What Women Want: Big Sports is Trying To Figure it Out

It started earlier this year when the NFL began actively promoting it's line of licensed women's apparel.  Old Spice and other consumer product brands have continued the trend and now ESPN is creating an entirely new channel devoted to the woman sports enthusiast.

Sports programming for women has historically been focused on very traditional female offerings such as ice skating or gymnastics.  The reality, however, is that the number of women who are enthusiasts for male sports such as football have grown to over 30% of all TV viewers and big brands are taking notice. 

ESPN seems to have missed this trend in the launch of its new women's offering called espnW.  Rather than acknowledge that women are flocking to male oriented program, espnW's goal is to create more programming around women's sports, under the assumption that women want to watch women's sports.  Julie DiCaro of the very popular blog A League of Her Own strongly disagrees:

The idea that women need a "girlier" version of sport's programming insulting. This is the same idea that has caused sports marketing geniuses to try to sell baseball to women, who already comprise more than 40% of the fan base, by creating sparkly pink hats and bedazzled t-shirts.

Women already HAVE an ESPN. It's called ESPN.

Meghan Flanagan from class discusses the latest espnW offering below. 

I thought this topic was timely in terms of our discussion about women as sports consumers and wanted to dive into the topic of the launch of ESPN’s new network espnW, which will target a strictly woman demographic. I found some interesting dialogue on the announcement and it brings up some good questions I think that we as amateur sports marketers can try to tackle.

Although 40% of ESPN viewers are women, the only broadcasts in which females hold the majority viewership are the National Spelling Bee and cheerleading competitions. ESPN has realized the need for a brand initiative that will target the 18-49 year-old woman. Participation rates of female athletes have exploded in the recent past but the transition to sports fan has been less distinct.

ESPN’s current marketing plan consists of a grassroot program with reaches out to young girls with Girl Magazine, published 3 times a year, along with ESPN Rise Girl Edition which is available online. The idea here is to reach a young audience early, and have them transition over time into espnW a female-specific business.

The expected launch is this fall, starting with a blog and more digital content next spring.

“If activated successfully, you can imagine the potential impact, not only in effectively serving a new audience, but also in acquiring new advertisers who want to reach this audience.”

But the demographic they want to target may be a challenge. ESPN isn’t going after the female fan that already receives what she wants from the original network.

Instead they’re looking to a diverse group. “They have a lot going on in their lives – they’re in graduate school, cultivating professional careers, trying desperately to stay in shape, meeting their life partners, getting married and raising children. All of a sudden, their love for “sport” falls into many different types of areas – they might follow their college teams as an alum, watch men’s professional sports, play sports recreationally in the evenings, run 5K races and triathlons on the weekends, go to the gym every night, or coach kids.”

The announcement leads us to some questions.

How big of a risk is this launch?

Why is a brand like ESPN feeling the need to do this?

Do you see it succeeding? If not, what changes in strategy need to be made?

Hueter, Meghan. espnW: A brand for female athletes. Blogs With Balls.

http://blogswithballs.com/2010/10/espnw-a-brand-for-female-athletes/

Georgetown Midnight Madness: SEO Applied

Georgetown Midnight Madness going viral with Wale

Midnight Madness at Georgetown is one of the single biggest endeavors of the year for the Georgetown Athletics Department.  Pretty much every staff member is involved, many of whom will not sleep for the next 48 hours until the event is completed.  McDonough Gymnasium, which is home to 28 sports, will be overtaken by students, recruits, security, bands, concessionaires, TV production trucks and just about everything else you can think of.

The event has grown in popularity and ask any Georgetown alum and there is usually a fond story about Midnight Madness while they were in school.  All in all a great experience and no one does it better than Dan O'Neil, Brian McGuire and the staff at Georgetown Athletics.

So imagine if you had worked for years and years to build up a reputation for an event like March Madness.  Your entire staff works night and day, coaching staffs are trying to make sure recruits see the best of what Georgetown has to offer.  So much riding on the next 2 days.  And what if someone was trying to find information about March Madness, such as this really cool video featuring Wale that your (who will be performing at the event) department had spent weeks preparing and thousands of dollars to produce:



Now imagine you just realized that 90% of the content on the web is found via a search engine such as Google and when people type in "Georgetown March Madness 2010" your site does not come up at the top of the search.  Such is the case this morning when a search on Georgetown March Madness (a very, very specific search) returned four unofficial fan sites (3 owned by SB Nation) above the press release on the official GUHoyas.com site.  For a top Google sports search that could mean thousands of interactions that could be going to the official site that instead will end up engaging somewhere else.  Just a good example of the importance SEO plays in getting people to review your great content. 

