Archive for September, 2009

Bad Boys

Wednesday, September 30th, 2009

Sydney Swans coach Paul Roos has said there is next to no chance that wayward Carlton forward Brendan Fevola will be playing in the harbour city next season.

This is not surprising given the Swans recruitment policy. However it does beg the question, we’re does a club draw the line on bad boys?bad-boys

Australian Cricket stuck with Shane Warne for years until a positive drug test forced them to sit him on the sidelines.

A strict recruitment policy is great foundation to build a club on and the Swans and more recently the Canterbury Bulldogs have shown this strategy to be hugely successful. But what if the bad boy puts bums on seats and wins games?

It’s a fine line, but one thing is fact. There will always be bad boys, very talented game winning bad boys and they’ll always find a club. Because on field success is to big an incentive in the money hungry world of sport.

Sponsorship Step by Step

Monday, September 28th, 2009

A sponsorship deal rarely happens overnight.

Depending on the deal, the process from start to finish can take anywhere up to 18 months!

Here is a snapshot of what goes down.

1. Athlete manager draws up a list of brands to target.

2. Manager cold calls the key person or decision maker from each brand. Attempts to establish a relationship and screen for sponsorship opportunities in relation to current budget and direction of the brand. This typically produces one of three responses.

A) Yes, please send your proposal and we’ll have a look at it.
B) Budget or other sponsorships prevent us doing business right now, but we are happy to consider down the track / next financial year.
C) No, we are not interested now or in the future.

The cold call saves a manager wasting valuable time on a proposal that never had a fighting chance. Alternatively it can strengthen a manager’s follow up email or proposal. Either way it produces a result.

3. Next step is the proposal and just like a job resume, this is painstakingly targeted to the specific brand. Research and due diligence is critical as you only get one shot at the proposal.

4. The waiting game. Once a proposal is submitted, an athlete manager must have patience. The bigger the brand, the longer the decision. Financial budgets, KPI reviews, office politics, legal’s, you name it, anything can drag out the process.

5. Negotiation. Assuming they are interested, this stage includes face to face meetings, phone calls and back and forth emails. This can take weeks or even months. At some stage a contract will be drawn up, either by the brand or the athlete manager. Now legals are involved and that means more to-ing and fro-ing!!!

6. Exchange contracts. It aint over until both parties sign the contracts – never assume a deal is done until this happens.

Steps 1, 2, 3 can be achieved in good time. Whereas steps 4, 5, 6 can take a lot longer.

I hope this gives athletes a good understanding of the steps involved in the sponsorship process and why some deals take forever.

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Emotions Are Strong

Friday, September 25th, 2009

Rarely does a brand make a commercial decision to sponsor an athlete or event without an emotional trigger.

Have you ever heard of a company sponsoring a golf event purely because the CEO is a passionate golfer? It happens.

Some sponsorships don’t make 100% commercial sense, yet they exist. And they exist because the sponsorship manager or CEO has an emotional tie-in with the sponsorship property. This emotional tie-in has the ability to overpower reason and logic.

When you’re pitching sponsorship, it needs to make sense but making sense alone isn’t enough for a company to sign the dotted line. You need to evoke emotion. You want the company to invest both passion and dollars.

Putting things aside like branding, try to think about the emotional reasons why a company would want to partner with you. Pride, zest, enthrallment, discovery, courage, respect, fun, compassion, inspiration, confidence etc. And then tie these in with the property you’re selling.

And remember you’re typically selling your pitch to one key decision maker. So make it personal-able. Even if that one person has to get approval from above, you need to hook them first so they’ll fight for your pitch internally. And you do that by appealing to their emotions.

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Sports a Product & Products Change

Wednesday, September 23rd, 2009

Yesterday’s Daily Telegraph reported the poor TV ratings for last Saturday’s Bledisloe Cup between Australia and New Zealand.

Is anyone really surprised?

I mean, here we have a product that refuses to change with the times. My biggest problem is this – rugby heads forget that their game is a PRODUCT. A product that competes in the ‘entertainment space’ for your money and mine.

Rugby is no different to a product you buy in the supermarket. I don’t care how strong the brand is, how long it’s been around, how much tradition it has behind it or how many loyal customers it has. If that product doesn’t adapt and evolve over time then its competition will eat it up.

Can you imagine if Nokia stopped developing their technology? What if after building their first handset they chose to sit back for the next 50 years with the same mobile phone? Oh but that’s like comparing apples to oranges you say, or is it? Nokia would have died a quick death due to the nature of technology and the type of product but let’s be honest, rugby isn’t that much different, it’s just dying a much slower death.

Unlike most products and services, sports have the luxury of moving at a much slower pace when it comes to developing their product. Massive overhauls are not required. Sports can survive with just a few subtle changes here and there.

Rugby League is constantly reviewing and tweaking its game and cricket has embraced 20/20 so it appears some sports get it. Rugby doesn’t. It has too big an ego to look itself in the mirror and admit it has a problem.

Shame, because consumers deserve better. They deserve to buy into a product that constantly strives to be the best.

PS. Thanks to everyone who filled out the brief survey. Appreciate your responses.

8 Questions

Monday, September 21st, 2009

Put your hand up if you like surveys? Hmm, thought so.

What if the survey will improve a blog you read, like this one? Would you consider it then?

I’ve put a link below to a survey with just eight simple questions. Any feedback is greatly appreciated guys.

NB. Please include any topics you would like me to cover relating to sports management in future posts.

