Review by Gene Daniels in KIN 332 David Beckham is arguably the world’s most popular soccer player, and when he does something it seems like it is covered on an even bigger stage; his actions are cosmic. At the age of 37, Beckham knows his days of playing the beautiful game are waning but there is still some good football (soccer) left in his legs. On the 31st of January, Beckham was introduced as the newest signing for Paris Saint-Germain. PSG had fallen on hard economic times in the late 90s and early 2000s but due to a restructuring of ownership and finances, the club has become one of the most lucrative and endowed clubs in the world over the last 4-5 years. Beckham answered several customary questions in his introductory press conference and seemed very at ease and excited for the newest chapter or his illustrious playing career. He then dropped the bomb on the whole room and informed the media that he would not be receiving a salary for his services during his 5 month contract but rather would be donating the money to a French children’s charity organization.
This decision is one that looks extremely good for both PSG and for Beckham. Many know him as a humanitarian and an overall good person, so this move is something that really fits the mold because we all know Beckham has enough money to live extremely comfortably for the rest of his life. PSG on the other hand has come to have a sinister reputation in the soccer world. Many believe that their wealth as a club and subsequent buying habits for players taint the game as we know it and undermine what many other clubs around the world are trying to do by developing young players and building club loyalty. This move comes at a very convenient time for the club, which leads many people to believe that it is nothing more than a publicity stunt.
In his press conference and ultimately in the article, Beckham discusses that he made the move for “footballing reasons” and that his wife and children would be staying back in London. He also discusses the potential he sees in PSG and their players and his excitement to work with Carlo Ancelotti (a former manager of his with AC Milan) again. After listening to Beckham, one would think the move was made for soccer reasons and that the decision to play for free is just Beckham and the club being hospitable and fulfilling a social obligation to the community but we will never really know.
Wherever David Beckham goes the money will follow. His sponsorship deals will now increase awareness for and have a connection with his new team and I am sure they will see a ridiculous spike in merchandise revenue, as his jersey has been one of the most popular selling pieces of soccer merchandise since he bursted on the scene at Manchester United. The club will tap into his as a resource for their marketing campaigns and I’m sure the Paris business community will reach out to Beckham as well. More specifically to the contract, the public image and popularity of both Beckham and PSG will soar and they will definitely see benefits from the decision to play for free. Whether they have made this move for David Beckham the player, or David Beckham the personality PSG has done extremely well here. They have brought in the most marketed player in all of soccer, and while doing so have looked like the knight in shining armor by coordinating with Beckham to donate to charity.
From Concordia University St. Paul - Online Review by Jenny Hansberry in KIN 332 (section 2) I came across this article and found it to be an interesting topic to bring up in class. Growing up an avid Philadelphia Phillies fan, I certainly had my opinion about the New York Yankees and how they spend their organization’s money. I have always thought that the Yankees “buy their championships”, and it would be ridiculous if they did not win the World Series every year since they buy the top players. However, after this article, I realize that money does not always guarantee a ring at the end of the season.
One of the most interesting statistics I found from this article was that the MLB has more of a diverse result in championships than any other professional sport. I was surprised because I would think that since there is no salary cap in the MLB and wealthy organizations can get whichever players they want that they would have the same teams winning over and over again. Since this is not the case, it is hard to understand exactly why some teams spend such an immense amount of money every year. From a marketing standpoint, the teams who have more money within the organization for players, coaches, staff, the stadium, fans, etc. are also bringing in more money on a game to game basis. Tradition and history ensure teams such as the Yankees or Phillies to never have to worry about not having the fans behind them to make a profit every season.
Another reason why I thought this article was interesting is because the teams, especially in baseball, that are being focused on as the teams that spend the most are not currently playing anymore. This World Series is the Tigers and Giants, neither are which spoken about in this article. Therefore, it brings up tremendous marketing opportunities to help build up their teams to maybe one day become as historic as some other teams in the league.
