Sport Marketing: Positioning Principles of a Professional Sport Club

Sport Marketing: Positioning Principles of a Professional Sport Club

1. Sport marketing today in Russia. Professional sport clubs

Sport marketing is about 30 years old. In Russia, according to some specialists, it appeared about 13 or 15 years ago when some of the sport clubs became completely independent. In fact, the school of marketing managers in the field is about to begin its formation in our country.
Today it is considered that in Russia “sport marketing began with Sergey Kushenko”, the leader of CSKA. However, there is no a person to say that “sport marketing began with him in Russia”. Many clubs today haven’t got a marketing manager on the staff to specialize exactly on the selling of a sport event. Such functions are performed by supervisors. It is evident according to results that they do others’ business.
The task of a manager is to create the atmosphere and conditions favorable for an investment; the one of a marketing manager is to take the advantage on the situation by attracting spectators to a stadium, sponsors and mass-media to a partnership. The management duty is to raise the gained capital.
However, there are some professional sport clubs in the country which are aimed not only on sport achievements during various competitions, but also on gaining the profit. Yet most of them are non-profit organizations, and have no legal right to divide their income.
In fact, today sport ought to earn their living. Still, they live on sponsors’ investments. This resembles patronship mostly as the investments are not aimed on gaining a profit. It makes the conditions of clubs volatile. The stories of BC “Dinamo” (St. Petersburg), BC “Shahter” (Irkutsk), BC “Vodnik” (Arhangelsk)[1], etc.
Also the situation is complicated by deficit of the literature and science works about professional sport clubs marketing activities. For instance, “Sport Marketing” after T. Shaaf is widely known, but in Russia it was published in 1998, and hasn’t been republished. Today it can be considered outdated. Other works in the field hasn’t become popular with professionals, as they are thought to be a transformed version of the letter work. In Russia there is a little-known monograph named “Social psychology of marketing in sport after V.B. Myagon’kova, Doctor of Philosophy. It’s written in a very complicated science language, and hasn’t become popular with professional associations.
It is a common opinion that Patrick Nelly is the founder of sport marketing. During the 1970th he was looking the sponsors for different sport competition. In general, this concept appeared spontaneously, as sport has been thought to be non-profit field, thus market laws shouldn’t work in it.


2. “Sport marketing” vs. “Marketing in sport”. The tasks of sport marketing

One should differ “sport marketing” from “marketing in sport” – the letter is the adaptation of marketing tools from other fields. Professionals come to opinion that traditional marketing methods have extremely low efficiency in application to a sport field. That is why today this area can be considered to be a separate applied discipline. The main difference of “sport marketing” from marketing in other fields is that in spite of having certain rules to stick to, “planned improvisation” and experiments play very important role.
Besides, sport marketing has a number of specific tasks:
To impress spectators, fans; to provide with a dramatic show; to provoke emotional empathy; to make feel; to choose someone’s side; to make interested in a competition outcome;
To involve a sponsor in a process; to grow his loyalty to a club; to show spectator that sponsor is a “good guy”; to create an associative link between the brand of a professional club and the producer’s brand;
To create the causes for news by informing mass media as well as by making them take the side of a club or the one of competitors, their deeds and decisions; to involve mass-media into a dramatic dialogue;
To gain profit for a sponsor and a club, to control spectators’ impressions;
To emphasize on the interaction with diverse cultural organizations in order to create the “illusion of presence”.


3. “Sport marketing” vs. Show Business Marketing.

