"American Express shows savvy at Open"

From ESPN.COM

Review by Kevin Bradshaw in KIN 332 (section 1)

After this year’s U.S. Open, American Express has been recognized as one of the best sports marketing plans in the business. They don’t just associate themselves with the event, but the extend their name while making sure as fans they have the best experience possible. First, American express gave out headphones that streamed live podcasts to all fans that were carrying an American Express card at the Open. They also had stands that matched your personal preferences with players and matches to make sure you enjoyed you match and experience to the fullest. American Express went above and beyond with their marketing plan, the didn’t just give away items or put their name on merchandise, they succeeded fans expectations and kept them entertained the entire time. They even gave other fans that could attend the matches a chance to watch. The set up screens that streamed live matches in parks around New York City. American Express had options for almost every type of person. The fan, the fair-weather fan, the lazy sport enthusiast, children, etc. The attracted people who liked to shop and get away from tennis, by supplying a $50 gift card to anyone who spent $150 dollars at the Ralph Lauren store. They also gave parents a break from their fidgeting children by having open tennis courts and Nintendo Wii for the kids to play. The USTA took this opportunity to help spread the love of tennis to children. They gave out free lessons with professional tennis players to any child that wanted them. American Express went above and beyond for their company, the athletes, and their fans. They put a lot of risk on the line, but came up on top. Businesses should use American Express’s marketing ploys as guidelines to their advantage in the future; they are obviously doing the right things since they are one of the most successful sports marketers in the business.

The hype about Bryce Harper

From Bleacher Report and ESPN.com

Review by Ryan Gerrity in SRM 334

The article and group discussion that we decided to bring to class was about Bryce Harper, and his early introduction into the sports media world. The article that we chose was about both Mike Trout and Bryce Harper, and how they are taking the MLB by storm at such a young age.

The article talks about how that at age 16 Bryce Harper was put on the cover of Sports Illustrated. They compare him to LeBron James because he was the first high school player to ever be on the cover of that magazine. The article than goes on to describe how the hype is surrounding them both. Trout even though, he is having a better year than Harper, is not receiving the same attention from the media.

The way that Harper approaches the media is also another part of the article. He does not handle the media well at all. It seems like he gets frustrated very easily with the media and will have outbursts and sometimes even attack the reporters verbally. It is unnecessary and very immature. At a very young age he was put into the spotlight of the media, and this made him grow up very quickly. Even though he is in the media spotlight, he is still a young man, and may not be prepared and may still be very immature. Personally, I believe that he was put on a pedestal at such a young age by his parents, and by the media that surrounded him. This caused him to become a little over confident in himself and his ability to play baseball. He was a spotlight in a feature called E:60 by ESPN when he was 16 years old and that was when he was in high school. He then took that and believed that he wanted to leave high school early, and go to a community college so that he could go to the MLB draft when he was 19. He was drafted first overall, and the spotlight was on him since that day.

This subject has to do with our class because it is based on the media and the effect that it had on him at such a young age. The way the media portrays him and how it effects him is very noticeable. The media shows him as a young immature player and person, and he follows through with that stereotype by the way he handles himself with the media. I do not think that he is doing a good job when he is handling the media. I believe that his teammates and his fans are annoyed by the way he handles himself.
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Review by Steve Robertson in SRM 334

When I think of the media today I think of a monster. It can essentially make you or break you. I find it extremely interesting how influential the media can be for the fans, and how it keeps them coming back for more. I did my article on the MLB Rookie, Bryce Harper, and his popularity between the league and media.

This article begins with comparing him to NBA Champion LeBron James as a rookie coming out of high school and his fan base in the MLB, compared to Tim Tebow’s popularity within the NFL. The major similarity which was highlighted was similar to LeBron, Harper found himself on the cover of Sport Illustrated as a teenager in high school. Furthermore, Bryce was also drafted number 1 overall in his draft class, similar to LeBron.

