Category Archives: sports business

May 28, 2019 · 3:01 pm

Another FIFA Fail

I read a mind-blowing story over the weekend about how not to treat a customer. Actually, how not to treat THOUSANDS of customers. Then again, considering the organization that was doing the “treating”, in retrospect I shouldn’t have been so shocked as they hit a new low. But still…

The Women’s World Cup begins in a few weeks. FIFA, which many in the world of sports consider to be just a big criminal conspiracy (too many cases to list here) began distributing tickets to customers around the world. The rest would be comical is it wasn’t so sad:

With the tournament in France due to start on 7 June, Fifa announced on Monday that tickets were now available to print at home. This led in some instances to complaints from people who, having assumed they had bought tickets together, discovered this was not the case.

“Dear fans. We have noted some of your comments, re: your tickets,” read a message on the tournament’s official Twitter account. “When you placed your order, a message indicating not all seats would be located next to each other did appear, before confirmation of your purchase. Unfortunately we will not be able to modify your order.

So if you spent years saving up to take your daughter to see the best women in the world play, you might have to let her experience that joy whilst seated several sections away from you and from your wife who may be in a different part of the stadium completely. FIFA’s response: we don’t really care.

A few things. First, this would NEVER happen for a Men’s World Cup. FIFA has a history of telling the women to piss off while paying lip service to their game. They made the women play a World Cup on artificial turf and who can forget the head of FIFA’s suggestion that women boost the game by playing in tighter shorts and makeup. Second, even if they weren’t such sexist pigs, ticket sales make up a smallish percentage of FIFA’s World Cup revenues. TV and sponsorship are the big tickets here and unless and until the broadcasters and sponsors speak up, the dismissive attitude to the real fans won’t change.

FIFA has a history of snatching defeat from the jaws of victory and they’ve done it again. We’ve been through this many times in this space but no business can afford to tell customers, no matter how small a part of the revenue picture that customer may be, that they don’t matter. People traveling to these games are among FIFA’s best customers. Do you still think they’ll continue to spend money with FIFA after this? Most of us can distinguish between supporting the game via our attention and supporting the people who run it with our cash. Fortunately for them, FIFA has no real competition. Can you say the same?

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February 1, 2019 · 10:35 am

The One True Holiday

It’s Foodie Friday and it’s the eve of the annual national holiday called the Super Bowl. It’s America’s only true national holiday in my book. Oh sure – most Americans celebrate Memorial Day, July 4th, Labor Day and Veteran’s Day and even Thanksgiving, but none of those have the vast majority of the country focused on exactly the same thing at the same time. Only the Super Bowl does that.

Along with the game goes the food. Or, rather, THE FOOD, since inevitably there is a lot of it. Even those years in which I’ve watched the game by myself rather than at a party or a bar, I’ve managed to have copious amounts of generally not very healthy food by my side. Try to find a food site without a Super Bowl menu on it. Try to find a bar or a non-fine dining place that isn’t throwing a party.

Here was my take 8 years ago. Nothing has changed off the field (we won’t go into how the on-field experience has changed):

The Super Bowl is unlike any other sporting event from just about any perspective.  It’s watched by more people and is even covered by media people who wouldn’t know an H-back from Preparation H.  Hundreds of marketers, both authorized and unauthorized, try to tie in with “The Big Game” (for you ambushers) whether they’re selling food, TV’s, or anything else along the durable to non-durable scale.

So what do you do as a marketer? Do you try and fight city hall and run your own campaign not related to The Big Game? Do you pay the NFL’s or the broadcaster’s price tag (if your category is available) and use the marks or even just buy TV time in or around the game? Do you just stay quiet and begin your Valentine’s Day promotion after the game?

Tough question. If you’re in the food business, Super Bowl Sunday is one of the most popular takeout days of the year (1 in 7 Americans order takeout food for the game!). A third of Americans consume some sort of dip. Are you staffed properly if you’re a restaurant? Have you ordered extra dip and sour cream if you’re a market? If you’re not a food business, you need to account for this holiday – especially this holiday – in your marketing and content plans. Unlike any other sports championship, people watch The Super Bowl even when they don’t have a favorite team playing. They actually watch the ads. They generally participate in word of mouth and social media conversations. It is America’s holiday and if you market behind the others, maybe you need, as it says on many pizza boxes, to try the best since you’ve tried the rest. Make sense?

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April 3, 2018 · 11:36 am

An Expensive Trip To The Bar But A Much Better Picture

I had a what turned out to be a very expensive trip to a bar a few weeks ago. No, I wasn’t overserved nor did I need to cab it home from a remote location. It became expensive because I watched TV there. The picture was noticeably better than what I was used to and it turned out that I was watching a 4K TV with full High dynamic range, or HDR. Even though the program (a basketball game) wasn’t in native 4K, it was noticeably better. Once I figured out that DirecTV, my TV provider, has a few 4K channels and that some sports, including the upcoming Masters, are shown in 4K,  I was hooked. I did some research and found that one of the top-rated sets was on sale (almost half price!) and two days later, and hundreds of dollars for the TV and a new DirecTV box that handles 4K, my viewing experience was upgraded.

Photo by Tim Mossholder

One thing that I got along with the upgraded picture (even standard HD looks better) was a built-in Roku device. I’ve had a Chromecast for years and I also have my Xbox hooked into the TV. I have been using both for “over the top” viewing of streaming services like Netflix, Hulu, and Amazon. What has changed with the Roku is that all of these services and many others are available as channels on the TV. There’s no need to switch inputs or fire up another device as I have been doing. Which reminded me of a couple of things.

First, the lines between “TV” and “video” have vanished forever. One can argue that once consumers had remotes and DVR‘s they morphed into active programmers but with what is now the almost full integration of TV and OTT, making an unlimited amount of content available in high-quality video, it’s now all just TV.  The second point, one which might apply to your non-media business, is that consumers don’t care about the tools or the labels. They do care about control since they now have complete control in many areas of their consuming lives, or at least a lot more than they used to. You can fight this (broadcasters did for years) or you can facilitate this, but hanging on to an antiquated business model is the wrong choice.

Disney will launch an ESPN-branded streaming service in a couple of weeks. Since to me and many others there is no difference between traditional TV and streaming video, it will be just another channel on my TV (hopefully in 4K). For many cord-cutters, it will be a nice addition to their programming options. Disney has learned that the tools (or channels) are immaterial and the business model needs to continue to evolve as do consumers’ habits. Have you?

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