The Great Wide Open: A Primer on the Sports Digital Marketing

In February of 2010, I was recruited by Full Sail University to create a program for educating prospective graduates to have success in the sports industry.  We had to determine whether that degree program would involve sports management, sports business, sports production or something else.  We conducted a four month marketing campaign in which we talked to hundreds of people from the industry, who with near unanimity indicated that they were having all kinds of difficulty negotiating the digital landscape.  Similarly, they reported that they were having difficulty connecting their Generation X sales and sponsorship teams with the need to engage both their Millennial-aged fan base and their clients who want to engage that fan base.  Those businesses obviously include sports franchises, but also merchandisers, networks, agencies and their brethren.

The move into the digital arena, for nebulous topics like branding and engagement, as well as for specific initiatives like sales, is at once a thrilling opportunity and an enormous undertaking which is both inconvenient and expensive.  In the most broad definition of digital marketing, the topic covers an incredibly wide swath of areas for any sports businesses.  For businesses like a franchise, this is an intimidating gamut of possibilities to entertain.  It is problematic because the very idea of digital marketing runs counter to how their most experienced sales people have been trained.  And it is additionally problematic because any dollar wasted on a failed marketing campaign is one dollar less than that franchise can spend on improving the quality of its on-field organization.  It is more so when we think beyond the front line of major professional sports teams and start looking into minor league teams and less popular circuits that often operate with even tighter margins.

These kinds of businesses need counseling both for strategy and for specific activations, which is why some larger agencies have developed divisions exclusively dedicated to digital marketing and why other smaller agencies have popped up to fill different niches within the larger topic.  That said, there should be openings for new businesses to consult and connect sports properties with products -- and vice versa -- to help create strategies specifically designed to maximize exposure and revenue generation.  Those revenue generation opportunities could include traditional marketing options and modern online marketing techniques including "social media, blogging, SEO, PPC, branding, content marketing, video marketing and app creation." (Perrin, 2012).

Larger companies have faced similar quandaries, but have had better success entering the digital arena, in part because they have larger margins of error.  It is interesting, because so often when there are technological evolutions and revolutions, innovation comes from the ground up.  In the digital media landscape, market leaders like ESPN and Nike are leading the way, from different parts of the business.  Nike has reduced its famous television ad campaigns to reach customers through a variety of digital products that track analytics and communicate directly with users. (Image from Cendrowski, 2012).

ESPN is trying to lead the way in digital application of technology, and finding new ways to connect with fans through advances in production and collaboration, many of which give fans opportunities to have direct P2P feedback with the network.  (Videos from Lynch, 2012)

These ESPN innovations may not be digital marketing, per se, in that we aren't creating quantifiable metrics based on clicks and generated leads, but if we are considering digital marketing for sports in its broadest possible terms -- all of the ways in which sports businesses interact with fans and clients -- than we absolutely need to understand the importance of connecting with those consumers in this way.

What this tells us, as observers of the industry, is that there is little limit to what may lie ahead concerning the role of digital application for sports and sports marketing.  As the creator of a program which proposes to graduate future members of the labor force for this industry, my job is to continue to monitor and receive feedback from the industry, to make sure that the students who leave this program understand -- in the academic sense -- what matters in the industry and what skill sets are going to matter in the future of the industry.  Today's students need exposure to as many of these areas as possible, with the hope that they will discover their own particular passions and niches in which they can be successful.



REFERENCES

Cendrowski, S. (2012, February 13). Nike's new marketing mojo. Fortune, Retrieved from http://management.fortune.cnn.com/2012/02/13/nike-digital-marketing/

Lynch, C. (2012, June 11). Learn how ESPN tackles tech problems, fosters innovation. Retrieved from http://frontrow.espn.go.com/tag/espn-emerging-technology/

Perrin, J. (2012, July 23). How digital marketing is changing the sports industry. Retrieved from http://www.koozai.com/blog/branding/how-digital-marketing-is-changing-the-sports-industry/

The Perils of New Media: Who counts?

Issuing season-long credentials for sporting events used to be a relatively simple task.  Public Relations managers passed out press box, locker room and/or limited access badges for a handful of regular beat writers, reporters, television stations and radio stations.  Occasionally, they would hand out one-time passes to smaller publications from outlying communities, student magazines and newspapers and national outlets.  Without going into excess detail as to how this worked, the news outlets would submit written requests to the team or organization, which, if completed correctly and with the authority of station and newsroom management, would be rubber-stamped by the team.

That has changed over the last five to ten years, with the mainstreaming of blogs, internet columnists, and various other types of self-publishers who write, comment and consider themselves to be experts about a broad range of individual topics, including sports.  This has presented a dilemma for sports franchises and organizations.  On the one hand, the dilemma is philosophical: what is now considered to be an acceptable news organization?  Is a new blogger with a large following any less legitimate than a small suburban newspaper that may be long established but has a diminishing and older readership?  If the team considers the blogger to be simply an uninformed commentator taking cheap shots from the laptop in his basement, aren’t they doing their team a disservice by NOT granting access so that blogger can be MORE informed? 

