Archive for August, 2009

DAY IN THE LIFE

Wednesday, August 26th, 2009

Working in sports management, people often ask me – “What is a typical day for you”?

Well, no one day is the same. It really depends on the time of year, what events the athletes are competing in, what’s making news, what sponsors have planned, or maybe there is something that needs urgent attention and takes up all my energy for a week at a time.

So with that in mind, I’ll try and give you a broad summary without going into specifics.

I usually begin the day by watching and reading the news. I scan TV, newspapers and online. I’m focusing on a mixture of sports and business news. The athletes under management cover a wide range of sports so I need to be across a lot of information. I find this also helps me to establish rapport in meetings I have that day.

Using the big rocks principle, I always write down the major things I want to accomplish that day. The things that will yield the biggest results. If I get those done then everything else falls into place. I try and use the mornings to reply to emails and phone calls and leave the afternoons for other projects I’m working on. In saying that, I’m on call day and night and need to respond quickly to clients and the media who work on deadline.

Some days I’m out of the office with clients for sponsorship and media obligations. I’m there to facilitate the appearance, make the sure the athlete is comfortable and enforce their sponsor commitments (branding, key messaging). I’m also there to network. Develop relationships with everyone including TV producers, sponsorship managers, journalists, photographers you name it. Some interstate travel is involved which makes for long days.

The evenings are sometimes scattered with invites to parties, product launches, dinner invitations and other events that involve the athletes or their sponsors. Again, networking is a big part of the job.

That’s a good example of what I do…….but then next week might be totally different. In fact, next week I’m away consulting for a major sports event and then conducting some media with a client for a few days. I might find it hard to blog during this period so don’t be disappointed, I’ll be back. You can keep up to date on twitter twitter.com/SportDownUnder

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Sitting On The Sidelines

Thursday, August 20th, 2009

d4788972951affe38515d027ed9f4f872In this month’s GQ Magazine, AFL footballer Ben Cousins talks about his time away from football and how that ‘time away’ only exaggerated his personal problems.

It’s not hard to understand why. Sportspeople live a regimented life. It’s not all glamour. Most of their time is extremely structured. Train, eat, sleep and repeat.

Take that structure away and the athlete feels like their life has been turned upside down. This can lead to emotional breakdown and other issues. Before you tell me athletes are overpaid and live a privileged life and should “harden the f#*ck up” let me put it this way. Anyone who ‘lives to work’ instead of ‘works to live’ can relate to this feeling.

Let’s say you work Mon-Fri. You love your job. You do valuable work. You enjoy the people you work with. And you like the structure that work brings to your life. But what happens when the weekend rolls around and you’re not doing valuable work, and you’re not around your work mates and the structure you enjoy is put on hold? Do you feel kinda lost? Well imagine having that feeling for weeks or even months, and you begin to understand what its like for an athlete suffering a season ending injury or suspension.

The lesson here for athlete managers is to be on guard when your athlete suffers a lay-off. Make sure they have other pursuits or areas of interest to work on. In a football club, this might be working with the coach more closely or working in the head office. Anything that gives the athlete a challenge or something to work towards is great. In Ben Cousins case, it was the challenge of completing a marathon that filled the void of not playing footy.

Better yet, every athlete should have life balance waaaay before they suffer a stint on the sidelines.

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Robots with Personalities

Monday, August 17th, 2009

Boxing, more so than other sports, relies on the personality of its athletes. It’s the lifeblood of the fight game. Ask any promoter.

Two guys beating each other in the ring is entertaining, but if they both have great personalities, it’s so much more interesting.

I think the same principle can be applied to other sports. And I think it’s important we preserve that trait. Let’s not forget, sport is entertainment.

I remember watching, jeering and cheering the likes of John McEnroe, Jimmy Conners, Boris Becker and Goran Ivanisevic. Not only were they very talented tennis players but they had personalities that brought fans through the turnstiles. Cricket had (among others) Ian Botham, Viv Richards, Doug Walters and more recently Shane Warne. Rugby League prides itself on the characters in its game and promotes them to the tilt (a big reason why rugby league enjoys free to air coverage over Super 14 rugby).

In this day and age of professionalism it’s common for sporting academies, clubs and athlete managers to suck the personality right out of an athlete. With strict behaviour guidelines, the pressure of being a role model and big sponsors to protect, it’s easy to produce robots.

But what people don’t understand is robots can be personalities too. You don’t have to break the rules, swear and be disrespectful to have a personality that attracts fanfare.

NRL player Wendell Sailor is a good example of what I’m talking about. He is a great role model but he is also a big personality. Just shows it’s possible to be both. That’s what sponsors want to see more of, robots with personalities.

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You Are Responsible For You

Wednesday, August 12th, 2009

Just when I thought rugby league was done and dusted with off field scandals this year, comes the news of assault charges against Melbourne Storm’s Greg Inglis.

Its unfortunate the game needs to be dragged through the mud over yet another issue that centers on the lack of respect to women. I say unfortunate because I feel sorry for the victims involved, but I also feel sorry for 95% of players who work their guts out to be good role models week in week out.

When something like this happens, it tarnishes every player and administrator in the game. And that’s not fair.

I understand rugby league has more of these issues than any other code and that can’t be ignored. What I can’t understand is the finger pointing towards the NRL and its deputy David Gallop.

People are quick to slam the NRL for not ‘preventing’ bad behaviour. But let me ask you this. When Joe Blow commits a murder, do we blame the police for not ‘preventing’ the murder? No, we lay the blame squarely on the criminal.

No one is responsible for your actions but you. It’s about time we focussed on the individual and not their babysitters.

As a sports manager I can educate players on best practices time and time again, I can put mentors in place, I can send them to seminars, I can read the rule book until I’m blue in the face. What I can’t do is walk them through life holding their hand. At some stage they need to take ownership of their actions and the decisions they make in critical situations. I can’t be there to do that for them.

