Creating a Sports Business Superstar

This post originally appeared on the Fort Worth Convention and Visitors Bureau blog. To read on that site : http://www.fortworth.com/blog/post/2016/20/Marketing-Fort-Worth-as-a-Sports-Destination/1254/



Sports fans come from all fifty states and a number of foreign countries to enjoy themselves at Texas Motor Speedway. Visitors from out of town can do business there, too, thanks to the track's numerous hospitality options. It turns out an out-of-towner can even start a sports company at the Fort Worth venue.

We discovered this fact while talking to one of the participants at the Fort Worth Convention and Visitor's Bureau's inaugural Sports Huddle event. The luncheon celebrated both the speedway's 20th anniversary and the recent announcement that the CVB had created Fort Worth Sports Marketing, a new department within the bureau.

The entrepreneur in question was NASCAR driver Kevin Harvick. It turns out that his KHI Management began its MMA business with a meeting at a TMS race.

 

 
"The UFC side of things started right here at Texas Motor Speedway," Harvick explained to the media. "I had my first conversation with (UFC fighter) Donald (Cerrone) over a beer in the infield here at Texas. That progressed into him asking us to help him manage his day-to-day activity."

Harvick's company now works with MMA fighters (including Ultimate Fighting Championship Women's Bantamweight Champion Miesha Tate), golfers, singers, on-air talent, and even an up-and-coming motocross rider.

The CVB's new initiative aims to bring big sports names to town (like Harvick's) while also appealing to grassroots and developing sports enterprises (also like Harvick's).
"We have a lot to be proud of in Fort Worth," Bureau President and CEO Bob Jameson explained to the audience. "The CVB is launching the sports marketing department to help us continue to grow this segment and to further develop the economic impact that comes with that."

Texas Motor Speedway President Eddie Gossage has done sports business and brought in out-of-town guests to do theirs in Cowtown for, as the occasion commemorated, 20 years. He hopes his events contribute to the economic impact Jameson envisions.

"We spend $70 million a year getting tourists to town. Once they get here, they've got to decide where are they going to go? Where are they going to stay? Where are they going to go in the evenings to eat?" Gossage said."We're in Fort Worth and we want them to go to Fort Worth and spend their money."

The new sports marketing department shares Gossage's goal, and hopes to use the appeal of sport to bring more of those visitors and their money to Fort Worth. They feel the city has a lot to offer those who work in the world of athletic competition.

"This turns into a really big event (AAA Texas 500 occruing annually in April) because it's a really big market, not only for the race, but for our sponsors. There's always a lot of customers that show up to the race track," said Harvick. "It's definitely a place that everybody pays a lot of attention to and a lot of focus (is) put on it."

 

TMS often emphasizes that there are reasons to pay attention to the facility throughout the year and not just on race weekends. Fort Worth Sports Marketing aims to get sports-minded travelers to consider the town as whole a year-round destination as well. They see it as a place where firms can conduct sports business or, as Kevin Harvick and now the CVB have done, even launch one.

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


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Harlequins : Onside with Rugby in the U.S.

We have a special video blog this week, created in conjunction with our partners at the Fort Worth Weekly and Ludisian Legion Entertainment. It's got interesting sports business insights and sound bites from a cool kid we met.

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

Linkedin.com/company/rush-olson-creative-&-sports

Facebook.com/RushOlsonCreativeandSports

You Like Beer

This post originally appeared on the Blotch page at the Fort Worth Weekly. To read it on their site : http://www.fwweekly.com/2015/08/04/rangers-ballpark-beer-map/

You like beer. I feel confident making such an assertion because you’re reading a sports column. Sponsorship Today reports global beer brands spend $1.4 billion annually sponsoring sports properties. They would spend those sponsorship dollars on musical theatre or societies for creative anachronism if it made sense, but sports fans are the ones consuming a lot of suds.

As a public service, then, I’ve decided to start an occasional series of blog posts in which I will offer you guidance about where to acquire beer while attending your favorite sporting events. My kitchen cabinet populated with plastic Rangers souvenir cups prompted me to start at Globe Life Park in Arlington.

When a beer company sponsors a sports team, it also typically negotiates an agreement for favorable placement of its product within the team’s venue(s). You won’t have a difficult time guessing who scored the deal at Globe Life Park. You can’t flee an errant line drive without careening into Anheuser Busch products and signage.

Unless you’re, say, PeeWee Herman, and have a real thing for bowties, you care more about the product than the signage, so we’ll focus on the liquid refreshment. Entering through any gate but Center Field, you can walk straight ahead and encounter small stands stocked with Bud-branded goodies on ice, including ZiegenBock.

