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DIY Promotion and Roy Jones vs Joe Calzaghe
The BBC this morning is reporting that tonight's Roy Jones Jr versus
Joe Calzaghe fight at Madison Square Gardens has been suffering from a low-key build up and
sluggish ticket sales.Some might say that the problem is that the two guys involved are both 'nice guys', while both counter that you don't have to have bust ups to sell a fight.
One thing's true. There's no professional promoter for this fight. No Frank Warren, no.. ...dare I say it... Don King to raise the temperature. This fight was agreed with a text message, the takings are being split 50:50 and in many ways this fight is the antidote to the ills of the sport.
On the other hand, sometimes you just have to accept that there are professionals who, despite appearing to take a lot of money for their input - whether it be promoting a sports event, selling a house, or or marketing a product, do actually create value. They may take a larger slice of the pie, but if they are good the whole pie is big enough for everyone.
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Rob Robson
Co-founder, iStadia.com
How do I get more publicity for my sport or exercise business?
I'm just back in from a day where I've had two rounds of a job interview, and managed to squeeze in a radio interview for the BCC World Service in between!Between my own site and my iStadia profile, I now get a lot of enquiries from the media. What do I mean by a lot? Well, it depends on what's happening, but most weeks I have some kind of contact, even if it is just for a quick comment. This week I've been quoted in The Times, been on BBC World Service, and have had an invitation from BBC Scotland to do something tomorrow. The irony is that I'm not really looking for publicity as a sport psychologist right now, but it is good fun to do it when I can. Sometimes, they will also pay (though not a lot).
The point is, I get these requests because I am easy to find. If I were more serious about marketing my sport psychology business, I would make sure that they mentioned my site (or my company, if I had one). I don't really exploit them to their full potential, but maybe you could.
I'm easy to find because of my activity, not just on iStadia (though for obvious reasons it's where I focus my activity, but on other networking and bookmarking sites too. So, when people search for a sport psychologist, they often find me - either my own site or my iStadia profile. Sometimes, like this week, one media appearance creates others, because journalists read other newspapers and will then search for a specific person.
One other person I know that does quite a bit of media work is Amanda Owens. I can tell when she's done something, because Google analytics tells me that a lot of people have visitors have found her profile by searching for her name (normally, people would search for other search key words).
If you want publicity you have to go and get it. But you don't necessarily need to engage PR agents or seek out journalists. You just need to put yourself out there and iStadia is a great mechanism for that (by blogging, writing articles, and using the forums/clubs) . I have to say, too, that since we created different levels of membership, my visibility has gone up further, because my PremiumPlus membership gives me additional tools to help me - such as a personalised profile title (good for searches), profile summary (good for getting people to click on your link from search engines), and links to all of my latest posts from my profile (because I've very active, the "spiders" come back to my profile more regularly to get updates).
So, if you want publicity, you might want to consider upgrading. But even if you don't, being more active on iStadia will help. If you have upgraded, and aren't using it to it's advantage (it isn't just media enquiries that you'll get) then what are you waiting for?
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P.S. I'll be directing more media requests to the Media exchange club on iStadia (or to people in my network) so be sure to join. I'll also advise people so search the business finder (perhaps it should be the professional finder), so check your personal settings and make sure you are listed (no extra cost).
Rob Robson
iStadia - Networking for Sport & Exercise Community
Is Olympic Sponsorship Worth the Money?
Global corporations such as Coca-Cola, Johnson & Johnson and Adidas, along with Chinese businesses like China Mobile and Bank of China have paid a total of $850 million to be official sponsors of the Beijing and Turin Olympic Games.With Western economies slowing down, one of the main aims of this spending spree is to gain a foothold among China's middle class (numbering approximately 250 million).
But research by the China Marketing Research Group, reported in Forbes Magazine, has investigated the effectiveness of Olympic sponsorship as a tool for developing brand awareness, brand loyalty and sales. This research suggests that on these measures, Olympic sponsorship may not be justified.
The vast majority of Chinese consumers interviews “did not care” who the official sponsors were, and “did not consider official Olympic sponsorship” when buying. According to the publishers of the research, it is more important for multinationals to reach out to Chinese consumers by fitting “their image of the ideal life” and focusing on longer-term brand image than looking for a quick Olympic fix. Indeed, the research appears to contradict a prevailing belief that Chinese consumers and not brand loyal and would be easily swayed by association with the Olympic Games.
An example of this insight is that consumers, when asked to identify the official sponsor from a number of choices, often plumped for the brand that they considered “best” in the market – using already developed perceptions. Specifically, unless they could recall a specific Olympic ad for Adidas, they tended to believe that Nike (perceived to be the superior brand) was the official sportswear sponsor. Rather than splashing out on offical sponsorship, Nike appear to have gained from their association with Liu Xian, the World and Champion (and World Record Holder) in the 110m hurdles.
Perhaps this will lead to a change in tack over branding in China, and may even influence future decisions to pay huge sums to sponsor the Olympics. But then again, maybe the multinationals are not as naïve and narrowly focused as the publishers of the research imply. Perhaps for many of the Olympic sponsors, there are other strong benefits – for example the potential cost of allowing competitors to have the global platform provided by the games – or even the feelings of pride and prestige that may be experienced not by consumers, but by employees, of the official sponsors.
