RPTA 323: Market Segmentation, Target Marketing, & The Sport Product

All right, my friends. Here we go with market segmentation, target marketing, and a sport product. Um, our objectives. Here are our objectives. Um, we're going to examine the role of segmentation in the market uh marketing process uh by identifying specific audiences. We're going to um look at the standard basis of market segmentation in sport and try to get a perspective on those. Um I I I ultimately I want you to be able to understand the importance of focusing marketing efforts on these uh target markets right on these segments or niches or um whatnot. We'll discuss we'll uh explore those those areas. I want you to be able to recognize the elements of the sport product that contribute to its uniqueness. This is uh a little bit of a review from previous, but we're going to get into it more. Right? I want you to learn the process involved in product development as well as the product life cycle. And then finally, we're going to look at differentiation, product positioning, product image, and product branding, and the roles that those play in successful sport marketing.

All right, so let's get into it. Let's start first with market segmentation. So obviously, it's important to define it. You know, you know what a segment is, right? You know that a segment is uh a portion, right? Um but the official definition is the process of dividing a large heterogeneous market into more homogeneous groups of people who have similar wants, needs or demographic profiles and to whom a product may be targeted. Right? And so if we look here at the picture, the image, you know that I always try to have an image to help you to understand the concept better. This is the dog pound. For those of you who are not familiar, this is a section of the Cleveland Browns. So there's a concept called seat segmentation, right? where you um you you ultimately block off parts of your stadium um into segments. Um I actually back when I was working on my masters um and afterwards um I I wrote a paper on seat segmentation that uh uh I will I will admit that I thought it might get a little bit more play than it did. This was back in the um early 2000s. I thought I I I sincerely thought that by this time 2025 I I thought that most stadiums would be fully segmented by this point in time and we'll talk a little bit about that. That's not the case. Uh but uh we'll talk a little bit more about that as we go along.

All right. Now when we think about market segmentation, there are three different areas that we want to establish or that we want to ask we want to ask ourselves, right? And those are labeled and and I again I want you to recognize that um this is a um this is a module that I have actually used quite a bit from the book. Um I've I've picked and ch picked and and choosed um you know what I want to use. Um but um a lot of this will be pretty familiar from your reading. Okay. So identifiability is the first one. Can we as the marketer can we recognize a specific segment? All right. Next is accessibility. Can we reach that segment? Okay. And then finally, responsiveness. Will the segment respond to our marketing efforts based on their wants and needs? And is it worth targeting them? So, you may ask yourself, what is the image here? Well, these are the owners of 1972, one of the first women's only women's sports only sports bars in existence in the United States. Some of you may have gone to the one up in um in San Francisco. There's another one in San Francisco. Um but this is one of the only women's um specific women's sports sports bars in the United States. They're in Austin, Texas, as you can see um by her shirt. And so let's let's look at it. Let's think about the AR. Can the marketer recognize a specific segment? The specific segment is women's sports fans. Obviously, we know that women's sports is hot right now is um is trending. And so they they can recognize a specific segment, right? Can they reach that segment? uh that's uh a question that they they had to ask as business owners. Can we reach this segment in being successful? Obviously, they have reached that segment and then will the segment respond to the marketing efforts and so far the answer to that question has been yes. And so um that's how we look at it.

All right. Now, this table looks at some different segments that we might typically see in um professional sport or intercolgate athletics, right? So, the corporate business segment and then and and so you you can see I'm actually not going to go through each of these and and read them to you. You can look at them. I want you to recognize that these are some of the typical segments, but um I think it's important to point out that um while these might be some of the typical segments, that's not necessarily that's obviously not set in stone. Yeah. I mean, obviously we have corporate business aspects, right? Where there's premium seats, where there's corporate suites, where there's, you know, VIP type high-end stuff, right? We have youth and children aspects student. You know, I was up um I was up with my daughter um and uh touring some um schools in the northeast and um we were at Boston College and one of the things that the Boston College kids were saying is that yeah, Fenway Park has a $7 college uh college ticket. Um and that we're able to do. So, a lot of students go in for Red Sox games, right? And so that's obviously a segment that the the Red Sox um have said, you know what, we're willing to give reduced price tickets in order to grow that fan base with young college students. Obviously, you have seasoned ticket holders, you have partial and mini plans, you have um group leaders um or or small groups or you know, you can just keep going on and on there. and and then obviously families is one of them as well.