If you enter through Center Field Gate by the office building, you’ll walk smack through the Budweiser Bowtie, a concession area in which they sell food and, well, yeah, beer.

So basically you can buy a beer within seconds after you enter the ballpark. And, as noted at the top of this column, you like beer.

So now you have an aluminum bottle to enjoy while walking the concourse scouting out where you might get your next one. Before we proceed further, we want to mention some important safety tips with which you should familiarize yourself. First of all, the Budweiser Good Sport program offers rewards to designated drivers. Inquire at the guest relations office near Mazda Home Plate Gate.

Secondly, the concessionaire sells enough food products at that stadium to feed Mr. Creosote for a year. They have more than 100 concession stands, some selling comestibles the size of your labradoodle. When you can access a Choomongous, the Rangers 2-foot Korean beef sandwich named after outfielder Shin Soo Choo, you have no excuse for drinking on an empty stomach. Thirdly, you’ll find the cabstand outside Southwest Airlines Third Base Gate (or you can have an usher find it for you). Fourthly, there are, by my count, at least 189 restrooms in the stadium, if you include the suites, the clubhouses, and the office building. Your gender may disqualify you from using some of them, but you should still easily find a WC toward which to stumble if you’ve filled your bladder.

Since you probably finished that first brew while reading the last paragraph, you’ll want to assess your options for a refill. Turn left or right after entering at any gate and you’ll find a few of the aforementioned concession stands, each with taps primarily dispensing standard Bud products, like Bud Light. The Rangers must sell a lot of Bud Light. If you’re in that “Up For Whatever” kind of mood, you can satisfy your BL jones a lot of places.

How about if you crave something different? Maybe you’ve progressed past the point of choosing the cheap Arlington Stadium bleacher tickets so you could afford more paper cups of suds? Luckily, the craft beer revolution has not bypassed the Rangers’ current stadium.

Casey Rapp serves as Operations Manager for SportsService, the company that manages concession and merchandise sales for Globe Life Park in Arlington. He provided me some info on the variety of barley/hops available there.

“Section 18 has the biggest selection on draft and it’s called Major League Brewhouse,” he wrote me. “We rotate the draft, but there are local beers like Franconia, Real Ale, Deep Ellum, Revolver, Karbach, St Arnold’s, and other craft beers like Alaskan, 90 Shilling, and the list goes on and on.”

You’ll find Major League Brewhouse on the ground-level concourse near Southwest Airlines Third Base Gate, and the nearby 3rd Base Alehouse also serves a variety of drafts, bottles, and cans. If you’ve entered via Southwest Airlines First Base Gate, turn left and you’ll quickly happen upon the Beers of the World stand, near the entrance to mid-30s numbered seating sections, offering a number of beery options.

Incidentally, if you have some members of your party who prefer vino, you’ll find a wine stand across the concourse from Beers of the World. Such is Anheuser Busch’s dominance that they even sell Shock Top and Bud Light at the wine stand.

If you enter from Mazda Home Plate Gate and want something out of the ordinary, turn right and go just past the Pro Shop, across from the entrance to the good seats in the upper 20s sections. You’ll find the LandShark Lager stand. In addition to its namesake, the kiosk can sell you a draught of Montejo, Stella Artois Cidre, and the obligatory Bud Light.

Hard by Greene’s Hill (the grassy expanse in the batter’s eye named after a former Arlington politician) in centerfield resides the Beers of Texas stand, headlined by ZiegenBock. The location also offers some Shiner, Lone Star, and Lakewood brews. Rapp informs me they have such stands near sections 25, 51, 210, and 328 as well.

On the other side of the Hyundai Club from Beers of Texas, you’ll find the Centerfield Alehouse, just across from the Centerfield Market. It features, among other offerings, Stella Artois on tap. Its cooler includes cans of Modelo Especial, Heineken, Corona, 312 Urban Wheat Ale, and more.

If you visit the Lexus Club Level, there are a handful of stands and barlets that serve suds. The small bars offer a chance to enjoy some air conditioning as you order your beverage. I took special note of the left field emplacement, as it replaced my previous favorite spot in the ballpark, the ersatz Irish pub known as the Dublin Up. The new incarnation is Shock Top branded and offers its namesake’s varieties on draft as well as Bud Light.

