Ultimately, everything in the sports industry or any industry for that matter all leads to sales because if you can’t sell the product then you don’t have a business.

So what can you sell in sports? Why does sports need salesmen, can’t it sell itself?

Sports sells everything, literally everything. It sells everything from tickets to suites to an experience to sponsorships to athletes to agents to employees to concessions to all kinds of sports products. It takes a lot of skills to convince people to buy things. Some people are stingy with their money and some are willing to pay whatever, you have to figure out which type of customer you’re dealing with. Have you ever tried to persuade someone to do or buy something? I have and it’s pretty hard. One specific example of this is like the draft in professional sports. The people in charge of trading players, picks, and rounds in the draft have to be well-equipped in being able to negotiate and persuade. You really have to be able to play the game and have a poker face when it comes to negotiating. A great movie to watch in order to really understand this process and what I’m talking about is “Draft Day” with actor, Kevin Costner. I would highly recommend this movie. It not only gives you insight into what goes on during draft season but shows you what the teams go through in negotiating the players. Sometimes when negotiating, you win some and you lose some. Somewhat stepping aside from the draft and still discussing negotiations, I’ll touch on the recent trade that the Cowboys made for Amari Cooper. The Cowboys traded a first round draft pick for “one of the best wide receivers in the NFL”. They acquired a much needed wide receiver but lost a first round draft pick. Was it worth it? Was it a good trade? Only time will tell, but for now it seems like a good deal.

I think one of the greatest salesman in the world is Jerry Jones. He is the epitome of an entrepreneur. He can get people to pay whatever he wants them to even high prices because he creates things that people want to experience and be a part of. What has he done? He makes a connection to the fans and created an awareness of his products.

The main key to sales is connecting to the customer. Finding a connection helps people feel more comfortable and comfort leads to trust and trust usually leads to buying. In the past, I have worked in a sales office and got to listen in on the phone conversations they had when they called their customers. They were selling season tickets for a professional football team. Before every phone call, they would read up on the clients like of past conversations they had so they could connect to the client. They would call their customer and ask how their kids were or how their trip was just to make sure their client knew that they cared about them. The best thing you can do when trying to make a sale or connecting to people is ask questions and let them talk about themselves. Another secret to sales and to people is that most people LOVE talking about themselves.

As far as recognition, sports products and sports teams can pretty much sell themselves on their name alone. But another big part of getting customers to buy is getting them to recognize and familiarize themselves with brands. If teams or products have a promotion or something new, awareness is important. Salesmen and marketers are meant to create interest and awareness because despite people thinking that sports can sell itself, everyone needs a little nudge.

A little recap keys on sales: when negotiating know the pros/cons and try to always have the upper hand, be able to connect with your client, and create awareness for what you’re trying to sell.

Or more like connecting to the fans. Fans are what keep sports alive. Fans are the driving force behind what the organizations focus on and who the players are playing for (besides the money, of course). Without fans, what would become of sports? Nothing, that’s right. So how do teams, sports organizations, athletes, and everything that goes into the production of sports keep the fans wanting more?

Other than fan loyalty, which always plays a huge part in who fans follow and like, it’s about how the players perform and how the fans perceive them. Sure, some people call it jumping on the band wagon but when a player performs and puts on a good show people notice and become fans. The concept behind this is perspectives and perception. One of the biggest sellers in sports is perceptions and the way things are viewed like whether it’s a good athlete or a product of good quality. Quality sells. The better the athletes like Odell Beckham Jr. or Ezekiel Elliot perform the more fans, even fans from different teams, follow them. Some fans of sports are fans of the athletes and not necessarily a particular team or vice versa or both. However, as the athletes with high profiles are being recognized individually, they are also promoting their teams. That is one of the biggest selling points for a team to draw in fans: players. For instance, Juventus is a known European soccer team. But fans began to recognize the team even more when they signed one of the best soccer players in the world, Cristiano Ronaldo. Now fans recognize it even more as a high quality and top of the line organization just because of their perception of one player.