The Gold Coast United is a soccer team that plays in the Australian A-League. The team was founded in 2009 by mining magnate Clive Palmer. At their inception, Palmer proclaimed that the team would fly through their inaugural year without a single loss; he was sorely mistaken. Gold Coast United, instead of winning all their games, quickly became the worst and most despicable team in the league. In their latest blunder, Palmer named one of the newest and youngest members of the team, 17-year-old Mitch Cooper, to be the team’s captain in their match against the Melbourne Heat. This action in itself is ridiculous because Cooper had only played a few games with the team and he had not been in any position to deserve the right to be called captain. The coach of the team, Miron Bleiberg, publicly spoke out against Palmer’s move which led to Palmer suspending Bleiberg for not supporting him. For any other team, this might not be such a big deal, however, Gold Coast United are not just any team. From constantly picking up star players for absurd amounts of money and then those same players not accomplishing anything to constantly having minimal fans and sponsorships at any of their matches, Gold Coast United seems to be going down the drain fast.
The marketing and sales implications of Clive Palmer’s actions are disastrous for both the Gold Coast United soccer team and the Australian A-League in general. This is bad for Gold Coast United because the actions of their immature owner cause them to be constantly losing fans and other potential consumers of their products and services. Also, since no one is going to their games and they are constantly losing fans, nobody wants to become sponsors of the team and the sponsors that the team does have are probably going to move on to other teams relatively soon if they have not already. The actions of Gold Coast United and its owner Clive Palmer are disastrous for the entire Australian A-League because the sports industry in Australia is extremely competitive and, if Gold Coast United is constantly losing fans and sponsors because of their ridiculous actions, that makes the entire league look bad and could cause potential revenue producers to move on to other sports like Australian Rules Football. In conclusion, Gold Coast United and billionaire owner Clive Palmer seem to be taking actions that lead them down a road that ends in dissolution of the team and maybe even of the league. ---
Review by Katie Gebauer in KIN 435 (section 1)
The article Gold Coast: Football Club to Farce explains how another incident by the Gold Coast’s coach Palmer has turned them into a joke. The billionaire, Clive Palmer, funds the Gold Coast team that began in 2009, because like other teams they are struggling with a lack of crowds and lack of sponsorships. Palmer told coach Miron Bleiberg that he was to make the 17-year-old new comer, Mitch Cooper captain for the game against Melbourne Heart. To me it seems that Palmer was trying to achieve new fans by making a young player captain because it showed that he supports youth. Supporting youth could get parents to take their kids to the games, could get young kids to follow the team and players a little more because of their ability to relate to Cooper, and being that Cooper was expected to be very good it could create hype around him which would help out ticket sales and sponsorships. This fact is proven because the first thing I noticed about the article was that Hyatt was the sponsor that Cooper wears on his uniform. What company wouldn’t want to advertise and or sponsor a team or player that is getting that much hype?
The part that Palmer misunderstood about what he did was the affect is would have on the fans. The fans take the game, and the role of captain, very seriously. It is given to someone who shows teamwork and leadership, many fans viewed giving Cooper the role of captain as a joke and a slap in the face to the hard work and effort that the players put into the game. I believe Coach Bleiberg understood this, which is why he assured fans that his role as captain was just a ceremonial gesture. Palmer then came back and suspended Bleiberg because he saw that statement as undermining what he had planned. Being that most of the fans didn’t agree with Cooper becoming captain, the fact that the coach was suspended angered them even more.
Basically this article sums up how this is just one of many instances that Palmer is tarnishing his teams reputation through bad decisions, and how that tarnished reputation may soon lead to the end of this team.
The newly rebranded Sporting Kansas City of Major League Soccer just named its new $200 million stadium LiveStrong Sporting Park. This is a marquee deal because LiveStrong aren’t paying a dime for the naming rights but rather the MLS franchise is giving the foundation a $7.5 million donation over the next six years. LiveStrong will also receive a percentage of the revenue that the stadium makes through out each season. Sporting Kansas City was searching for a corporate sponsor to buy the naming rights of the first soccer-specific stadium in the MLS but there were a lack of potential investors due to Kansas City’s small amount of large corporations and Fortune 500 companies. The sponsor ship with LiveStrong has become the centerpiece of the rebranded franchise and within 24 hours of the deal being announced, 400 season tickets were sold. Some other franchises believe that this type of “cause-marketing” will become a trend in sports while others don’t seem that these trends will catch on in different sports.