Greg Inglis deserves his time in court, media and fans should give him that respect. At the same time, let’s not pretend the NRL could have done anything to prevent this from happening. And lastly, let’s not label all rugby league players as disrespectful trouble makers, most are accountable to their actions and make the right decisions. They understand the concept of ‘you are responsible for you.’

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Are Coaches Marketable Enough to Sponsor?

Monday, August 10th, 2009

Someone asked me this the other day and I must admit, I think they are. In fact, I’m surprised there aren’t more coaches with personal sponsors.

Think about it. Along with star players, coaches are often the face and voice of a club or organisation. They have a considerable media profile and represent values such as winning, integrity, discipline, respect, hard work and leadership.

Through years of media experience, they are also well groomed for interviews and appearances and have the nous to promote key messages of a sponsor.

On top of that, 99% are clean skins. So sponsors can sleep easy at night.

If you need another reason why coaches can be a good sponsorship proposition then look no further than budget. They come much cheaper than players.

Before I leave you with this thought, anyone remember Guus Hiddink? The man who took Australia to the last FIFA World Cup?

I’m pretty sure he was an adopted Australian by the end of the World Cup. Everyone loved him. He even had his own chant. I dare say that if Guus had stuck around for another World Cup campaign his face would be on a breakfast cereal. I’m not sure I can say the same for Pim Verbeek, I really like the guy but it would take a unique brand to benefit from his name, image and likeness.

Coaches are already very popular for speaking gigs and are accessible to club sponsors for networking and appearances. But it’s not often an outside sponsor will come knocking for a coach. Maybe its time they did?

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Social Media Rights & Benefits

Friday, August 7th, 2009

I recently talked about moving with the times and the importance of keeping up to speed with technology. It’s a super fast crazy world we live in and only those that embrace change will succeed, the rest will get left behind.

So what does this have to do with sponsorship and managing athletes?

Well, when a sponsor signs an athlete, they sign for a list of rights and benefits. X number of appearances, X number of photo shoots, X number of TVC’s, sign X number of memorabilia etc. For years these rights and benefits have pretty much stayed the same.

However the landscape is changing and it’s been happening for the past five years. I’m talking about social media rights and benefits.

If your sponsorship proposal does not include anything about social media rights and benefits then fuggetaboutit.

Social media is influencing the way in which brands communicate with their customers. This communication to customers is the reason why brands sponsor an athlete in the first place.

TV commercials, print ads and billboards still play a huge role, particularly on a mass level, but a lot of that stuff is now being complemented with social media and in some cases, dominated by social media.

The point I’m making is that brands and their ad and PR agencies are dialled in on social media and how it fits into a marketing plan. However, sports managers are much slower on the uptake. And this hurts their ability to sell a client.

Imagine a brand that is engaged in social media receiving a sponsorship proposal that includes no mention of online rights and benefits and leveraging ideas!

Athlete manager’s that ‘move with times’ are always going to be step ahead.

If you’re not up to speed, ask someone who is.

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Advice For Athletes

Wednesday, August 5th, 2009

“There are three rules that I live by: never get less than twelve hours sleep; never play cards with a guy who has the same first name as a city; and never get involved with a woman with a tattoo of a dagger on her body. Now you stick to that, and everything else is cream cheese.”
Coach Finstock, Teen Wolf Movie 1985.

Coaches love to give advice. It’s what they’re paid to do. Sometimes its great advice. Other times its poor advice.

In my experience, the best coaches are the ones that concentrate on giving advice that is related to their athlete’s performance. This also includes life advice that brings out the best in the athlete.

Where some coaches cross the line is business, marketing or sponsorship advice. This is not their area of expertise.

I’m going to put family and partners in the same basket.

It’s ok for athletes to use these people as a sounding board but they shouldn’t dictate or influence commercial decisions.

It’s easy to criticise a sports manager when you have no experience in the field of sponsorship, are not out there selling, do not understand corporate budgets, marketing plans or advertising and PR strategies.

Put it this way. I don’t tell athletes how to kick a ball, throw a pass or swim fast. That’s not my area of expertise. So why on earth would an athlete listen to a coach or family member about sports marketing and sponsorship?

Athletes, trust your family and coach for performance and life advice. But when it comes to business, trust your manager.

Now you stick to that, and everything else is cream cheese.

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Are You Listening To Your 9/10 Customers?

Monday, August 3rd, 2009

Nine out of ten (9/10) customers don’t complain when they have a bad experience at a restaurant.

Instead they choose not to go back. They vote with their feet. But guess what else they do? They’ll tell others what a bad experience they had.

The same principle applies to big brands. Most people don’t call head office, fill out complaint forms or write long letters to the CEO. Instead, they stop using the product or service and they vent their frustration to anyone and everyone (except the brand itself).

In a restaurant, it’s easy to find the 1/10 customer you’ve upset. They’ll kick and scream, and you can listen and learn from their feedback right there and then.

Same with big brands, 1/10 customers will write to you or pick up the phone.

But what about those 9/10 customers? How do you find out what they are saying to each other?

The answer is social media.

The best companies are listening to the conversations about their brands online, learning from those conversations and then engaging in those conversations.

Social media chatter has forced brands to develop new marketing strategies and even tinker with their products and services – all based on what the customer is saying.

Old crocodiles slam this theory, saying it doesn’t make sense to over-haul your marketing strategy or your products and services based on what a minority of your customers are saying online.

Yet what they don’t understand is this. Those ‘minority’ customers online represent the 9/10 customers – the customers who don’t complain directly.

These are the customers who would rather join a Facebook group criticising your brand then fill out a complaint form.

Are you listening to your 9/10 customers?

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