CLICK HERE

Don’t Believe the Hype

Friday, September 18th, 2009

“I will not rest until I have you holding a Coke, wearing your own shoe, playing a Sega game ‘featuring you’, while singing your own song in a new commercial, ‘starring you’, broadcast during the Superbowl, in a game that you are winning, and I will not ‘sleep’ until that happens.”

Warning for athletes: Be wary of managers who promise you the world.

You know I’m talking about, pie in the sky stuff. Watch out for the words ‘million dollars’, ‘own line of products’, ‘international success’ etc etc.

The dog eat dog world of sports management thrives on managers who over promise and under deliver. Managers do this to get the signature, plain and simple. And athletes fall for it every time.

Sit an athlete down in front of six managers and 9/10 will choose the forex-trader-with-dollar-eyes1manager who blows the most smoke up their butt. That manager knows they won’t achieve anywhere near what they promise but they know a signature means some income for themselves and this is usually enough to justify them lying their asses off.

It’s not uncommon for athletes to change managers, it happens a lot. What usually drives an athlete to make the switch is a myriad of riches in the form of false promises. When those riches don’t transpire, they move and so it goes.

Athletes, look for a manager with so much confidence and self belief that they don’t need to exaggerate your earning capacity. Measure them by their track record with similar athletes of your standing (sport, gender, personality, results etc). Don’t focus on what they say about results, instead listen to the processes of how they are going to get those results. Don’t believe the hype.

Stressin Out!

Thursday, September 17th, 2009

Do you ever get stressed watching a sporting event? Do you know why? It’s because you’re focussed on the outcome. And on top of that, you have no control in the outcome. If there was a recipe for stress than that would be it!

On the other hand, do you ever get stressed when you’re playing a sport? Not really, right? That’s because you’re focussed on the process, not the outcome. And on top of that, you feel like you’re in control of the situation, things aren’t influencing you, you’re influencing them.

The key to managing stress is to stay in control. You can do that by focussing on the processes you have influence over.

Think about that…..when your next stressin out.

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How Not To Apologise

Tuesday, September 15th, 2009

Tennis star Serena Williams certainly learned a string of valuable lessons in serena_300x20055958the wake of her outburst at the 2009 US Open.

One such lesson (we hope she learnt) is that taking full responsibility for your actions and apologising is the only road to redemption.

I’ve blogged about this exact topic before.

The fact Williams and her PR agency released a statement the day after the incident with no apology is mind boggling. The backlash was so severe, that Williams was forced to release a second statement a day later, this time apologising.

When I saw the first statement, I thought William’s PR agency might be protecting her from legal action. Admitting guilt in a press release is dangerous territory in the sue me sue you world of the USA. However, if legal protection was the first priority then the statement would have read so much differently. So I know that wasn’t the case.

So the question then, is why didn’t the original statement include an apology? Did the PR agency think the issue would wash over? Did they believe Williams strong supporter base would overpower the negative criticism? Or was Williams just too stubborn to approve quotes apologising for her actions?

If Williams’ stubborn behaviour was to blame, then her PR agency should be harpooned for not having the backbone to override their star athlete. See my blog about The Yes Men.

We have seen the world over that a beloved athlete can commit blue murder but get away with it if handled correctly. To do this, the athlete must understand the process. And that is to take responsibility for their actions, genuinely apologise and demonstrate they are making themselves a better person from the experience.

There are no short cuts and no easy options but to face the mess you have created and clean it up. The media and public don’t care what you did, they care how you react, how you respond and how you’re going to fix it. Show them that and they are quick to move on.

House-zat!

Friday, September 11th, 2009

On 16 March, 2009 I blogged about E- Sponsorship.

Harvey Norman, Ford, VB, Toyota and Coca Cola are all big sponsors of Australian sport, but what about online businesses such as Carsales.com, Ebay, RealEstate.Com, Stayz.com and CareerOne, why aren’t they big sponsors of Australian sport?

In the blog I suggested more sports industry people should pitch for sponsorship to these online companies (who I predicted would thrive during the recent economic downturn compared to traditional companies).

So it was with great delight to read today, that RealEstate.com have signed camadamgilchrist_narrowweb__300x52901Australian sporting heroes, cricketer Adam Gilchrist and surfer Layne Beachley as ambassadors. You can read more about the campaign here.

I’m not surprised these athletes have been chosen for the campaign. I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again, don’t be afraid to invest in athletes nearing the end of their careers. It takes years to build a credible brand and that credibility doesn’t disappear overnight.

Who says I don’t give you good advice once in a while :)

Smart Questions

Thursday, September 10th, 2009

How does a company decide whether they should be involved in social networking? Well, before you set up a Twitter or Facebook account, you need to consider a couple of things. cartoon

First you need to decide what your objective is? The objective must do one of two things. Increase revenue or decrease costs.

Next you need to decide what your role is.

Are you there just to listen and monitor what people are saying about your product or services?

Are you there to make a sale?

Are you there to promote your brand and market your message?

Are you there to provide customer support and feedback?

Or are you there to partner with other business (B2B)?

It can be a combination of these things but best to concentrate on one or two and do them extremely well.

Answering these questions will help you decide:

A) who you want to interact with (target market)
B) which social networking platform is best for you
C) and which is the best strategy to achieve your objective(s)

With today’s technology, you have a great opportunity to listen and interact with your customers, build loyalty and/or find new customers. You just need to discover the HOW part. The best way to do that is to ask yourself smart questions.