The article, “Dollars just keep climbing for college kickoff games,” highlights the fierce, competitive industry for opening college football games that includes a neutral site and an illustrious high payout offer to both teams competing in the game. This wasn’t always the case though as the “kickoff” as it is called started back up in 2008. The idea was and still is to give two college football teams a chance to feel what it is to have a bowl like atmosphere while increasing excitement about the beginning of the new college football season. This year highlighted two big time programs, Alabama Crimson Tide and the Michigan Wolverines, in the Cowboy Classic. The payout for the game is anticipated to be about $9.4 million dollars with each team receiving about $4.7 million dollars after the game. The article continues to list big time neutral site openers for the 2012-13 year that are expected to bring in high revenue. With such high profile games and neutral sites the marketing aspect of this seems to be ingenious. First the schools still must market the game to their fan based audience which is sort of a tough position trying to market a game that could be hours away with higher ticket prices. How do you sell 25,000 tickets to your fans with a 20-50% spike in price? At the same time as a coach you must ask, “Do I want to lose a chance of hosting a home game while increasing the chance of being on a national stage and having future recruits witness your school on the big stage?” Being on a neutral site at a NFL stadium is a market itself to future recruits. Another big factor with these games that was brought up in the article is the advertising on TV with Dick’s Sporting Goods being the winner as they were the umbrella sponsor this past weekend with advertisements during all the games. Overall, in the sports marketing world this article is perfect as it hits many aspects involving sports marketing from many different views such as the coach, fans, players, future players, and marketing departments of big time companies.
Smart phones have made it possible to access immeasurable amounts of information and the ability to perform services anywhere a person could possibly desire. Whether it is checking the score of a game, finding directions with GPS coordination, shopping, or even renting your favorite movie to watch in the palms of your hands these phones continue to change the ways in which both businesses and individuals conduct business and leisure activities everyday. “StubHub, Paciolan Go Mobile For Four Schools” is an eye-opening article in the August 27th issue of the Sports Business Journal discussing the introduction of mobile ticketing to NCAA college football.
North Carolina, Purdue, Tennessee and Texas are the four schools that are introducing mobile ticketing for this upcoming season. In the words of Greg Ivry, Stubhub’s business development manager, “Mobile is a seamless experience that allows fans to buy a ticket on their phone. Receive a new barcode for that ticket and then scan it at the gate and get your seat.” Forget stopping by the box office or even printing out the tickets at home, this new form of service provides consumers with the convenience of having a ticket within a matter of seconds. Making it this easy for the consumer to purchase will result in new marketing and sales strategies for both Stubhub and the University introducing mobile ticketing.
Stubhub is affiliated with thirty colleges for ticketing services, however only a few maintain legitimate sponsorship deals. With more universities embracing the secondary ticket market industry I believe that this new form of convenience will soon become the norm of the college sports world. According to Paciolan eighty percent of school’s currently have the technology to scan barcodes off of phones. The Internet in recent years has proved to be a major game changer bringing in new ways for fans to purchase tickets. This leaves you to wonder what is in store for the athletic marketing and sales world with the dawn of the Smartphone era.
The article “Men’s College Basketball Program Facing Attendance Declines” is about the current problem facing ticket sales in college basketball programs across America. The article states that the NCAA Division 1 basketball teams had a decline by 47 fans last season. One in five programs have seen a 20% attendance drop or more over the past four seasons. Half of the programs affected were in the Pac 12. The article list three problems that could contribute to the problem. One is the effect of the NBA being close to major colleges. The article states that more fans want to spend money on NBA games than college. Second is technology making it easier for people to stay at home and watch the games. Their saying students can watch games on the phone or ipads. Third, when it comes to basketball, viewers are more interested in the post season. Fans don’t want to watch every game because it takes time. The article had a lack of the sports marketing that the basketball venues were trying to do. In the article, it states that Duke University had declines but wasn’t going to buy into the cheesy promotions during the games. However, Bobinski states that enhancing the experience or non-conference scheduling can help reverse the decline. I believe that Bobinski is right. If the colleges want to get more students and alumni in the stands, enhancing the experience in the stadiums will help. It might be easier to watch it on tv with today’s technology but it’s not the same. If the stadiums had more in house promotions or more advertisement within the community, more people would come. The Duke reporter said they don’t play the canned pop music or any of those things before a game. It seemed to me that in the article, the colleges gave up when trying to compete with the NBA or get fans in. True the NBA may have bigger stars and more excitement, but nothing is more exciting that rooting for your own college with your friends on a Friday night. Even if that does entail cheesy promotions and canned music.