In addition, there are levels of market segmentation. Okay. And so I think it's important to point out your book um your book did not I don't believe your book actually broke it down to these four levels. But um I like I found this and I like this leveling um as a way of understanding the difference between segment and niche marketing. Right? So segment marketing is larger. All right? Whereas niche marketing is smaller, right? So if we say female sports fans, um well, let's just say if if we say female baseball fans, that might be a segment, right? Um and and segments are pretty large, obviously. A female female um baseball fans, that's a large segment, right? So, we got a lot of competition in that segment. But if we break it down to niche, what if we went with mothers? Um, what if we went with um female baseball fans who play softball? Um, right? And so we're targeting a recreational female um softball league. Um, and so that might be a little bit more niche, right? And then you break it down even further into local and individual marketing and that's getting even um smaller from there. Okay.

There are four basis of sport marketing segmentation as taught by your book. All right. Um first is state of being. Um the how how we describe that is that's more of your demographic, right? That's your age, your gender, your sexual orientation, your level of education, your um religion, your all of those sorts of things, right? And so we can break it down based on those segments. Next, state of mind. That's your personality, your lifestyle. Um, we might compare that to um for example, um, uh, let's say that you are, um, let's say that you're you're very wealthy, right? You're very wealthy and you are a country club type that uh, likes the social aspect, right? And so we might have a market segment where we're we're really going after those VP level that corporate suite level type of person. Um we might also say okay look hey we want to get into let's say we're the uh let's say we're this year or the next couple years for the athletics right in Sacramento. We might uh we might go after the blue collar. We might go after union workers. Um that might be an example um there from the state of mind. Okay. And then we get into product benefits, right? So what benefits do you want to get out of attending a game out of being a fan? And so we might go back to our sport fan team identification stuff that we talked about people's motivation for attending, right? Is it because of um the entertainment aspect? Is it because of the aesthetic aspect? Is it because of the social aspect? Right? So, what is their motivation? What do they want to get out of the product? And then finally, we might look at it from a market segmentation standpoint with sport in terms of heavy, medium, and light use. So, your heavy is your season tickets. Your medium is your um partial season tickets, right? Your mini plans. And then your light is uh is your one-time attendees or once a year type of fans or attendees. Now under this product usage the book establishes the 8020 rule and that is that um the a that um 80% of your revenue comes from 20% of the um of the people right and so those heavy users um are absolutely helping to boost your revenue.

Now if we look at typical marketing segmentation, I do want you to recognize that this is a sportsp specific but typical marketing segmentation is more geographic, demographic, psychoraphic and then behavioral. So let's look at it and let's look at this figure from the book in terms of frequency and um and breath, right? And so when we're looking um when we're this is like a matrix if you will and they've used um I believe they were using the uh I believe they're using a UCLA so uh the Bruins right um and so if you look at it high frequency and high breath right those they they consider the captains right they're following all the team social media they're attending five games per month. Um, they're watching all the away games on TV. These are your diehards, right? Or captains. And then you get into medium frequency, medium breath, right? And they called these the growlers, right? They're the ones that are sharing a mini plan with friends. They're wearing a Bruins hat around. And yeah, they may watch some of the tele they watch some of the televisionized games, but not all of them. And then you know the Cubs, low breath, low frequency, those are the ones that are only going to watch the big game on TV. It's not a real big part of their identity, right? And so, um, yeah, this is and this is ultimately a a sample frequency and breadth grid, um, for, like I said, UCLA Bruins fans.