If you choose to remain in your seats, SportService will have 75 or so beer vendors at a typical game to bring beer-filled aluminum receptacles to your very row. Rapp tells us, “You can get Bud Light, Budweiser, ZiegenBock, Michelob Ultra, Shock Top, LandShark, and the Rita family.” The Rita family means Bud Light with citrus favors. Be sure to tip the vendor something. Rita family members are heavy to carry around.

If you get up to go to one of the aforementioned necessaries, you may encounter a roaming beverage cart. Mr. Rapp tells us, “there are four on the lower level, one on the club level and three on the upper deck.  They roam each baseline, stopping to make sales on the concourse. You can get all the same things you can get from a vendor, plus wine.”

Rapp also tells me I can find Firemans #4, Rahr’s Blonde, Rahr Pride of Texas Pale Ale, and Deep Ellum Brewing Company’s Dallas Blonde in cans on portable carts.

What if you spend some of your evening in one of the onsite clubs? Of course, in the likes of the Captain Morgan Club, the Jack Daniel’s Club, and the Capital One Club, they serve beer. Casey Rapp describes it as a “wide array.” He also notes they often have Shock Top seasonal on draft, including Lemon Shandy, Banana, and Pretzel depending the time of year.

We’ve established that sports fans like yourself really like malted beverages, and a lot of folks like you attend every game. How can you feel certain the Rangers won’t run out of beer? Rapp assured me they keep a three-day supply at every game and can get same-day deliveries if needed. Whew.

Here’s one final note, for the benefit of Michael Newquist and the Fort Worth Weekly sales staff:  if you’re a beer brand, consider sponsoring this column. The people who read it like your product.

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.


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How The WNBA Can Succeed in North Texas

This post originally appeared on the Blotch page at the Fort Worth Weekly. To read it on their site : http://www.fwweekly.com/2015/07/28/sports-how-the-wnba-can-succeed-in-north-texas/

It’s got the makings of a great story. Oklahoma girl, originally from Detroit, leaves the hinterlands of Northwest OK and heads to the big city in Texas to make her fortune.

We recently learned of such a story in the offing, although it involves not one girl, but rather several women (really tall ones at that). The ladies in question play basketball for the Tulsa Shock of the Women’s National Basketball Association and the team’s owner announced last week he wants to move the franchise to North Texas. They expect to play home games at UT-Arlington’s College Park Center.

To that, I say super. It means more high-quality basketball in the area, with visits from the best women’s players in the world. It also pleases me because I have two nieces who like hoops and could benefit from the chance to observe, and become invested in, a team of that caliber.

So I hope the team does well, but they should know success won’t come easily. Local arenas are strewn with remnants of pro teams that have come and gone. I still own Fort Worth Fire jerseys and a Fort Worth Cavalry golf shirt. Maybe your attic houses a Fort Worth Cats cap (old or modern) or a Dallas Chaparrals program your dad bought. To help the A-Town Shock (or whatever decide to call themselves) avoid the fate of, say, the Dallas-Fort Worth Spurs, I put together a committee to make some recommendations.

It’s a committee of two. I got a spot because I write this column and because I did broadcasting work for a lot of the defunct teams and marketing work for some of the ones still in existence. The better half of the committee (in so many ways) is Nancy Lieberman. She made the cut because she’s in the dang Basketball Hall of Fame, she played pro ball here, and she knows a heck of a lot about the WNBA and hoops in general. I also picked her (blatant plug alert) because she runs a really great foundation that helps a lot of kids. I’ve done some videos for it and helped at some NLF events.

Lieberman pointed out “You get one chance to do it right,” which means the team has to hit the ground running and have a good plan.

Let’s start with the challenges. This seems like an attractive market because of its large population and affinity for sports. The NFL, NHL, NBA, MLB, and MLS certainly liked the looks of it and their teams have shown staying power here. The newest of the Big Five pro franchises, the one I wish they still called the Dallas Burn, has lasted in the area since 1996.

In 1992, the new Central Hockey League began with, among others, the Fort Worth Fire, Dallas Freeze, and Tulsa Oilers. The Oilers won the league’s first championship and still reported drawing 5,479 fans a game last year despite never having won another title. The Fire and Freeze exist only in my closet, I think. I might still have a Fire puckhead somewhere.

The point is that the North Texas market is a lot different from Tulsa and so are the teams that stick here long term. The Shock moved to Tulsa from Detroit, so they could have some institutional memory about the challenges of sharing a large media market with teams from the country’s dominant sports leagues. In fact, Lieberman coached them their first three seasons in Motown. She had a strong opinion about the most important thing they could do to start carving a local niche.

“Grassroots, grassroots, gassroots!,” she said emphatically. Trust me, you could hear the exclamation point in her voice.

