Nate Gross Engl 3307 Assignment #5 Empirical Research Outline Introduction: Every day when we turn on the TV to a sports

channel or attend a sporting event at a university, we witness the efforts of a sport marketing director, whether we realize it or not. This outline will provide the reader(s) with information about the profession of sport marketing. Items will include what the job entails, average salaries, how to get into the sport marketing business, as well as other fun facts. This topic can be important for many reasons, but one reason that stands out to me is that it can be important for professionals in the business world who are involved in marketing for their companies because they can learn about what sport marketers do and incorporate some of the same methods into their work. Objectives of the Research I wanted to investigate the differences between the jobs of marketing directors at the university level and the professional sports level. I also wanted to look at the challenges that sport marketers face every day and how they overcome these challenges. By examining these ideas, the reader will be able to develop their own opinions and decide whether or not sport marketing would be a potential career for them and furthermore, could sport marketing concepts be utilized in traditional marketing schemes not related to sports. The reader will also be able to decide whether they would enjoy working with a professional sports team or a college program instead. Methods: To start off I thought it would be nice to find a definition of sport marketing, so that we can get an idea of what sport marketers do. Sport marketing consists of all activities that are designed to meet the wants and needs of sport consumers. It can be divided up into two categories: the marketing of sport products and services directly to the consumer, and the marketing of other products or services via sport promotions (Mullin 2007, p. 11). This is a broad definition and so lets try to get a little more specific. I conducted a brief interview with the Sports Marketing Director at Idaho State University, Kalee Kopp. I asked her about the ins and outs of her job as well as some of the challenges she faces. Her basic duties include promoting ISU athletics, finding sponsors, branding the ISU Bengals as a product, writing PA announcements, and coordinating everything that goes on during a sporting event at ISU including in game

promotions. She has a lot on her plate and so she dishes out some of her work to the Sports Information Director, Steve Schaak. Steve handles more of the logistics such as writing press releases and dealing with the media aspects involved in college athletics. The most important aspects of Kalees job involve raising money for the athletic department through sponsorships and getting fans to attend games. At ISU, athletics arent a powerhouse an d so it is challenging to get fans to attend games, which is why creativity helps a lot. Kalee develops creative promotions for tickets etc. as well as in game promotions. An example of this might be offering buy one get one half off tickets to a football game. In terms of in game promotions, she has to spend a lot of time coordinating with the sponsors to develop a promotion that meets their needs, since they are the ones putting up the money for the promotion. For example, she coordinated with Merlins TV to have a Merlins Magic Half Court Shot at the basketball games, where winners will receive a prize from Merlins. When asked about other challenges, she told me that when teams, coaches, or players attract negative attention to the University or athletic department, it becomes a challenge to make up for those actions and find ways to attract fans to the games. For example, earlier in the year when Coach Kramer of the football team shoved a wide receiver during a practice and the video was shown on ESPN, Kalee had to do a lot of damage control and find ways to portray ISU athletics (particularly ISU football) in a positive way to divert it from all of the negative media attention it was getting. During games at ISU, Kalee is in charge of everything that runs when the game is not going, such as timeouts and halftime. Everything that we see occur at the game, was developed by Kalee. For example if the announcer reads a PA announcement advertising Jimmy Johns, Kalee developed a marketing plan for that to happen. If there is 15 minutes at halftime for promotions to run, she has to coordinate when Idaho Central Credit Union will come on the court to have a participant do the Money Machine, when the Bengal Dancers can perform, when the Marching Band can play, what stunts Benny the Bengal will do, and even when music will play over the PA. Because time is of the essence, she has to plan everything down to the second, and allow a little extra time for promotions to run longer than planned. The biggest thing I learned from Kalee is that her job is very stressful, there are always a million things going on that she has to worry about. In order to be successful in her job, she needs to utilize the help of many other people including interns, the Sports Information Director, the Athletic Director, and even on campus organizations such as the Student Activities Board. Next, I researched what education requirements are needed to get a job as a sport marketing director. Most positions want candidates to have a masters d egree, but not all. Surprisingly, in a survey that questioned 400 sports industry executives, the majority of them did not obtain masters degrees in a sport related field. 41.4% of them received a traditional MBA, while only 16% received a masters in a sports related field such as sport management or athletic