“Sport marketing” is frequently compared to the marketing of show business, and this is completely incorrect. The matter is there is a significant difference between the characters created in the fields, which determines the strategy and the methods of their creation. So, spectators want to be near to the movie, theatre and entertainment stars, they want to communicate, to become the other half of the stars etc. People want to be like sport stars, as they set an example (at any age). The meaning of this difference of sport can be seen for example in a movie title: “Like Mike”.
Besides, fans usually only want to enjoy the works of film actors, pop- and rock stars. Yet people want to assist in the achievements of sport stars somehow. Social psychologies note that fans say “we won” when they inform about the positive outcome of a match of a supported team. When the club loses, they say “we lost”.
One can conclude on the basis of all the mentioned that the character in show business should be pleasant to watch, while the one of sport should be suited to share the feelings, to watch, to be able to identify with a spectator easily. In other words, the “history” of a sport club is to be dramatic, and a dramaturgic approach is ideal to the assigned tasks.
What are the benefits of such an approach?
First of all, a spectator is provided with the possibility to support the team in a more emotional and open way. He can not only be happy about the team’s win, but also to share the loss.
Secondly, club obtains faithful fans; it is able to present its history in order to attract new fans with minimum effort.
Thirdly, sponsor obtains the most effective way to affect fans, who are the potential consumers of his product.
The fourth, such an approach attracts the attention of mass-media. It is advantageous for them to cover a sport event as they understand: it reflects the character, his nature; they know its antagonists and protagonists.


4. Sport Image creating principles. Attributes Method for sport clubs, sport teams and sportsmen

Before the beginning of character creation one should take into account the following important points:
During its lifetime existence a sport club has gained some specific reputation, which should be used and developed;
The character of an advertisement of a marketing campaign is a consumer. For instance, a person buys the product of a company which goes in for charity. Consequently the consumer supports neither the company nor the charity object; he supports himself according to his believes. For example, he may pray for forgiveness of his sins by doing this or simply he may satisfy his own requirement to perform an altruistic act;
That is why visiting a sport event may become an example of
Showing one’s social class (VIP seats on CSKA match)
Showing the care of one’s children (by having free time together, sitting in a family sector in the stadium);
Showing the belongingness to a specific society with a common interest among its participants (for example, interest to enter a fan club);
A desire to travel, learn the world, satisfy one’s thirst for information (by traveling with a club for an arrived match
Getting rid of emotional tension (during the process of a team support)
Thus, the most convenient strategy for the creation of a dramatic image of a professional sport club is an "attributes method". It is based on the marketing laws told and proven in the book "22 indispensable marketing laws".
The key concept in any product positioning is an "attribute". Attribute is a word, phrase (or, may be, an expression) indicating the quality associating with the professional club name. As a rule, it is the first association to come to consumer's mind. In his interview Andrey Stegantsov noted that "sport marketing should take into consideration many sport peculiarities. There are playing kinds of sport with 30 or 40 players or individual ones with 2-3 to 10 players. It plays a great role too. There are more dynamic and graceful kinds of sport. One should not only know, but operate these features and nuances in order to get associative series for one or another brand. There is a range of both positive and negative features in sport, as well as there is a complete set of effective tools to identify TM with the features and feelings to make spectators trust sport. That is a simple success formula of an American professional sport[2]".
Such an attribute exists for any club. The richer the history of a club, the stronger this association:
• BC "Detroit Pistons" - bad guys
• BS "Los Angeles Lakers" - traditional champions
• BC "Utah Jazz" - effective school basketball
• Football club "Spartak" - a champion in tradition
• National American Basketball team - "The Dream Team"
Players also have such attributes. Moreover, players' attributes are usually expressed in the nickname essence given to them by mass-media or fans.
For instance, everyone knows who all these players are: "The Aerial", "The unfriendly gost", "The Russian Rocket", "Russian tank". The essence of each of these nicknames is the property a sportsman is associated mostly in a spectator's opinion.