Next, we get into target marketing. And so target marketing is um ultimately centers around this idea of uh the fact that successful marketing plans integrate the four bases of market segmentation to determine which segments to focus on. Right? So if I am a sport marketer for the um for the brand new Golden State Valkyries, right? Um, I have to look at it and I have to go, okay, from a market segmentation standpoint, who are we going to focus on? Are we are we going to ride the wave of the women's sports um trend and are we really going to go after women or women going to be our um our target market or are we going to say you know what our main base is going to be Golden State Warriors fans. um Golden State Warriors fans are going to feel ownership over the VA with the Valkyries and are already going to be bought in. That's going to be our target market, right? Ultimately, I don't know. I haven't done I haven't looked at the research. I haven't looked at the market research, but that's what a sport marketer will do. A sport marketer will look at the market research and it's very key in this process. And that's why as part of your pitch for your final project you are going to be provided the data that uh you help to collect right so in the coming um in the coming weeks in the coming week um in the next week or so I will provide you with the final tallies related to that market research that we did and you'll be able to utilize it for your pitch.

Next we get into the sport product and um some of this is going to be review right because ultimately we've already defined a sport product right the sport product is a complex package of tangible and intangible attributes of a good or service that combine to meet the needs and wants of sport consumers. It is absolutely very inconsistent in nature, right? Because um sport is unpredictable. Um and the outcome of games is uh is uncertain, right? You have very little control over it. Um but that said, the game itself is only a small part of the ensemble. There are so many different aspects that go into the marketing of a sport product. Most of you, to give you an idea of how unpredictable um that sport is, most of you probably do not remember this shot. You probably do not remember this shot because this shot was pretty much wiped out about uh well in real time about 4 minutes later, 3 minutes later. Um I think actually there may not have been a timeout. It may have only been 10 seconds later. So Marcus Paige hit this shot in the national championship game. He uh went up he So he went So you're seeing him he ducked under a defender, jumped up in the air and made an offbalance uh running incred one of the most incredible shots that I've ever seen to put the Tarheelss up by two points in the final 10 seconds or final uh 20 seconds of the national championship. I think it actually might have even been the final 10 seconds. 10 seconds of the national championship game in 2016. And lo and behold, you don't remember this shot because Villanova came down and hit the game winner as time expired to absolutely devastate your professor. But we got him back the next year and won it in 2017.

Now, as part of the sport product, game presentation is key for many sport organizations. I I I go as far as to say most sport organizations, all sport organizations, right? The primary product is a game, a tournament or an event, right? That uh and so therefore game presentation is key. Pictured here I have Tom Avitzer who sat in your seats. He is a 2020 graduate of our program. Graduated amidst the global pandemic. Felt so bad for Tom. Tom um actually was living in our neighborhood during that time period. He was uh Tom was was um uh an intern with the Oklahoma with the OKC Thunder um at the time of the pandemic and he was there in the building when Rudy Goar um positive and then made a joke and like coughed on the microphone and the press conference and basically that was considered like ground zero of like pretty much shutting everything down. And so Tom was there um interning for the OKC Thunder. I would see him in my neighborhood for the 6 months after that. We would wave it at each other as we were walking in the neighborhood. Tom did not let it get him down. He stayed dedicated and ended up working for the Vikings coming out of the pandemic and now he works for the Brooklyn Nets and um and New York Liberty. So he works for the organization that um manages both the Nets and um the Liberty. So he has a ring from the WNBA championship and he has been invited to two different NBA Allstar games to help with the game presentation. So, this is a picture of him with um the All-Star ball and um and he is a um he is a senior coordinator of game presentation um for the Nets and for the Liberty and that has been his focus. That's what he has focused all his efforts on. It's what he did with the OKC Thunder. Really, really cool. Right. So, ultimately the idea with that is to create an experience that's enjoyable. You've all been to live events, right? You know that people are putting on a show before, during and after games. There is a show. During every timeout, there is a show, right? So the idea behind game presentation is to up the experience and to make the experience more positive.