administration (Angst). I think this proves the point that to be a good sport marketer, you need to have a business-oriented mind because that is what sport marketing is all about: trying to sell a product to the consumer. Another source confirmed my hypothesis and said that sport marketing companies look to hire candidates who have a degree in law, business, marketing, or advertising (Howes). I also did a little research on sport marketing in professional sports. I found that it is a lot easier to market big time professional sports teams than it is to market minor league teams or even new teams that do not have a great fanbase. For example, marketing for teams such as the Boston Red Sox, New York Yankees, or the LA Lakers is a lot easier than say for example the Charlotte Bobcats or Miami Marlins. Part of the sport product is tradition. Fans have been going to Red Sox games for years and there is a lot of sentimental value associated with going to a game at Fenway Park. This is one reason why the Red Sox have not built a new stadium or modified there stadium too much. The Miami Marlins, on the other hand, rebranded their team by changing their name and building a new stadium. They cut their payroll from $110 million to $40 million this year and had to offer fans buy one get one free tickets to opening day because they were not going to sell very many tickets (Capozzi). Think of how hard it must be being the marketing director for this team; you would have to get very creative and come up with new ideas to get fans to come to the games to watch a losing team with no star players. Minor league teams also face issues with fan attendance because its minor league and often the teams are either located in a small city or else a big city that already has major sports teams. I found many examples of techniques sport marketers used to market minor league baseball teams. It is a common theme for these teams to use promotions to draw fans in, crazy and bizarre promotions. I found a few articles that described extreme promotions that teams did and among them, here are some ones that stuck out to me: George Constanza night where everything was in reversefans were paid money to park, the scoreboard ran from the ninth inning down to the first etc., 10-cent beer night, Nobody Night where fans were locked out of the stadium until the fifth inning so that the attendance of the game would be zero, and usedcar night where the team gave away 12 used cars during the game (Robeson). There are hundreds of off the wall promotions like these ones out there. It is amazing the measures that marketers will take to sell their product. Results: I found a lot of information about the profession of sport marketing including a number of online journals as well as a textbook. These resources will provide anyone with enough information to learn about the career of sport marketing and decide if it is something that interests them. The interview I did with Kalee Kopp was exciting because she gave me a lot of unexpected answers and portrayed her job as being unpredictable.

Discussion: I was successful in obtaining information about sport marketing at the university and professional level. I struggled a bit to find articles about individual sport marketing directors, but I did find a good deal of information about sport marketing in general. The interview with Kalee was very helpful in providing me with a perspective on sport marketing. Conclusions By conducting research into my topic, I conclude that professionals in any area of business can benefit from learning about sport marketing and perhaps even spending some time in the profession because it has a lot of similarities to fields in business such as advertising, sales, and even general marketing. I also conclude that sport marketing covers many aspects of sports, not just promoting games or creating advertisements; it goes a lot deeper than that. It seems to me that sport marketers that do a lot of networking and leveraging are the most successful ones. Recommendations: For someone thinking about entering the field of sport marketing, it will be important to do more extensive research on the topic. Also, it will be important to find out from potential employers what the job will entail. Some organizations definition of sport marketing will be quite different from others so it will be important to find out what you will be getting into before you accept any job offers or negotiate terms of a contract.

Works Cited
Angst, Frank. "Education Requirements for Sports Management and Marketing." Sports Careers. Web. 17 Apr. 2013. <http://sportscareers.about.com/od/educationtraining/a/sptedrqure.htm>. Capozzi, Joe. "Miami Marlins Face Many Challenges This Season, from the Gate to the Field." The Palm Beach Post. 30 Mar. 2013. Web. 17 Apr. 2013. <http://www.palmbeachpost.com/news/sports/baseball/miami-marlins-face-many-challenges-thisseason-fro/nW7rk/>. Howes, Lewis. "Getting A Degree In Sports Marketing." Sports Networker. 19 Jan. 2011. Web. 17 Apr. 2013. <http://www.sportsnetworker.com/2011/01/19/getting-a-degree-in-sports-marketing/>. Robeson, Andrew. "25 Extremely Bizarre or Ill-Advised Promotions." Bleacher Report. Web. 17 Apr. 2013. <http://bleacherreport.com/articles/571036-25-extremely-bizarre-or-ill-advised-promotions-insports-history/page/2>