chapter

19The Shape of Things to Come

Objectives

• To provide insight with regard to the challenges and opportunities facing sport marketers in the next 5 years

• To share opinions from leaders in the sport marketing industry about the next 5 years

• To consider projections concerning future developments in the sport industry and the ramifications of those developments for sport marketers

Looking Ahead to 2011:A Sports Business Odyssey

• New media • Sponsorship and marketing • Leagues and governing bodies • Facility or stadium experiences• The leaders

Looking Back for Inspiration but Looking Forward for Disruption

• It has been 30 years since systematic, self-administered fan surveys were first conducted by the NBA’s Golden State Warriors.

• In 1977 Sports Management Review surfaced as the first periodical of original content targeted at sport industry executives.

• In 1979 Sports Illustrated shed popular media light on the business of sport in a seven-part series.

(continued)

Looking Back for Inspiration but Looking Forward for Disruption (continued)

• Between 20 and 25 years ago, Major League Baseball’s Oakland A’s, Chicago White Sox, New York Yankees, and Houston Astros first embraced integrated, real-time, technology-facilitated access to pitch-by-pitch performance information for general managers, scouts, managers, and play-by-play broadcasters.

• In the early 1980s the Major Indoor Soccer League’s Baltimore Blast and league counterparts challenged the arena sports grain and reinvented game presentation.

• In 1995, MLB’s Seattle Mariners and the NHL’s San Jose Sharks launched the professional sport world’s first franchise Web sites, foreshadowing a revolution in franchise–fan communications and sport industry commerce.

Driving Forces for Past Innovation

1. The application of new technologies to increase entertainment values, tighten ties with fans, and improve decision-making effectiveness

2. A hunger among more customer-conscious, higher-profile, and competitively paid marketing executives (who are increasingly schooled outside the sport industry) for faster, more comprehensive, and usefully segmented fan information

3. Profit economics and innovation-motivated courage to make testing of unprecedented practices an integral part of every league and franchise marketing plan

These breakthroughs are characterized by three driving forces that will help build revenue streams and marketing effectiveness in the decade ahead:

Future Innovations

• Sponsored players • Microsegmentation • Speckled computing • Smartpaper • Segment relationship management

Fearless Predictions in Sport Sponsorship

• Media content consumption patterns• Technology defining the fan experience • A launching point for China • Segmenting profitability

The Future of the Team Sport Business

• Tickets: Pricing, selling, and delivery of tickets will change over the next five years

• Sponsorships– Rate card reconstruction – Inventory management – Category yield – Presentations

• Media

Sport Industry Jobs in the Near Future

• Continued need for sales experience• Technology-based marketing and

communications• Traditional face-to-face and online

interaction with customers• Agencies providing services for teams and

leagues• Sport management education at high school

level

Technology and Leadership

• Sometimes the emperor really doesn’t have any clothes.

• Track trends and develop opinions about what ideas work.

• Don’t take the pitch too literally. • Think about what you wish you were being

pitched.• Give it a try.

Predictions Made in 2000

• Growth of international exhibitions will continue. • Women’s professional team sports will continue to

develop.• There will be a true national championship play-off

format for NCAA football. • College athletes will receive compensation.• There will be more mergers among sport marketing

agencies and corporations involved in producing sport apparel and other merchandise.

(continued)

Predictions Made in 2000(continued)

• Multiple ownership of sport teams in various leagues will continue—as will corporate ownership of those teams.

• Facilities will continue to become complete entertainment palaces.

• Sports and activities with an increasing element of risk, challenge, and inherent danger will continue to be developed.

• Enter the age of choice or on-demand television.

Crystal Ball Redux: By the Year 2012

• The portability of sport viewership will provide true connectivity and on-demand information.

• Sport facilities in Europe and Asia will take on a decidedly American look.

• Small-market baseball owners will pressure MLB to find a solution to the lack of competitiveness that plagues the league.

• Corporate sponsors’ names, logos, or both will appear on the uniform of at least one professional league in the United States.

• Collegiate athletics programs will figure out that they are also in the sport entertainment business and need to sell tickets.

(continued)

Crystal Ball Redux: By the Year 2012 (continued)• Women’s professional sport leagues will show little

“real” growth. • Cell phones and PDAs will become the ticket and credit

cards accepted at all major worldwide sport venues while continuing to be a valued source of interactive marketing and participation opportunities.

• At least one more major U.S. sport league will follow the lead of the NFL and hold its championship game at a neutral site. In addition, more All-Star Games will be located in major entertainment and tourism destinations both in the United States and abroad.

• The availability of national media outlets (i.e., regional sport television channels) and the lure of quick cash infusions will begin having a noticeable effect on top-tier high school athletics programs, which will schedule athletics contests on a national scale and “rent” athletes for 1- or 2-year terms to become attractions.