The marketing and sales of this sponsorship are groundbreaking to the sport marketing business. These two corporations made a partnership that pioneered the way that stadiums may market their naming rights. While most stadiums look toward large companies to pay for the naming rights, other franchises may try to partner with nonprofit foundations in order to establish a connection with the community at large. Sporting K.C. may have partnered with the best foundation because of LiveStrong’s previous involvement in sports that makes them a perfect fit into stadium naming rights especially in a rebranded franchise with a new state-of-art facility. While this new experimental partnership could work out for Livestrong and Sporting Kansas City, who knows how well it will work for other franchises who partner with nonprofit organizations and corporations.
---
Review by Rob Cushen in KIN 435
The article that we chose to review for this assignment is about the MLS soccer team Sporting KC and the naming rights to their stadium. This team is groundbreaking for several different reasons, the first of which is their name change from the Kansas City Wizards to Sporting KC. They felt this would play an instrumental role in raising popularity of MLS soccer in the US by taking on a name that closely resembled team names of European leagues. Along with this name change comes a revolutionary new stadium for MLS soccer and the sport’s fans. This stadium is the first of its kind because it is exclusive to soccer and is not shared with any other major sports team. Sporting KC is home to one of JMU’s alumni CJ Sapong who was selected tenth overall in the 2011 draft which is the highest JMU soccer pick ever. Last but certainly not least, is the name and the naming rights of this modern landmark. The naming rights for the stadium were donated to the Lance Armstrong Foundation and therefore it is named Livestrong Park.
Usually for professional sports the naming rights for a stadium draws some astronomical price tag but due to the lack of interest in MLS soccer an alternate route was taken. The idea behind donating the naming rights was to support finding a cure for testicular cancer while simultaneously increasing the attendance of Sporting KC. Since Kansas City is pretty much in the middle of nowhere and soccer’s popularity is not quite on par with maybe football, basketball, baseball, or hockey there wasn’t much of an advantage for a company to purchase the naming rights.
One of the major questions we asked in our presentation is whether giving away naming rights will catch on in soccer as well as other professional sports. The general consensus is that it would not be considered the norm among all sports but there was a good chance it would become more common in soccer. Livestrong Park is a cutting edge facility by soccer standards and sort of sets the bar for what other teams need to aspire to become. Sporting KC at Livestrong Park makes the future of professional soccer in the United States look promising which gives a new hope to the MLS and soccer fans alike.
Sporting Club has decided to launch a High-tech consulting firm that will be used to share the knowledge gained from the technological advancements in the building of the Sporting K.C.’s new stadium, Livestrong Sporting Park. With the addition of Google, Inc. in the design and implementation of some of the new technology within the stadium, Sporting K.C. now has a high-speed connection “three to five times faster than inside Cowboys Stadium,” according to Sporting K.C. CIO Asim Pasha. Google has chosen the new stadium to introduce its new high-speed network. The Google Fiber service will be able to provide unparalleled video content, 3-D video, and even mobile applications developed specifically for Sporting KC fans that will allow them to view live video feeds from different camera angles. All of these advancements have given the company a wealth of information that could be shared and used in other sports, such as the NFL, MLB, and European Football Leagues. Sasha Victorine, director of business development for Sporting Club states that Sporting Innovations is, “based off of what we’ve learned with the stadium and the key relationships we have with tech companies.” She also states that, “There are a whole host of technologies we feel are going to change the way sports connect to fans.” As of now, no clients have been signed, but representatives from the NFL, MLB, NBA, English Premier League, Verizon, AT&T and Cisco, will be at the announcement of the new firm. Client offerings and cost structures have yet to be determined by the company, however, with the large amount of information and innovations that have been developed, it will be hard for other companies and leagues to deny such advancements in the fan experience and interaction with their teams. This relates to Sport Marketing because of how easy it would be to market a stadium that not only gives a percentage of all sales to Cancer research, but also is capable of taking the fan experience in sport to another level, which would be a sport marketer’s dream in my opinion. Furthermore, the new stadium provides fans with unprecedented access and use of social media, which could be used by Sporting K.C. as a way of viral marketing. If the fans love the new stadium, social media sites like Facebook and Twitter will receive posts about it, which will generate awareness and publicity.