On a related topic, we spend a lot of time discussing the publisher mentality and how good content is a great engagement vehicle in social media outlets OUTSIDE of your own properties.  Georgetown did a nice job of making the Wale/March Madness video available to social channels.  As a result, even though they may have missed an opportunity to reach someone directly through search, they were still successful in getting people to view their content.  In all of the blogs that were listed ahead of the official site in the Google Search, the Wale video was promoted.  Therefore the messaging was amplified much more loudly than if they had just created the content for their own purposes. 

Great application of the power of both SEO and the publisher mentality.

Logos on NFL Jerseys: Inevitable?

How much money could Peyton Manning, the Colts or the NFL make if they adopted a NASCAR approach to sponsorships on uniforms?  European Soccer embraces sponsor logos on uniforms and the consensus seems to be its a matter of "when" not "if" this is going to happen.  Ryan Pauley offers great perspective to the issue....

This is a divisive topic that has been around for the past several years in sports.  Selling “real estate” on professional teams’ jerseys seems to be inevitable in the near future. 

Referenced in this recent article (http://adage.com/article?article_id=146264), 20 English Premier Soccer Clubs generated $155 million in revenue by selling ad space on their uniforms.  While soccer is an international sport and the most popular sport across the globe, imagine how much NFL teams could charge for a small sponsorship on their game uniforms in the US!  I have accepted the fact that this new phenomenon is quickly approaching.  However, I do have a couple of questions/concerns.

First, where will this eventually lead?  Many in the industry have concerns about beginning down a slippery slope, with regards to sponsors on athletic uniforms.  How big will they be?  Will it take away from the aura of a franchise logo?  How many will be allowed on a jersey?  These are all questions that cannot necessarily be answered but need to be kept in mind.

Also, where in the hierarchy of sponsorship rights will this fall?  Initial thought is that the rights will lie with the individual teams.  However, I find it hard to believe the NFL will allow this without putting up a fight.  The league could try to generate a league-wide sponsorship similar to that of their TV rights deals.  And what about the infringement on players’ rights? If Axe Body Wash pays for a logo on the Baltimore Ravens’ jerseys, how does that affect Old Spice’s relationship with Ray Lewis? 

The time is coming, but many questions and concerns remain. 

What does everyone think? 

How does this affect future sponsorship in major professional sports?

Are there any other issues?

Gatorade Mission Control Center

Great find by Adam Raphael (@adam__raphael) on Gatorade's social media philosophy...excited to engage in this discussion.

In order to successfully market any brand, a company must first learn about their audience. As Gatorade demonstrates, businesses are now utilizing new technology in order to capture people’s utmost desires, needs, and interests. The undeniable leader in the sports drink marketplace, Gatorade does not so much utilize social media to gain exposure. Instead, they are using these outlets to capture the pulse of consumers.

Gatorade’s Mission Control Center, located at the company’s Chicago headquarters, tracks all social media activities and analyzes all fluctuations in real time. In a room that purposely resembles a military war room, five members of Gatorade’s marketing team monitor the blogosphere on six large screens. The program, created via a partnership with IBM, exemplifies Gatorade’s Evolution project. With new brands beginning to enter the increasingly competitive marketplace, Gatorade has been motivated to move beyond more conventional tactics.

Gatorade’s Senior Marketing Director of Consumer & Shopper Engagement, Carla Hassan, explains that the company aspires to ““take the largest sports brand in the world and turn it into largest participatory brand in the world.” In monitoring the pulse of social media, Gatorade can gain feedback about commercials, print ad campaigns, and even new flavors. The real-time commentary allows them to react promptly and cater the brand to what their target market covets. In doing so, they can maximize the brand’s appeal to consumers.

The strategy, although untraditional, has caught the attention of other companies owned by the umbrella company of PepsiCo. Bonin Bough, Director of Social Media at PepsiCo, feels strongly that the tactic may soon be adopted by other brands, “We believe what we’re building here is an example of a sandbox of tools and processes we can use across the organization.” The Mission Control Center allows Gatorade to attain information that previously would have been available only via consumer surveys. 


Gatorade, always at the forefront of strategic marketing, has also utilized social media to engage their consumers. For example, during the Super Bowl XLIV, Gatorade used Facebook and UStream to connect their fans with a number of their most visible athletes. Their technology allows them to evaluate the success of such marketing campaigns once complete.
The attention --- and money --- that Gatorade has devoted to this project provides evidence of the ascension of social media. It also demonstrates the brand’s militaristic ambition to dominate the sports drink marketplace. While the Official Sports Drink of the NFL, MLB, NHL, NASCAR, and US Soccer --- just to name a few --- already owns approximately eighty-percent of the market, they remain committed to enhancing their product. 

Since its launching by medical researchers at the University of Florida in 1965, Gatorade’s brand has been associated with innovation. Its marketing strategy has always been at the forefront and has very often been replicated by other companies in the industry. With its recent attentiveness towards social media, it can be expected that this strategy will soon be imitated as well.

And honestly, who could blame them?