She suggested the team be everywhere from “camps to birthday parties.” She cited a model used by the NBA D-League team with which she is affiliated.

“Every team in the WNBA should borrow from the Texas Legends,” she said, noting also their kid-oriented approach to game presentation

My top point of emphasis relates closely to Lieberman’s: “Group tickets, group tickets, group tickets!” I didn’t actually say that out loud, but if I did, you would hear the exclamation point.

They can’t monetize their grassroots strategy without building in reasons to come to a game. Not only does a solid groups strategy allow a team to sell a bunch of tickets at once, but it can do so before the season starts. Preseason sales offer some revenue certainty that isn’t subject to the vicissitudes of a won/loss record.

Speaking of “Ws,” that “W” in WNBA matters. It’s a point of differentiation for the team brand. Lieberman pointed out one has to “get with the parents who are going to send their kids to you.” Parents who see value in inspiring their girls to pursue sports and fitness would seem a vital community outreach target.

Geography matters when it comes to the grassroots outreach. A WNBA team will have the advantage of being the most high-profile women’s pro team in the area, so they can draw some fans from throughout North Texas. Because the area is so enormous, however, driving distances will discourage fans in East Dallas and the northern suburbs from coming to games in Arlington. The Shock, then, need a solid strategy for establishing a base of fans near where they play. I’d start a lot of the grassroots activity by identifying pockets of likely ticket buyers in Arlington, Grand Prairie, and eastern Fort Worth.

They must keep regional tensions in mind as well. The Cowboys can play in Tarrant County and get away with having “Dallas” for a first name. Another team that tried that would risk alienating potential fans in Fort Worth and its environs.

The size of this media market can seem daunting as well. Going beyond the grassroots in Tulsa by, say, buying TV ads or airtime to broadcast games, incurs costs appropriate to the 61st largest media market. In North Texas, top-five market costs mean major sticker, um, shock. One has to pay to reach millions of viewers/listeners who live too far away to drive to many games. Big-market media costs make a more targeted PR strategy really important (and grassroots outreach, too).

The franchise will still want earned media attention, certainly, and an NBA-affiliated entity offers advantages there that are unavailable to, say, the Grand Prairie Airhogs. But one has to keep in mind that the media will expect major-market service. The D-League’s Fort Worth Flyers, for instance, didn’t put an emphasis on PR support. They lasted two seasons (with lack of media savvy helping compound lots of other issues).

One tricky part, then, of operating in this market is that one has to act major league without having the budget of a team that generates substantial TV revenue and draws 18,000 fans a night. Lieberman believes that doesn’t have to be an insurmountable problem.

“Even if you don’t have the budget, what you have to do (to be major-league) is work hard,” she said. The Shock do have to go the extra mile as a little fish in a big pond, and have to show creativity as well. For instance, they may not be able to afford to shell out the scads of money the Mavs spend to produce scoreboard features, but digital technology has made it possible to create really good ones much less expensively than ever before. Quality concepts can make up for lack of cash outlay.

Part of the hard work element comes in the form of digital strategy (creativity is pretty important here, too). A strong social media plan, one that goes hand-in-hand with the grassroots fan engagement plans, is a must, especially with a spread-out fan base and high traditional-media costs. Constant updates and new features require a significant time commitment.

So, to summarize, here’s what our committee thinks the team needs to do to succeed:

1.      Get involved in the grassroots (with an exclamation point).

2.      Sell group tickets like crazy.

3.      Understand the market and overcome its challenges with creativity and hard work.

One thing I didn’t add to the above list: Win.

Winning a lot of games never hurts, but finishing first is actually not as important at driving fans as it is for the Mavs or Rangers. The Shock won three titles in Detroit and moved. The Houston Comets won four and folded. Establishing a loyal fanbase matters more than even championships.

Lieberman won a title in this area in the WABA and also led a team to the WBL finals. Her Dallas Diamonds drew sustainable crowds but the rest of those leagues did not. Since the current well-established NBA-backed women’s league seems unlikely to fold like those earlier circuits, the Shock would seem to have a chance at success.

For the record, Lieberman thinks they will. “(Owner) Bill Cameron is a wonderful person,” she said. She believes he will put a plan in place to turn the move to Arlington into a success story. Heeding the recommendations she made in this piece would probably be a great place for Mr. Cameron to start.

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.

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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.

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Footnotes

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

http://www.talkingchop.com/2014/10/12/6964075/braves-daily-news-digest-10-12-attendance-hits-10-year-low (accessed April 3, 2015)

⁽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)