History of Sports & Entertainment Marketing

QuestionsWhat do you know about the history of sports & entertainment marketing?

Can you name the people who were instrumental in the fields?

What do disco & beer have to do with the history of sports & entertainment marketing?

Do you feel marketing sports or entertainment is easier, more fun, or more glamorous than marketing auto parts or telephone service, why?

Brief History of LeisureSports & entertainment marketers have always sold participation in sports and entertainment events to consumers.

ConsumersConsumers are the people who use the product/service.

The growth of the industries has relied on consumers with free time, discretionary discretionary incomeincome, and a desire for recreation.

Discretionary incomeDiscretionary income - $ used to spend during your free timeConsumerConsumer - A person who purchases goods and services for personal use.

Brief History of Leisure

Thomas Edison invented the KINETOSCOPE in the late 1890s. KinetoscopeKinetoscope – early motion picture exhibition device The Kinetoscope

Brief History of Leisure

Eadweard Muybridge- 1878

Was asked to settle a bet: Do all four hooves leave the ground when horses run?

First movie ever made

Pastime….In America, organized sports and entertainment used to be a pastime just for wealthy consumers.

In the mid- to late 1800s, only the wealthy had the time and money needed to go to the theater, ballet, horse races, or tennis.

The working classes had little time away from daily labor.

Entertainment for Everyone

Thanks to public transportation, working class families could go across town to see an opera or game.

William “Bill” Veeck (1914-1986)(Veeck- pronounced VEK as in “wreck”)

Key figure in the development of sports marketing.

In the 1940s, he owned baseball teams… Can you name them?

Also drafted the first African-American player to the American League… What was his name?

Answers

The teams were the Cleveland Indians and the Chicago White Sox.

The American League hired Larry Doby in 1947, weeks after Jackie Robinson joined the Brooklyn Dodgers of theNational League.

Veeck’s Innovations

Bill Veeck was best known for his sports marketing innovations.

Believed the consumer wanted to be involved in more than just the final score.

Master of non-price promotion – anything extra customers receive that is included with the purchase of a ticket

Inventor of “bat day”

Themes like “ladies’ day”

Veeck as in “wreck”…

“Everyday was Mardi Gras and every fan was king.”

He recognized the need to market something other than the core product.

Give-a-way days had problems!May hinder souvenir or concession sales.Cap day should have a cap that doesn’t resemble the

souvenir that you would normally buy!

Ill-conceived promo event

Veeck created a 10¢ beer night in Cleveland in 1974.

The Story: Drunken fans consumed an estimated 60,000 cups of beer --

sold for 10 cents each.

What was the result in that promotion?

The Result

Drunken, unruly fans stormed the field during the game

Ultimately led to the forfeiting of the game!

Disco Demolition Night

Bill Veeck, who owned the White Sox from 1958-61, bought the team again in December 1975 and tried every gimmick in his vast repertoire to lure people to the ballpark.

The players wore shorts on the field.

Showers were installed in the bleachers.

And then, of course, there was Disco Demolition Night.

Disco Demolition Night was held on July 12, 1979, at Comiskey Park.

Disco Demolition Night

The Sox would sell 98-cent tickets to any fan bringing a disco record to Comiskey Park and between games of a doubleheader, the records would be burned.

It resulted in the White Sox forfeiting the second game to the Detroit Tigers as about 6,000 fans poured onto the field, drinking beer, ripping up the turf, and improvising fires.

The field was destroyed, thirty-seven fans were arrested, and Bill Veeck quit his job in embarrassment.

This disaster is still remembered!

Disco Night Video

His other ideas…

Fireworks

Dazzling scoreboards

Special-event nights

Free giveaways

Fans Managers’ Night Fans voted on who would start and could even vote on play calls

during the game

Small person at the Plate

In 1951, his second year with the Browns, Veeck was looking for something different to celebrate the 50th anniversary of the American League.

He thought this was the perfect time to send a small person to the plate. Through a booking agency, he found Eddie Gaedel, who was three-foot-seven-inches tall and 65 pounds.

He actually signed Gaedel to a contract and paid him $100. It would be a one-time deal and then Gaedel's baseball career was over.

Early Days of TV and Marketing

Nine TV Stations and fewer than 7,000 working TV sets after WWII.

In October 1945—25,000 people came (over a three week period) to Gimbel’s Dept. Store in Philadelphia to watch the first large scale demonstration of TV The show was various NBC shows

In the same year, the American Association of Advertising Agencies (AAAA) encouraged TV advertising.

TV changed marketing in a BIG way.

Light up!

Cigarette manufacturers were one of the first industries to advertise widely on television.

They had deep pockets and could afford to gamble on a new advertising medium, footing the bill for a host of early classic television programs.

Ironically, in just a few short decades, they were cast away from the medium they helped create.

Did You Know?Tobacco companies are spending more than $12.5 billion a year on advertising and promotion but U.S. sales actually fell nearly 5.5 percent from 2000 to 2005.

In 2011, the tobacco industry spent $8.4 billion on cigarette advertising!

Every day, 2000 kids light up for the first time.

Who is this?

Vendors

Vendors are the sellers of products.

They compete for a share of the money people spend on recreation.

Sports has…

Produced TV channels, movies, books, video games, theme restaurants, fashion trends, and magazines

This blurs the line between sports and entertainment industries