That’s one of the biggest things that all types of organizations want and need is fans and for everyone to have a good perception of them. Why do you think Nike and Adidas and those types of organizations sign the most famous athletes to endorse their brand? Because it gives fans a certain perspective of their brand. Nike is one of the best at marketing their products. They are known for their emotional TV commercials that pull on your heart strings and pull in the viewers. Now, whether these methods actually work is subjective but it does make you remember the brand. It also gives you a certain perception of who they are and what they believe which is great until they pull a controversial stunt like using Colin Kaepernick in one of their ads. However, I’m sure the story will just blow over soon because they have a certain reputation and presence in the world that might be able to surpass even a poor attempt at publicity.

Another thing that organizations and sports teams do to give fans better perspectives of them is community outreach. This gets the players and brands involved with their fans giving them a feeling of connection. It’s more of a hands on approach to attract fans. In professional soccer, when the starting players line up for the national anthem before the game, usually a player is assigned a little kid that gets to walk out on the field with them. This not only gives the kid a once in a lifetime experience but makes the teams look good to the fans. Fans want to believe and commit their loyalty to a team or even a brand that they can brag about. No one wants to be associated with something that has a bad reputation.

If you can’t get the fans committed and excited about something then you’re not doing something right.

How do sporting goods companies continue to thrive and survive? It’s like they know exactly what the people want. So what’s their strategy?

Let’s talk about sporting goods companies and their key to making it in our economy today. The best word to describe their success is SEGMENTATION. Segmentation is where the companies segment their target markets and cater to those market needs and wants. Everyone in any type of business needs a target. They need to have a focus. For example, Nike, Adidas, Under Armour and all of those companies would be more likely to promote soccer related products in Europe than the United States where they would promote football or basketball related products. It’s because soccer isn’t as popular in the U.S. as it is in Europe and football and basketball aren’t as big in Europe as they are in the United States. Soccer is on the come up in the United States though.

Most people are aware of the big names in the industry so awareness isn’t really their biggest issue. They create goods that people need and want. So they have to find things that make them stick out from their competitors. This is where community relations and actions like that from companies come into play.

Nike says that their target market is “all athletes”. Nike’s largest market is North America. They focus on 4 specific market segmentations that are: geographic, demographic, behavioral, and psychographic. They use things like athletes, commercials, and ads to target specific types of people. Nike does a very good job of marketing their equipment and giving back to the community. Their motivation behind this is to have everyone wearing their product despite whether they can afford it or not.

Adidas target an age group of around 13-40 years old so more of the children to young adults into fitness and sports. Adidas is the biggest sportswear manufacturer in Europe. Their segmentation is focused on 3 market factors: demographic, psychographic, and behavioral. Adidas says that one of their competitive advantages is their distribution network.

Under Armour, in the beginning, only targeted men. However, they quickly realized that women also had influence in sports and realized they needed to market to women as well. They now market segment based on: demographics and psychographics.

The two market segmentations used in all three of these are demographics and psychographics. Demographics focus on age, generation, jobs, type of fitness, and gender. These are important in figuring out what specific products to advertise to certain types of people. You don’t want to advertise a new, trendy, flashy type of shoes to an older market because they would not receive it well and vice versa. Psychographics focuses on lifestyle and personalities. All of these companies are trying to not only create something people want to wear but are proud to wear. They are trying to create a reputation and an atmosphere of excellence. I mean, isn’t that what we’re all striving for?

Probably the biggest thing for all of these companies is customer service and ensuring their customers are happy with the product and its quality.

What is your favorite brand name? What company do you like buying your products from and why?

