Lee High School

More Than a Sport

Sports Marketing

Brian Gutierrez

Mr.Cahoon

Capstone

April 18, 2017

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Brian Gutierrez

Mr.Cahoon

Capstone

April 18, 2017

More Than a Sport

One of the fastest growing industries in the world, which will only continue to grow

more. Marketing is a great way to promote things that are in trend and sell products. Sports

marketers and marketers have to prepare and plan ahead of time for the products they want to

launch and promote. One of the things that has been seen more in the marketing industry is

sports. Sports marketers use media to promote sporting events, teams, and professional

athletes.

One of the many things that sports marketers market is sporting events. Sporting events

that they market are events such as soccer games, football games, basketball games, baseball

games, and track events. Sporting events are one of the most important things to market because

without any people in attendance, there is no money being made. It is critically important for

sports promoters to understand how to provide entertainment that consumers value (Levin,

Michael A., and Robert E. McDonald). The main thing that marketers have to worry about is

their clientele and being able to keep them happy. Attendance would probably be influenced by

the quality of the game. One quality that fans value in sporting events is suspense, i.e. that the

outcome of the game should be in doubt because the competitors are evenly matched (Levin,

Michael A., and Robert E. McDonald). An example of a well marketed sporting event is the

MoneyGram Socio MX 2017 Tour. It is a soccer game that happens once a year in the U.S.
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and it is sponsored and marketed by MoneyGram. "We are proud to sponsor the SocioMX tour

again this year. The passion for this sport creates connections among friends and family around

the globe, much like our money transfer services" (Agualimpia, 2017). This is event markets

both sporting teams and MoneyGram, it is a very intelligent thing to do. It gives the fans in the

U.S. a chance to watch teams from another country and expand the teams fanbase and it gives

MoneyGram more publicity, its a win, win situation for both the teams and MoneyGram. This

is a match between two teams that are evenly matched and full of suspense, this is a well

marketed event and the attendance turnout is usually pretty good. Many other sporting events are

also well marketed on social media sites by sport marketers.

Sports marketers have many different ways of marketing sporting events such as ads on

TV, ads on social media pages, and signs on billboards. Sports is more than jogging, swimming,

playing tennis, football or basketball. It is a business (Niciporuc, Tudor). If a sporting event is

well marketed, it will bring in more revenue. They use TV ads to commercialize upcoming

sporting events and social media pages on sites such as Twitter and Facebook to spread the word

of the events and hype them up as much as possible to generate a higher attendance and gather as

much currency as they can from the consumer. The sports industry has gained the 6th rank

among the superior industries of the world because of the efforts of the people involved in sports

and the considerable economic growth (Niciporuc, Tudor). This number will only continue to

grow as long as we keep on having things such as social media with more and more users signing

up everyday and internet being available in more places around the globe.

Sport marketers however do not only market sporting events, they also market sport

teams. (Zohrabi, Fatemeh, et al) stated in his article If some people transformed coffee grains
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into a million dollar brand, why not do the same with the competitions, clubs or players? It is

not the easiest thing to do because in order for a team to be able to be well marketed they have to

be exciting to watch, have a good winning record, and just not be boring and predictable but

always keep the fans on the edge of their seats and entertained. Once a team has a good sports

marketer they begin to sell products such as jerseys to attract more crowds to their games and

keep their fans happy. An important thing in marketing are the sponsorships, especially the

sponsorships on the jerseys that the fans will be wearing. Two examples of brands with very

good market strategies would be Nike and Adidas. These two brands are two of the most

dominant brands when it comes to marketing teams. Marketing big teams like the Dallas

Cowboys, Los Angeles Lakers, and Manchester United bring in lots of profits but a smart thing

to do as a sports marketer is, look towards the near future and think about what teams are going

to be doing good so they can also begin marketing them to the upcoming fan base that they

would be likely to get. Sports marketing is a risky business, but it is also a very rewarding

business.

Sporting events and sport teams are probably two of the more popular things for sports

marketers, to market but they also market athletes themselves. Sponsoring and marketing an

athlete is a very smart idea, especially if the athletes are doing really good or have a well

established fan base that is very loyal to them. According to Pedersen, Parks, Quarterman, &

Thibault, in (Witkemper, Chad, et al) 2010 Social media is being used more frequently by

sports organizations and athletes as a tool to communicate with fans. The social media sites that

are most often used by athletes and sports marketers to promote themselves and their clients, are

Twitter, Facebook, and Youtube. Facebook is used to provide information, post pictures and
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videos, and promote upcoming events. YouTube has been used to share videos with fans about

the team or organization. Each of these options may require more time and effort than a fan has

to offer, whereas Twitter is a quick source of information that does not require much effort from

an individual (Witkemper, Chad, et al). Since there is so many different social media site

available to the fans it is much easier and very effective for the athletes to communicate with

their fans and for marketers to be able to access the athletes page and promote them via their

social media pages. Social media is a very good strategy when it comes to sports marketing.

Sports marketing is a very good business and it is a very fast growing industry. Sports

marketers can market anything from events and teams to athletes. Sports are more than just

sports now, it is a business. PwC projects 4.8% annual growth over the next five years, from

$53.6 billion in 2012 to $67.7 billion in 2017 (Van Riper, 2017). The sports marketing industry

will continue to grow in the future making it a very good career option.
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Work Cited

Levin, Michael A., and Robert E. McDonald. "The value of competition: competitive balance as

a predictor of attendance in spectator sports." International Journal of Sports Marketing

& Sponsorship, Oct. 2009, p. 7+. Academic OneFile,

go.galegroup.com/ps/i.do?p=AONE&sw=w&u=lom_accessmich&v=2.1&id=GALE%7C

A212037428&it=r&asid=4a3e02f778af1c4874b5180a41225e5a. Accessed 13 Apr. 2017.

"MoneyGram SocioMX 2017 Tour Kicks off with First Match in Dallas." PR Newswire, 22 Feb.

2017. Academic OneFile, go.galegroup.com/ps/i.do?p=AONE&sw=w&u=

lom_accessmich&v= 2.1&id= GALE%7CA482247604&it=r&asid=

eb9f5c15b8e115103e6559533b820144. Accessed 13 Apr. 2017.

Niciporuc, Tudor. "Sports marketing--it's not just a game anymore." The Proceedings of the

International Conference, Marketing - from Information to Decision, no. 3, 2010, p.

251+. Academic OneFile, go.galegroup.com/ps/i.do?p=AONE&sw=w&u=

lom_accessmich&v=2.1&id=GALE%7CA402861469&it=r&asid=06c5afb96fc3c8392b2

2bdd8fbcea824. Accessed 13 Apr. 2017.

Witkemper, Chad, et al. "Social media and sports marketing: examining the motivations and

constraints of Twitter users." Sport Marketing Quarterly, vol. 21, no. 3, 2012, p. 170+.

Academic OneFile, go.galegroup.com/ps/i.do?p=AONE&sw=w&u=lom_accessmich&v=

2.1&id=GALE%7CA323259165&it=r&asid=f9613fbc4f82ac83b9d5798f360d00d0.

Accessed 13 Apr. 2017.

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Zohrabi, Fatemeh, et al. "The role of media in economic evolution of championship sport."

Advances in Environmental Biology, 2013, p. 1563+. Academic OneFile,

go.galegroup.com/ps/i.do?p=AONE&sw=w&u=lom_accessmich&v=2.1&id=GALE%7C

A347003736&it=r&asid=888ee1b6d0b96c711a07a97125e314c2. Accessed 13 Apr.

2017.