The dilemma is also practical: press boxes and locker rooms have limited space, and especially when teams garner lots of attention, such as in the playoffs, how do the teams decide who has access and who does not?  There is then a third question, which is about the ethics of credential distribution: does a team that issues credentials have the right to bar members of the press, especially those that communicate through new and social media, if they write or report items unfavorable to the team?

There are several instances that involved this kind of ethical questions between organizations and journalists, including a highly publicized incident between a team and a mainstream traditional media outlet that occurred in the 2004 MLB playoffs.  But two even more recent examples highlight the difficulty inherent in these kinds of conflicts, and an industry that has been slow to respond effectively and efficiently to a new media world.

The first such example started promisingly.  The National Hockey League’s Los Angeles Kings have been among the most creative and aggressive early adopters of new and social media.  On their way to the Stanley Cup Championship this past June, the Kings’ often outrageous and snarky twitter feed gained rave reviews for its personality and its willingness to challenge the voice and tone of typical in-house communication mechanisms.  They mix that tone with a more traditional offering of game updates, collateral offerings and more.  In 2009, recognizing that that they had the ability to create their own messaging through their team-owned portals, they hired the former Kings’ beat reporter for the Los Angeles Times, Rich Hammond, to provide written content for their team website, essentially creating their own beat reporter.  Hammond told the regional webzine insidesocal.com that he was not pressured to follow a party line, and that the Kings had always told him “to report and write as normal”.

This past summer, however, Hammond felt he needed to part ways with his role.  Hammond wrote critically about the ongoing NHL lockout in a Q and A with Kings’ forward Kevin Westgarth that has since been removed from the Kings’ website.  The league itself said the post needed to be removed because as a team employee, he had to abide by the league’s rules of not discussing the lockout publicly.  Hammond stressed to insidesocal.com that the Kings did not pressure him at all.  Still, Hammond felt he needed to resign because he couldn’t do the job the way he felt was necessary.  The Kings, to their credit, thanked Hammond in a statement and said his performance "a partner in building a new platform for LAKings.com epitomized integrity, work ethic and vision, and at no time did he waver from his goals and commitment to his readership." (Hoffarth, 2012).  The team also put up a video tribute to Hammond on their website.

Contrast that with what happened a few months after the Kings hired Hammond.  In 2008, the New York Islanders and their Public Relations manager Chris Botta parted ways after he had served the team for 15 years.  With the Islanders blessing and financing, Botta started up a blog called NYIpointblank.com.  The team, which had been in dire competitive straits, benefitted from the additional attention and from the media void filled by Botta’s blog.  In 2009, the team stopped financing the blog, but Botta kept writing.  In November of 2010, the Islanders revoked Botta’s media credentials, for reasons that remain unclear.  Botta believes he lost his credentials because he had criticized General Manager Garth Snow.  He quoted the Islanders’ new Communications Manager, Kimber Auerbach, telling Botta that the team was concerned that Botta had gone from “publicizing the news, to making the news.”  (Sandomir, 2010).  The league declined to investigate or intervene, incurring the wrath of the Professional Hockey Writers Association.  Botta’s media brethren that follow the New York Rangers and New Jersey Devils joined the Islanders’ beat reporting crew in boycotting the league’s 2011 Awards Ceremony and in refusing to vote for the league’s awards.

What’s interesting in both cases is that the NHL, far more than the other major professional leagues in the United States, has been at the forefront of exploring new media and in trying to find different streams to engage their partners and fans.  But their policies regarding media and how they operate in this stream is particularly draconian.  Award-winning writer and historian Terry Frei, columnist for the Denver Post and Vice-President of the PHWA, articulately wrote in a blog post (Frei, 2011):

Our concern is that this decision, if allowed to stand and become precedent, signals an end to the league’s agreement that independent and objective coverage not only benefits its fan base, but the NHL itself.

The PHWA’s position is absolute. The splitting of hairs about the circumstances of the Islanders’ decision is an irrelevant waste of time. We ask that the NHL disavow the Islanders’ capricious decision in this specific instance, but even more important, reaffirm that -– barring egregious actions that would cause the PHWA to expel a member, anyway -- PHWA members will be granted access to cover its teams.

Admittedly, the media world has become far more complicated.  We can only hope that the NHL and others who control media access can learn quickly from their mistakes.

