Sports and Entertainment Marketing (SEM)

• SEM stands for sports and entertainment marketing.

Marketing

• This is the process of developing, promoting, and distributing products, goods, and services.
• It's all done to satisfy customer's needs and wants.

Leisure Time

• Defined as the time available to people when they are not working or assuming responsibilities.
• Often referred to as "free time" and is "non obligatory" time.

Sport

• Activity involving physical exertion and skill.
• An individual or team competes against another or others for entertainment.

Sport Defined Related to the Sports and Entertainment Industry

• Encompasses all people, activities, businesses, and organizations,
• Involved in producing, facilitating, promoting, or organizing a sport business, activity, or experience.
• It is related to fitness, recreation, sports, sports tourism, or leisure.

Entertainment

• The action of providing or being provided with amusement or enjoyment.

Sports Industry

• The market where businesses offer sports-related products to buyers.
• Products can be goods, services, places, people, or ideas.

Sports Marketing

• Using sports as a platform to market products or services and increase sales.
• The process of marketing and selling the sports property itself.

Sports Management vs. Sports Marketing

• Sports marketing is not the same as sports management

Sports management

• Application of management concepts and principles to the sports industry.
• SEM refers to the marketing concepts and the principles to both the sports and entertainment industry.

Examples of Sports Marketing

• All State sponsoring the Sugar Bowl
• An NHL team offering payment plan options for season ticket buyers
• NBC paying billions for the rights to air the Olympic Games
• A corporation’s purchase of a luxury box in a sports arena
• A sign or banner displaying a company's logo on dasher boards at a hockey rink
• Coca-Cola paying for "pour rights" at an event or facility
• A local restaurant sponsoring the local high school soccer team
• The Goodyear Blimp flying over sporting events (Impression based marketing)
• Fans receiving free bobble head dolls at a baseball game
• "Taylor Swift Effect"

Entertainment Marketing

• Developing, promoting, and distributing products, goods, and services.
• Done to satisfy customer's needs and wants through entertainment, or any diversion, amusement, or method of occupying time.

Examples of Entertainment

• Riding the "Top Thrill Dragster" ride at Cedar Point
• Attending a Steelers game
• Reading the TSITP Books
• Visiting the Pittsburgh Zoo or SeaWorld
• Going to see your favorite band/artist
• Streaming music using Spotify
• Watching the Broadway musical "Wicked"

Podcast

• A digital audio file on the internet for downloading to a computer or mobile device.
• Typically available as a series with new installments.
• Can be received by subscribers automatically.

Sticky Marketing

• Creating online content that encourages consumers to visit a website frequently.
• Goal is to get the visitor to explore the site in greater detail.
• The stickiest marketing is social media.

Marketing THROUGH Sports and Entertainment

• Companies use sports and entertainment as a vehicle to gain exposure for their products (McDonald's sponsoring the Olympics)
• Gatorade (affiliating its product with elite athletes)
• Product placement (also called product integration)
• Used to promote a specific product.

Marketing OF Sports and Entertainment

• Marketing of the sports and entertainment products themselves
• (The Pittsburgh Pirates offering All-You-Can-Eat Seats)
• Disney spending over hundreds or millions to make and market Star Wars content
• A country club offering a special rate to increase its membership
• Pittsburgh Penguins offering Student Rush Tickets
• To determine if it's "OF" or "THROUGH," ask: "What is for sale?"

Similarities Between Sports and Other Forms of Entertainment

• Each activity entertains or occupies time
• Watching a Broadway show
• Streaming Spotify
• Watching a movie
• Watching a football game
• Playing a game of soccer
• Unscripted; involves emotional attachment

Unique Aspects of Sports

• Customer loyalty
• Cross promotion

Customer Loyalty

• A customer's decision to become a repeat consumer of a particular product or brand.

Cross promotion

• The convergence of two entertainment (or sports) properties working together to market products or services.
• Super Bowl halftime show

Pricing Factors

• Cost of goods: The actual expenses to produce a product
• Perception of value: How much a consumer believes a product is worth, influenced by branding, quality, and marketing.
• Consumer ignorance: Lack of knowledge about actual costs

Pricing

• Assigning a value to products and services based on supply and demand, cost of goods, perception of value, and consumer ignorance.

Distribution

• Determining how best to get products and services to customers (how and why)
• How do I move a physical product?
  • Ex: Netflix
• Why do I put it there?
  • EA Sports sells their video games in Best Buy because they know their target consumers shop there.
• This all relates to promotion

Promotion

• Communicating information about products and services to consumers.
• Typically involves ongoing advertising and publicity and sales which includes commercials.

Financing

• Creating a budget for a company's marketing plan.
• Requires analyzing the cost effectiveness of past marketing efforts.
• Providing customers with flexibility in purchasing company products or services.

Analyzing the Cost Effectiveness

• Evaluate what we are currently doing
• Effort and cost versus outcome

Providing Customers with Flexibility

• How easy is it to acquire the good or service?
  • Example: Trying to get Venmo for Mini-Thon, Netflix

Key Marketing Function

• Selling (sales) is the #1 marketing function

Selling

• Communicating with consumers to fulfill their needs, and anticipating future needs.
• Selling activity involves cultivating prospective buyers (or leads) in a market segment.
• Conveying the features, advantages, and benefits of a product or service.
• Closing the sale (or coming to agreement on pricing and services.
• Many professional sports teams use a call center to generate revenue from ticket sales.

Call Center

• A physical location where calls are placed or received in high volume for sales, marketing, or customer service purposes.
• Call centers employ staff to perform telemarketing with the goal of selling products over the phone.

Marketing Information Management

• Gathering and using customer information to improve business decision-making
• Examples: Giant Eagle Advantage Card and pro sports teams offering smaller ticket packages.

Product & Service Management

• Designing, developing, maintaining, improving, and acquiring products or services to meet customer needs.

Products

• Tangible, physical goods as well as services and ideas (intangible).
• Every single company offers a product.

Sports Products

• Goods and services designed to provide benefits to a sports spectator, participant, or sponsor.
• Examples: licensed merchandise, participation, equipment and apparel, promotional items, sports facilities, marketing research, and management services.

Entertainment Products

• Several segments of the entertainment industry are predominant money makers.
  • Examples: Film & cinema, television, music, radio, video games, theme parks, and publications.

Characteristics of Services

• Services are perishable
• Services are tangible

Perishability

• The ability or need to store or inventory a product

Intangible

• The unobservable characteristics which a physical good possesses, such as style, quality, strength, or beauty

Examples of Intangible Goods

• Copyrights, logos, graphics, and trademarks.
• The feeling of going to a concert.
• Even tangible items such as a soccer ball or music CD's have less significance than the feeling or emotion that the activity itself reveals.

Event Experience

• Tangible items include a ticket, scene, phone ticket, merch, food and drink.
• Intangible aspects include the atmosphere and feeling you get when you show up or when a team wins.
• Marketers focus on selling the intangible aspects.

Examples of Intangible Sports Activities

• The "runner's high" distance runners get
• The thrill of winning a competition
• The satisfaction of doing well in competition
• The pride we feel when teams we support win

Discretionary Income

• Money left to spend after necessary expenses are paid.