I have officially joined the Fantasy Football bandwagon. The first week was good to me, I won my match up. Ezekiel Elliot didn’t pull through for me as much as I would’ve hoped for but next time. Cam Newton always comes through, eh for the most part. AJ Collins did well but had a fumble, yep that one hurts. Greg Olsen is out on the injured list so he’ll have to be substituted. Most outstanding player I had was on the bench and it was Kenny Stills with 26.6 points and 2 touchdowns. Yep just my luck. Rishard Matthews and Charles Clay both had 0 points this week so that is not good. I’ll have to give them a pep talk for this next week.

Keep checking up my blog for updates on my fantasy team!

Is it a good idea for the New Orleans Saints to raise ticket prices for their upcoming 2018 season? Well, that’s what they’re going to do and whether it is a good idea or not, only time will tell.

First, there are some questions that need to be asked. Will this affect fan attendance and the desire to buy tickets? How will this change affect the organization? How will the fans respond to this type of increase? The Saints organization is raising ticket pricing and are giving reasons such as trying to get back on the same level as the rest of the NFL and to increase revenue levels to give back to the fans on an experience level. This marketing stunt of increasing the price will cause mixed emotions and thoughts throughout their fans. This increase does benefit the organization in the sense that it will cause a lot of chatter among fans and will get them talking about the team more. So maybe they do know what they’re doing.

According to my past experience with ticket pricing, an increase doesn’t necessarily affect season ticket holders and suite holders as much as it does fans who buy tickets on a game to game basis. However, more than likely the biggest increase will be for the people already paying more money for the better seats and for those paying for the more general admission seating would see less of an increase. Some fans may see this increase as not even worth it to buy tickets anymore and some may just be loyal, dedicated fans who will buy tickets no matter the cost.

Ben Hales the VP of marketing and business development for the Saints says that, “For this increase that’s coming up right now, it’s an average of $9 a ticket per game. We communicate really specifically with each season ticket holder so they know exactly what their increase is, what the payment process is.”

The major key with change is communication and communicating with the fans what is going on, people just want to feel a part of the process. The Saints knew that once they increased the prices there would be talk as to why this happened. I think they responded well in having good explanations and reasons in order to keep the fans buying and wanting to come to the games. They are saying that the increase is mainly for the fans themselves and to help with their game day experience and even touch up the stadium a bit. Not a new stadium by any means but to add a few upgrades. I don’t know though. Is this true or are they just trying to make more money?

Statistics show from their more recent years that they are indeed below the average pricing for ticket sales in the NFL and their last price increase was in 2016 so maybe they are due for an increase at this point. I also believe that they are trying to make the pricing and increase fairer by using analytics and technology to make the seats with the better views more expensive. The Saints organization is also smart because the saying, “timing is everything” absolutely applies here. Now is the perfect time to increase ticket prices because tickets are in high demand and the fans might be willing to pay more this year due to the recent success the New Orleans Saints team had in their 2017 season. The Saints finished with a record of 11-5 and first in the NFC South giving their fans a glimmer of hope for this upcoming season despite the projections from Bleacher Report predicting the team not to finish as well as they did last season. But who knows? These are just predictions based on the competitiveness of the NFC South for 2018.

Michael Stanfield the Senior VP of sales stated, “It’s important to act on fan surveys,” Stanfield. “When you ask questions and you get feedback, you got to act on it. You can’t just ask for the information. If you’re not acting on it, it’s not even worth asking for the information.”

No one is ever really sure how the fans will react to these type of changes or just change in general because that’s the great thing about human behavior, it’s unpredictable. You can plan for it as long and as hard as you want but you never know how a human is going to respond to different situations. I don’t know, we’ll just have to see how the fans respond to the pricing increases.

Sources:

Katzenstein, J. (2018, September 06). Saints hoping to end Week 1 woes after losing past four season openers. Retrieved from https://www.nola.com/saints/index.ssf/2018/09/saints_season_opener_bucs.html

Underhill, N. (2018, February 09). Saints raising ticket prices for 2018 season, say revenue is to improve fan experience. Retrieved from https://www.theadvocate.com/new_orleans/sports/saints/article_fa09201c-0dbe-11e8-8066-e7d563d7258f.html