Thus, except having incredible spring ability Mike Jordan had an excellent direct hits percent. He was recognized as the best defender many times. He had many other qualities that made him a world star in this kind of sport. But during one of his first seasons in NBA he won the upward throw competition in All Stars show, and gets the official nickname of "The Aerial". Further the topic was developed in mythological articles by mass-media. They stated that Jordan's figure and the body let him hang in the air, which is impossible for his competitors.
Now this property becomes an attribute for spectator, and he comes to engrave it in his own memory. And the myth about the "God of Basketball" is beginning to boost. Due to this myth Jordan made his fortune on the advertisement contracts. Today the attribute "The Aerial" mainly belongs to a star player Vins Carter; but an attribute cannot belong to two people. That is why he gets the nickname of "Vinceniry", which was formed from his name, became the synonym of an attribute "Spring Ability".
The club of football club “Spartak” today recovers its positions in Russian football after lingering crisis (there was a chain if dope scandals, stealing the means of a club, the hostility between a coach and players). “Spartak” for a number of years hasn’t shown the play made it the Champion of the country. Still, before the beginning of the season 2006/2007 in diverse mass-media web pages one could watch one and the same idea: “Who is to become the champion this year? There are 3 contenders: “CSKA”, because it has a very strong team, “Zenit” because of the very strong acquisitions, and “Spartak” as it is considered to be a traditional champion.
So far people perceive this team as the championship leading contender. That is, “Champion” is an attribute of Football club “Spartak”.
For example, basketball is an entertainment, effective, dynamic etc. kind of sport. Besides, a team may have the “temper” able to be an attribute. So it turns out to be, for example:
The most effective team (do not mix up with “Champion Team”;
The most entertainment team;
The most unpredictable team;
“Forever second” team;
“The tallest team”;
“Bad guys” (“Detroit Pistons”);
The strongest defense team;
The most international team;
The most scandalous team.
For example, hockey club “AK Bars” became the most effective in a regular championship. It has scored 4 goals in general during the game (skipping approximately 2 goals during a game). The team with the strongest defense became Hockey Club “Metallurg” (Magnitogorsk), as it skipped minimum number of goals (it skipped about 1,8 goals and scored 2,7 goals during a game).
It is exactly the way one should present the confrontation of these two teams when they met in the final game. (Besides, in the final match hockey club “AK Bars” skipped 2 goals, while “Metallurg” skipped only 1).
The aim is to fit the attribute presented to a spectator as much as it possible. As a rule it is the most distinctive feature of the professional club, the one that is really exists.
For instance, in case football club “Spartak” is a “Champion team”, the attribute “National Team» appeared due to a great number of the team’s wins hasn’t get accustomed to spectators. Fans didn’t want their favorite team to be “National”, because the product made by the team is so aesthetically acceptable, that it cannot be understood by everyone (most of the team audience is considered to be the artistic intellectuals).
Next, football club “Spartak” has always been distinguished by a sharp uncompromising struggle to the end of a match. When a new trainer Starkov came, mass-media immediately said he will not settle in a team because of his absolutely different, “not champion” style of playing. Later it turned out that analysts were right: the trainer was given a nickname of “Как бы чего не вышло” (еру attribute of “Complexity”), he could not win the confidence of the fans and the players’ of a team with champion traditions.
As noted before, the attribute is to correspond with the play of a club as much as possible; the character is to be consistent, and not ‘scrappy’. One should mention the importance of the name of a club: the more it tells of the product made by professional club, the easier it is to remember and understand it for consumer. In this case it is not clear why such names appeared in sport: “Rotor”, “Dinamo”, CSKA, and “Zorkiy” (the latter one resembles the name of an animal). Besides, one will have difficulties in positioning the clubs with such names). Football club “Amkar” (“ammonia and carbonados”) is another example of this kind. It is also well known, that one should avoid abbreviations in the names of products, company etc.
Then an attribute is to be defined on the basis of the history of a club, or it should be charged with so much emotionality that it lasts for decades. Later all the communication politics and positioning strategy are built on the basis of it. All of the moments which blur the attribute perception are to be excluded (like in the example about football club “Spartak”).