RESOURCES

1.  Cohen, D. (2009, September 28). Los Angeles Kings hire former beat writer to cover team. Social Times, DOI: socialtimes.com

2. Frei, T. (2011, April 4). New twist in Islanders' decision to revoke credential from reporter. Retrieved from thepostgame.com

3.Hoffarth, T. (2012, October 11). Was the NHL about to compromise the integrity of Kings' "insider" Hammond. Inside Socal, DOI: insidesocal.com

4.Sandomir, R. (2010, November 18). Struggling Islanders revoke blogger's credentials. New York Times. Retrieved from nytimes.com

LINKS

http://www.thepostgame.com/blog/daily-take/201104/new-twist-islanders-decision-revoke-credential-reporter

http://socialtimes.com/los-angeles-kings-hire-former-beat-writer-to-cover-team_b50694

http://www.insidesocal.com/tomhoffarth/archives/2012/10/more-on-why-the.html

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/11/19/sports/hockey/19botta.html?_r=0

They Fought the Law

As a sports fan, I’m interested in the pure motivation of sport and sport stories – and I’m talking here about the victorious struggle of athletes as they overcome external obstacles and internal limitations.  I love the big games and the big moments, and when athletes rise to their greatest level of performance on their sport’s biggest stage. There is beauty that lies within. 

There is similar beauty that appeals to my sports business sense, and that beauty lies in the well-executed deal, which includes really well articulated legal constructs that give protections and benefits to all sides in a contract.  The public often doesn’t hear that much about these kinds of structures because those conflicts don’t become news unless one party or another oversteps their bounds without relief. 

            On the flip side, there are all kinds of legal issues that do make it into the public consciousness, whether those are criminal issues, or issues of fraud or breach of contract, or other tortuous issues.  Those issues underscore how freakishly large the business of sports has become, and in one recent instance it shows how an individual case can shake an organization down to its core – even it that organization is the biggest, and seemingly most bulletproof organization in sports.

            Over this past summer, an NFL investigation uncovered that the New Orleans Saints conducted a bounty system in which the team gave financial rewards to roughly two dozen players for hard hits and hits that caused injuries to opposing players.  That investigation led to unparalleled suspensions for coaches and players who organized and carried out these bounties over the course of three years. (Holder, 2012).  Goodell’s justification for the suspensions is that he would be putting the league at risk if he didn’t punish a team for running a bounty program, particularly at a time when the league is facing a barrage of lawsuits from former players regarding concussion injuries.

            That’s just the opening hint of how numerous the legal issues could be, and we could break down a lot of those legal aspects on an individual basis.  But the overriding issue is that of the fairness of the NFL’s judicial process, and whether or not NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell has overstepped his bounds, even if he believes he is acting in the best interest of both the league and all of the players. 

            According to the Collective Bargaining Agreement between the players and the league, the players have given permission for Goodell to act as investigator, judge and jury in these kinds of cases.  That means that the players do have rights to appeal findings in cases like these, but the appeal is to Goodell himself. 

(In actuality, the way this played out was that the players were first suspended in May.  An arbitration panel then overturned the suspensions, but allowed Goodell to reinstate them if he could prove that the Saints had created a culture where there was an intent to injure.  This past week, Goodell did just that, though he reduced the length of two of the suspensions.  The players have now appealed the suspensions, which allows them to play, or at least to get paid, while they await a final verdict).

Though they agreed to the process, the NFLPA continues to gripe that the content and context of the evidence is insufficient, which it may very well be for a court of law.  But it is worth pointing out that this is not a court of law, but rather a court of the Commissioner.  (Brandt, 2012)

Here is where it gets really interesting – the player facing the longest and most harsh suspension, Jonathan Vilma, has asked Commissioner Goodell to recuse himself of the NFL’s appeal process.  It’s a fascinating gambit with no real legal basis other than in the court of public opinion.  In the meantime, all four players have sued the league in federal court.  (Brandt, 2009). U.S. District Court Judge Ginger Berrigan has said that she believes that the NFL’s judiciary structure does not allow due process, though she adds that she wants the sides to work through that structure before she hears the case in its entirety. (N.D., 2012).

So now that the players have appealed, the NFL has said it will respond within ten days.  If those appeals are denied, as is expected, the process will continue in the courtroom.  At that point, not too many good things can happen, but the most likely is that the process continues with no resolution all the way to the league’s biggest showpiece, the Super Bowl, which won’t be pretty for the league.

That’s especially true this year, because the Super Bowl is in New Orleans.

ADDITIONAL RESOURCES

1. Brandt, A. (2012, October 9). Is bounty scandal far from finished?. Retrieved from ESPN.com

2. Chadiha, J. (2012, October 5). Saints were snared by their own words. Retrieved from ESPN.com

3. Cherry, G. (2012, October 12). NFL-bounty scandal players appeal latest suspensions. Retrieved from Chicagotribune.com

4. Holder, L. (2012, October 12). 4 suspended players connected to Saints bounty scandal to file appeals, source says. Retrieved from NOLA.com

5. N.D., Appeal seeks roger goodell recusal. (2012, October 12). Retrieved from ESPN.com

6. Yaskinsas, P. (2012, October 9. Saints players should take punishment, move on. Retrieved from ESPN.com