More sports marketing blogs & articles
Euro 2008: The economic cost of non-qualification
I was listening to Radio 4 this morning, and the item that got the greatest attention in the sports news (alongside the Champions League final build up and the climax to the Scottish Premier League) was Ed Smith's (former cricketer) new book, What Sport Tells Us About Life. I mean no offence to Mr. Smith when I say this, but it must have been a quiet day in the world of sport yesterday. I mean, I'm sure it is a good book and all that...
Anyway, it got me thinking. Surely by now, if England had qualified for Euro 2008 we'd be gearing up for a major spree of flag waving and beer consumption, and if Scotland (when will we qualify again) and Northern Ireland had just managed to get through qualifying, then the frenzy would have been all the greater. (Sorry Wales, but as a half-Welsh Scot - and I don't often tell people about that - you were never in the running.)So how much would have this have been worth? There's the beer sales in pubs and supermarkets, of course, and lots of naff little flags to stick in your car window, and the loss of revenue to bookies and travel providers, amongst many other businesses. Then there's TV and other forms of advertising. How much would advertisers have spent trying to get our attention during the tournament?
The Centre for Economic and Business Research put the economic cost of England's failure alone at around £1 billion. This is based only on comparisons with 2006 and 2004, and therefore does not consider the impact of not having Scotland and/r Northern Ireland at the tournament. Of course, Scotland's economy is a lot smaller than England's, and Northern Ireland's smaller still, but the prospect of multiple British teams playing in a tournament for the first time since 1998 surely would have had created more excitement, across the whole of the United Kingdom (well, maybe not Wales).
Then again, maybe it's worth it not to have to go through all of the references to 1966 over and over again....
Roll on the Olympics
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If Manchester United is the most valuable football (soccer) club in the world, which is the most valuable sports club?
Forbes magazine have valued Manchester United Football Club at £905m ($1,800m), making them the most valuable
football (soccer) club in the world, ahead of Real Madrid at £646m ($1,285m) and Arsenal at £603m ($1,200m) in third.I was interested in finding out which sports clubs/teams are the most valuable in the world. With a bit of digging (also from Forbes) I found out that in American Football, the Washington Redskins are worth $1, 423 million, making them the most valuable NFL team.
In Ice Hockey, the Toronto Maple Leafs, the most valuable NHL team, are worth a paltry $332m, and the most valuable NBA team, the New York Knick are only worth $592.
Even the most valuable baseball team, the New York Yankees, are not worth as much as Manchester United, at $1,200m.
Note that these valuations were not all made at the same time, but even still, it is unlikely that any of these teams are currently more valuable than Manchester United.
I guess that shows that despite the incredible marketing pull of the American sports, the fact that football is played and watched the world over, is what drives their value?
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Can this man make Twenty20 cricket the most popular team game in the world?
Texan Billionaire Sir Allen Stanford (as a 'Sir', I imagine that he's not really Texan) believes that he can turn Twenty20 cricket into the biggest team sport in the World and is putting his money where his mouth is.I can only imagine that his calculations are based on the popularity of the game in India and the increasing wealth of that country, rather than the likelihood of converting non-cricketing nations. Maybe the popularity of the Indian Premier league (IPL) hs got him all excited.
Has he overestimated the popularity of the game?
Has he underestimated the challenge he's set?
Is he a visionary?
Is he a marketing genius?
Or is he raving mad?
Here's the story on the BBC website.
What do you think?
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Just how fast can a swimsuit be?
It is interesting to note the furore over the latest Speedo swimsuit, the LZR Racer bodysuit. It has been designed with the help of NASA and, get this, apparently "aids streamlining and reduces skin vibration and muscle oscillation". It has welded, rather than stitched, seams, and is partly made from neoprene, so may increase buoyancy.Of course people are going to say that it has been responsible for 36 world records so far since its release 2 months ago, but there's another side to this story.
First of all, it is Olympic year. Athletes the world over are essentially 'jockeying' for position in the run-up to the games. Some of the major Nations have had their Olympic trials. The Aussies broke eight records at their trials. But even the best swimmers have to be at their best to qualify for the Australian team. LZR suit or no LZR suit. We've also had a European Championship, and a World short course championship. That's a lot of fast swimming in a small amount of time.
And 18 of these records were set at the World short course champs. Now, I know that there were some real stars that didn't turn up, but there were plenty of great swimmers there, in great shape after - or before - attempting to qualify for the Olympics and - perhaps importantly - treating it as a bit of fun. That makes for fast times. The Olympic finals will be a whole lot more serious, more about winning than anything else - including times.
Perhaps Speedo realised that the stage was set for them to release their new costume, and planned the release to coincide with this period of frenetic competition. No? Maybe the release date was an accident and not a clever piece of marketing at all?
We'll never know what difference the suit can make until there are controlled tests and the results released. But that may now be impossible anyway, if the swimmers believe that it will make a difference. As Kirsty Coventry, one of the world record breakers said "Getting this suit on for me is a lot about mentality, having that extra edge and confidence, but it's about the swimmer at the end of the day."
