabilia) 6.Agencies (sports marketing focused on properties/ sports marketing focused on sponsors/ sales promotion/advertising agencies) Each of these areas represents significant slices of the sports revenue pie and they are all intertwined. Let's use the collegiate sports as our example to illustrate each area's influence. The following constituencies represent some of the players in this business. Examples: Properties NCAA, ACC, University of North Carolina, Orange Bowl, Bill Guthridge Corporations Sprint, RCA, Compaq, Oldsmobile, FedEx, Nike Venues Alamo Dome, Dean Smith Center Media CBS, ESPN, ABC, WCBS Merchandising Starter, Logo One, Nike Agencies Host Communications, Tar Heel Network, IMG Properties are represented by any entity that can sell their rights, name, likeness or indicia for commercial purposes. Primary examples are teams (team owners) and leagues but athletes and personalities are also included in this category. Corporations are the sponsors that use sports as a marketing tool to reach targeted demographic and psychographic groups. Corporations will sponsor properties, venues and media while using agencies to help them in these areas. You can consider Corporations and fans the universal donors in this equation and the properties the universal receivers. Venues are the arenas/playing fields for games. Jerry Jones, owner of the Dallas Cowboys, has creatively used his venue, Texas Stadium, in his personal war with the NFL. While teams are restricted against signing sponsorships with non-league s ponsors, the venues do not have the same restrictions and Texas Stadium now has major relationships with American Express and Nike instead of NFL sponsors Visa and Reebok. Media and Corporations, along with fans, are the primary money generators in this equation. Merchandising/licensing is the fastest growing component of this equation. A company that produces a $1.50 t-shirt in Vietnam receives a licensing agreement from a property (UNC, NFL, etc) and now their $1.50 t-shirt sells for $18.00 because it has a logo on it. Agencies are becoming larger and larger players as the money pot gets larger. Much like the power brokers in Hollywood, Mark McCormack and David Falk on the player side, Jim Millman on the corporate side, and Dick Ebersol on the media side are the men that control the flow of dollars in this business. Their advice, expertise and relationships allow them important seats at the negotiating tables as they advice their clients on how to generate/or save money in the business of sports. Corporate Sponsor Objectives - "Corporations use of Sports as a Marketing Tool" Corporations typically use sponsorship for three reasons: reach consumers (generate awareness/sales), reach the trade (incentivize middlemen) and reach their own employees/sales force (motivation/"feel good"). For this paper we will focus on corporati ons use of sports to reach consumers to sell incremental product. Today, sports and television coexist in a high-priced equation. The leagues sell the right to broadcast games for millions of dollars each season. The network in turn sells advertising in :30 second increments to sponsors/advertisers on a national, r egional and local level. A driving force behind the advertising spending of these sponsors is their ability to reach the extremely desirable 18-49 male demographic segment. This demographic segment is considered important because of their spending power as well as the fact that these men are the most difficult demographic group for advertisers to reach. This predominantly working class male, with a high disposable income, traditionally has more time constraints than other demographic segments. However , sports offer the one channel to consistently reach him. Advertisers pay for Cost Per Thousand (CPM) reached among their target audience. While the price to advertise on NFL games is expensive, it is the best way to reach these men, and if your product is Gillette, Budweiser or GM, these ads are worth the price because of the relatively low CPM. We are talking about billions of dollars being made hand over fist and you want to call a tuition a good compensation? It isn't quite slavery, but more like indentured servants. There is more than enough money to pay every student athlete on campus a couple of hundred a week to help them feel normal and allow them to get by as the restrictions only a student athlete getting a job make it highly difficult to be able to make any kind of money. You keep it simple across the board, everyone no matter who you are or what school you go to pays the same. Evens the playing field. Its time people.
