Monday, April 13, 2015

What Constitutes a “Successful Season” and Why Does It Matter?


“Wins Above Replacement;” "Pass-Completion Percentage;” “Defensive Win Shares;” The sports world seems to revolve around measurement even more than it did when some of us devoured the numbers on the backs of baseball cards. One key metric you may not find on the back of a card or in the spreadsheets of analysts  : “Successful Season.” How do we define such a thing?

Having a “Successful Season” matters a lot to sports marketers.  It’s necessarily imprecise, because it exists in the minds of supporters. It’s important, though, because their vibe about the previous season’s accomplishments fuels season ticket and sponsorship purchases for the following year’s campaign.

Some seasons make such evaluation simple. If a baseball team wins the World Series, or a football team the Champions League, or another kind of football team the Super Bowl, they have clearly experienced success. Only one team per sport earns those distinctions, however, and lots more need their fans to believe that the just-completed season sets them up for a satisfactory campaign-to-come.

Leagues (and entire sports) further their own success when they maximize the number of member teams fans consider to have had “good years.” It therefore follows that more than the one franchise that wins the year’s biggest trophy needs the ability to claim a satisfactory result.

Does winning more games than you lose constitute success? If you had a poor won-loss record the year before, it might. Improvement sells.

Most U.S. sports have playoffs, and a season that finishes in the end-of-season tournament generally creates a perception of success. The exception can lie with teams who have made the postseason a number of years running without winning big, as happened with the Atlanta Braves.(1)

It helps if you can claim a title, even if it isn’t the ultimate one. In American arena sports, if you win a division or conference title, you get to raise a banner the next year.

In European sports like soccer, you get lots of chances to win silverware.  You might win a continent-wide competition, one of a couple of domestic cups, or the domestic league itself.

In some U.S. sports with player drafts, faring extremely poorly can counterintuitively lead to a positive evaluation. If you “win” the opportunity to draft a Shaquille O’Neal or Mario Lemieux(2), the resulting expectations of immediate improvement can drive ticket sales. They can also fuel allegations of unsavory conduct, as in the cases of Patrick Ewing(3) and Hakeem Olajuwon(4).

In sports with relegation, the poorest teams have no path to positive spin. They drop to a lower league the following year. The overall effect of the system may prove positive, however, since an equal number of teams sell their fans the triumph of promotion and visits from Barcelonas or Chelseas the following season. Some number of teams who narrowly avoided relegation, especially recently promoted ones, can often declare a positive result to their year.

Qualifying for European play in itself often prompts supporters to have happy feelings about a season. Soccer clubs who fare well enough to earn high-profile weeknight games in the Champions League or Europa League have something special to sell to prospective ticket buyers.

The Europa League logo adorns Olympic Stadium ahead of a Lazio/Tottenham clash
College sports have several ways to declare success besides a national or conference title. Numerically speaking, advancing to a Final Four, Frozen Four, Elite 8, or Sweet Sixteen plays well. For many smaller schools, simply making it to a national tournament becomes a transcendent achievement. Bowl games have always seemed a genius way of setting up tons of schools to claim seasonal success. Time will tell if recent national football playoffs have removed the luster from the historically useful designation “bowl team."

Departure of key players can blunt the marketing impact of a strong collegiate season. Graduation rates, no matter how good, don’t seem to move a lot of tickets.

If your team hasn’t met one of the above criteria for in-season success, can you still have a successful offseason? Absent spending big money on free agents or transfers, one has to seek positive stories to tell. Customer-facing employees should know about young players who could break out and what the official company line is about scenarios under which a team could improve. Using social media to seem earnest about improvement and offering stories about individual players doing good things on- and off-field can help a brand’s image after a down year.

One can also take a page from minor league teams, where sales tend to revolve more around fan experience than winning. An emphasis on group tickets and community involvement becomes paramount.

Governing bodies have designed the likes of salary caps, international free agent restrictions, and Financial Fair Play to help engender the competitive balance that maximizes a given team’s chances of plausibly claiming that success awaits in the coming season.

As the saying goes, “everybody loves a winner.” The more leagues can ensure fans perceive that everyone IS a winner, the more success they will have.


Rush Olson has spent two decades directing creative efforts for sports teams and broadcasters. He currently creates ad campaigns and related creative projects for sports entities through his company, Rush Olson Creative & Sports.

RushOlson.com


Footnotes



(1) Demetrius Bell “Braves daily news digest 10/12: Attendance hits 10-year low,” Talking Chop.

(2) Tom McMillan “Lemieux Gives Pens Sign of Hope,” Pittsburgh Post-Gazette. http://penguins.nhl.com/club/news.htm?id=721633 (accessed April 3, 2015)

(3) “Draft Conspiracy Delivers Ewing to Knicks?,” Lost Lettermen. http://www.lostlettermen.com/article/video-1985-nba-lottery-bent-envelope-ewing-knicks (accessed April 3, 2015)

(4) Dannie “Coin Flip to Lottery: Did the Rockets Tank to Get Olajuwon?,” The Recliner GM Sports Blog. https://reclinergm.wordpress.com/2008/01/19/coin-flip-to-lottery-did-the-rockets-tank-to-get-olajuwon/ (accessed April 3, 2015)


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