5. The “Solidity” of a club character, its history. Image as a starting point for a marketing concept

The task of professional club marketing, and of its PR and publicity departments is to create a solid character. So, for example, an attribute can become a starting point for creation of a sport event atmosphere, for designing the talisman of a team, its dance route, and even the name of a team. For instance, the talisman of BК “Dinamo” (Moscow) is « djadja Stepa» is not accidentally, as the society of it is considered to consist mainly of law enforcement agencies. Everyone knows that ‘djadja Stepa[3]’ was a policeman, and he was of large, basketball stature.
Famous sport marketing manager, Jon Spoelstra once decided to change the name of a team, and it worked. “Las Vegas Stars” hadn’t won for a long time, and there were fewer and fewer spectators. The game of the team wasn’t starry at all, as its name implied. The team was based in Las Vegas, the city associated with entertainments. Then it was decided to give a new “Zone 51” name”. So newspapers wrote about the military base located in that district where the experiments with aliens were supposedly held. This new name and the legend connected to it had an “entertainment” character. This provoked the interest of customers and mass-media in the team[4].
Let's take a notice that having a narrowly-focused attribute by itself do not guarantee stands full with spectators during a sport event. It is important for a kind of sport to be well promoted, as an attribute has the influence and value only in the context (or a 'semantic field') of a specific kind of sport (so, it is not the brand to be promoted in the advertisement of brewer beverages, but the consumption of beer in general, but the consumption is to occur in a particular atmosphere, in a certain conditions so that it has some sense.)
Thus, in order to promote a professional hockey club in a local market, one is to tell a consumer about hockey importance on a national and regional scale. The one should also inform of its role in history, about the social role of hockey in the future as field of activity for fans' children, for instance. Only after the significance of hockey is obvious, then a professional club, its achievements and its mythical character will have more authority. That is, a professional club is to advertise its kind of sport at first. This will be the context to offer an enthralling sight in.
The main reason for it is that the advertisement of a kind of sport expends the area of its consumption. For instance, in case curling isn't highly thought of in a country, all the sport achievements of native sportsmen on a world scale will hardly affect anyone. On the contrary, any international football match regardless of its outcome is reported in the news, because football is not only cultural, but also a polititical phenomenon.


6. Teams’ as a marketing tool Color contrast. Intrigue as a way to attract attention.

Next, in order to choose the most vivid attribute of all the possible for positioning of a professional club, one should choose the qualities opposite to the ones of a champion team. For example,
• Defense and attack
• Experience and experiment model
• Physical strength and dexterity, technical skills
Thus, the quality is always either diametrically opposite to the strongest one of a champion or it is to be the weakest one in the game of champion. It is done in order to attract maximum number of sport event consumers, in case a sport club participates: "they met: the fire and the ice, water and flame..."
Let's take a notice that club PR should tell a fan not only about its positive traits but also about negative ones (of course, it shouldn't be bad organization or poor management etc.). Such an approach makes team perception more volumetric, dramatic; it causes not only the pride of fans, but also their empathy. I.e. one should seek for "positive traits in a negative character and negative ones in a positive character". For instance, having a strong defense, one should tell about the problems in attack, specifying the plan to deal with it (e.g. to enforce the line of defense).
It is possible to present an attribute in a more emotional way in communication strategy - when the names or colors of clubs are opposed. For uninitiated spectators the reds always fight with the blues, the yellows with the greens, and the whites against the blacks in a field.
That is the exact reason why a receiving team always plays in a white uniform. The psychological qualities of the color are inspiration, assistance; it suggests faith (which gives freedom). White color of clothes means a beginning. White wig of a judge is the symbol of justice. "White knight" is the symbol of a rescue. White doctor's smock is also the symbol of rescue and of germfree purity[5].
On the contrary, wearing a uniform of a black color is traditionally associated with evil and death. It is the color of medieval executioners, Dart Veider, and ninja soldiers. It has the effect opposite to the one of a nurse. Mark Frankl and Tomas Jilovich[6] tell that from 1970 till 1986 sport teams in black uniform ("Los Angeles Raiders" and "Phyladelphia Flyers" in the first place) have always been the second in having penalties. The following lab analyses determined that a simple black sweater may cause more aggressive actions of a person.
Contrasting attributes creates intrigue. The intrigue attracts the attention on spectators and mass-media. In case there is an interested spectator, there will be sponsor.
In dramaturgy intrigue is the means of dramatic acts organization with the help of difficult peripeties.
Intrigue is created by deliberate acts of a fighting side or it appears as a result of accidental coincidence. With the help of intrigue a dramatist to reaches the necessary level of action intensity; he makes spectator interested in further developments[7].
Intrigue is the main 'weapon' in the strife for new consumer of a sport event and for consolidation of proven fans.
"What if?", "Will he be able to?", "Will he get through?", "Will he dare to?" - are usual wording of intrigue.
What if they meet to find out the strongest, what if the team with the strongest attack meets the one with the strongest defense? (It is a logical paradox, like the following one: "what will happen in case all overwhelming shot gets into indestructible wall" that creates cognitive dissonance with the help of accenting)
- What if a boxer of in overage weight challenge to a heavyweight? (The fight of Roy Jones Jr. and John Ruis)
- Will the team with no defeat at home be able to hold out against a champion in its motherland?
- Will judge dare dictate 'his' game this time?
- Will team stand out the fight without its leader?