As the article continued, it began to compare Bryce Harper to the other new MLB rookie Mike Trout. Mike Trout has actually been out performing Harper throughout the entire season. However it said due to his struggles before he was called up, was when Bryce Harper “went-off.” As the article began to wind up the author mentioned that, “Hype has its place and serves a purpose in the sports-entertainment world. It cultivates interest—both positive and negative—which generates publicity, which increases newspaper circulation and page views, which facilitates the pursuit and attainment of the almighty dollar. “

Honestly anything that has some sort of drama/hot topic can sell, in the media sense. A big reason that Bryce has become so popular throughout the league has been because was talked about a teenager and the media fell in love with not only his athleticism, but his character as well. I feel the Bryce Harper needed to learn how to mature quickly when coming into the MLB. A major reason, I feel why the fans and media love him is because he can be quite unpredictable and has had a history of immature outbursts during interviews and has already had multiple ejections throughout his baseball career.

I think Bryce Harper along with Mike Trout have very promising careers ahead of them. I feel in order for Bryce to thrive in the MLB however, I strongly believe that he needs to grow up quicker in the league- he will not be a teenager forever.

"The Alchemy of Olympics Advertising & Sponsorship: Turning the Games into Gold"

From the Journal of Management Policy and Practice

Review by Ben Thacker in KIN 501

Over the past several months, there have been several current events that pertain to marketing within the sports world. The first that came to my mind was the Olympics. The Olympics are a fantastic opportunity for companies to get their name to people watching the games on both TV and at the events. Companies take advantage of marketing during the Olympics by utilizing both sponsorship and or advertising techniques. Companies that utilize sponsorship own some of the rights to the event and their competitors aren’t allowed to participate at the event itself.

The Alchemy of Olympics Advertising & Sponsorship: Turning the Games into Gold is an article that hypothesizes whether advertising and sponsorship in the Olympic games actually helps to generate stock increases in stock prices. The article hypothesized that Olympic stocks would outperform the SAP 500 during the Olympic games, during a four week period thirteen weeks before the Olympics there would be no significant difference between the Olympic stocks and the SAP 500, companies that use sponsorship and advertising do better than companies just advertising and companies that use both sponsorship and advertisements will not see a major difference in a four week period thirteen weeks before the Olympics.

To accomplish this study the researchers looked at 225 publicly traded firms that had participated in the last seven summer and winter Olympics. The control period (the four week period, thirteen weeks prior to the beginning of the games) was used exactly thirteen weeks prior to the games. Comparisons of companies that used both sponsorship and advertising to companies that used just advertising techniques showed a vast difference between their stock price performances.

Overall, the study showed that these hypotheses were all confirmed. Hypothesis one was supported. Olympic Stocks did better than the SAP 500 Hypothesis two was supported. There was no significant difference between Olympic Stocks and SAP 500 in the four week period, thirteen weeks before the games. Hypothesis three and four were supported. Companies that used advertising and sponsorship outperformed companies that only used TV advertising for the first week. Lastly, the authors said that this Olympics proved to show a synergistic effect, where the Olympic stocks actually did much better than anticipated. This study may have several implications and they showed that stock prices can go up during the winter Olympics and not just the summer games. Also, this study shows that more companies would want to make future investments and lastly, firms would want to study the more successful Olympic sponsors like Coca-Cola at McDonalds.

Overall, this is an interesting study. The study shows that there is usually no correlation between advertising and sponsorships with the stock price of a company. The trend seems to show that there are several companies who benefit from being Olympic sponsors and advertisers. By doing other research and finding a relevant video, I did notice that there seems to be a trend with the research. Since Nike has been a publicly traded company they typically do well during the Olympics. The only Olympics that Nike struggled during was in 2010 at Bejing and that was during the beginning of the economic downturn. Lastly, this study seems to prove true and indicates that investors could make a fair amount of money during the Olympics if they pick the right companies during the Olympics.