7. Classical event development scheme

To work with spectator's attention one may use the following schemes of screenwriters:
Hockey with puck has 3 periods - it is the number of parts in a classical event development scheme in dramaturgy
Football and hockey with ball meetings lasts for 90 minutes - it is the exact time of an overage movie
Basketball has 4 quarters, so the 2d and the 3d may serve as the 2d act, the 4th quarter is the 3d act and the 1st is the 1st act respectively. It is a classical event development scheme in dramaturgy
That is, on should use undulating peculiarities of human's information perception. Of course, one can define the moment in a match to present statistics for most benefit according to the style of sport event reporting.
Presenting teams, their aims in a championship, presenting the main people today may be an exposition of all sport production. It will enforce sport impression of sport event consumption. Sport commentator ought to remember of this.
Intrigue may be created by the tools close to sport, for example:
- Juliya Bordovskih stood up for "Dinamo", so she could comment women basketball Nation League (such match will be interesting not only of the fans of opposing teams)
- Zemfira became the captain of Russian junior team , so she could comment basketball match
- Oleg Tabakov is an old fan of a football club "Spartak", so he could be a companion of Vasiliy Utkin and Vladimir Goosev
- Dana Borisova could comment football match on April 1st or boxers' fight
Such methods form the interest to a sport event of different target audience introducing the element of attraction, which does not influence sport component of an event.
For instance, Larisa Dolina was invited to the project "King of a Rign" not occasionally - everyone knows that Konstantin Dzju appears listening to her song. Larisa also visited some fights and does know this kind of sport.
In this aspect, for example, it would be very interesting if Nikita Mikhalkov commented hockey match of Russian National team with Viktor Goosev.
Resuming this analogy with movie industry we'll notice that sport event is always a premiere. Also, theatre performance can be repeated, a movie can be repeated in a cinema, and so can a rock star concert. At the same time, sport event cannot be reviewed, and this creates the illusion of being exclusive (advertisement method).
So the strategy of creating a dramatic character of a professional sport club based on attribute let constructing a lot of different news reason artificially for reporting them in mass-media, for analytics, for statistical comparisons, and for dramatizing occasion.


8. The advantages of sport marketing approach

Such an approach is beneficial for everybody:
1. It let spectator and fan support his team more openly. It let make the process maximum emotional, diversify his own and consumers' slang. Specific character is generated, and one can easier associate oneself with it than with an abstract character or team. If we use NLL of R. Dilse and archetypes theories of K.G. Jung during the development and implementation of attribute, the effect may be very strong.
2. Mass-media get exclusive possibility for a more dramatic sport event presenting. It let them attract maximum number of spectators, and readers. This approach let make the newspaper header more intriguing and emotional
For instance,
Instead of "Unexpected victory of "Magnitogorsk" over "Avangard" in play-off there can be "Hawks remained hungry: steel guys turned out to be uneatable"
Let's have a note that in any circumstances, in any tournament professional club is to be a solid newsmaker in press, television, radio or Internet, creating at least one news reason in a week. Also, news is to be connected not only with professional activities of a club.
3. Sponsors gain more emotionally open way to build the communication with fans. Knowing the attribute of one or another team, the process of sponsor object seeking is being reduced many times, as the common values of sponsor brands and professional club brands become vivid.


© Yavlenin Igor


[1] Bandy
[2] http://www.sportmanagement.ru/articles.php?id=22
[3] The character of a Russian cartoon (tall fair policeman)
[4] J. Spoelstra, Marketing Outrageously. How to Increase Your Revenue by Staggering Amounts!
/ translated by A. Bulanova. –St. Petersburg: Piter, 2005, С – 51.
[5] Neljubova M.V., Color psychology. Author’s lecture course / M.V. Neljubova – http://v-montaj.narod.ru/
[6] «Exploring Social Psychology» / David G. Myers – http://psylib.myword.ru/
[7] http://slovari.yandex.ru/