Now if we look at this and we look at this um uh this figure figure figure 6.1 from the book the core elements of the sport product and a sample of extensions right the core elements can also be described as event experience right and so the core is apparel and equipment rules and techniques also known as game form star power obviously that's your player players and your coaches can also be your owners, right? Your venue, the fan behavior, how people interact at the game, and then the personnel, the process, and the physical facilities. You've heard me say before, those of you who've taken RPTA 160, our sport management class, it boggles my mind that people still don't realize that there are people behind the scenes running sport um organizations, right? That's a testament to how good uh how how well it's run, right? And then you have the extensions and we're um the extensions include the tickets, the programs, and other printed materials that are um that are not as prevalent anymore. It used to be for every sporting event that you went to, there was a game program that was printed and people bought those. They still most most of them do it but you know you don't really get physical tickets very much anymore right that's usually digital now you have memories and artifacts that you take away you have novelties and fantasies that you take away and then obviously you have digital and electronic products and those are all a part of the extensions of the event experience.

So let's get into each one, right? So rules and techniques, that's also refer referred to as game form, right? Those are the special features that make a sport product attractive to certain customers. And so we have the example here of TGL. And TGL, for those who are not familiar, TGL is basically the digitized uh digitized golf in a in an arena. Um it kicked off um in 2024 was the inaugural season and it's basically hitting into a screen for the longer shots and obviously a giant screen that simulates a golf course and then they go to undulating greens and and hit. And so there's all sorts of different rules. Um, and one of the things that I think is really interesting about TGL is that um, in the their inaugural year, they realized that some of the rules that they had in place did not work very well. And so they changed the rules midstream because they wanted to make it more attractive to the fans.

Star power. This is players, coaches, and even said owners, right? Um, stars have a presence that that that that transcends the actual playing. You know, I think about Michael Jordan. Obviously, I come from the Michael Jordan era, and I saw Michael Jordan a couple different times. Um, I was well after him in going uh at UNC, but um in the '90s, um obviously Michael was at the top of his game in terms of being the star in the NBA. And so whenever he came into town, there was a buzz. And I swear, you know, I I swear the two times that I saw him, um he was such a star for me that I swore that he was glowing, that there was like a glow around him. And so you can kind of see uh uh that that presence that transcends the actual playing. There's a certain aspect to that, right? We have a picture here. We have Caitlyn Clark and Paul Skins. um their their um their involvement impacts interest and attendance. Pirates games, if you look at the attendance numbers for Pirates games, the Pirates are not very good at all. But when Paul Ski pitches, they uh they I don't know that they sell out, but they come close to selling out. It's a much higher attendance total with with him pitching, right? Obviously, we know Caitlyn Clark and her appeal. They've even developed a Q score um that that that says um how popular certain players are and that can help. I think you will see that continue in our mediadriven landscape. I think you will see that continue to escalate and to continue to be more of a factor as we go along.

All right. And then you know finally uh star power can also be used for social activism and we've seen a number of star athletes use their platforms for activism.

Fan behavior is next and this is an interesting one and you see the picture here. This is from uh let me try to remember which uh where I pulled this from. Yes, this is from um Split Croatia. So this is um from uh the Adriatic Sea region um sometimes referred to as the Baltic. I think that's Baltic nations if I'm not mistaken. Um so in Europe um soccer is huge. Obviously soccer is huge all around the world. Um but uh very very passionate fan bases. You can see the flares. Um, flares are a thing in European soccer where they light flares and it's it's just, you know, if you think about it, um, not somewhere you would want a kid to come to go. And if you look at this picture, you don't see any kids, right? Um, you only see one woman here. also um very very maledominated um environments in some of these places where sport um violence and hooliganism is associated. You've seen a number of sport organizations try to regulate this um try to regulate alcohol consumption, try to regulate the rowdy fan behavior. Um, one of the reasons why I initially wrote the article that I did on seat segmentation was I had a couple of experiences where in my 20s, all I really wanted to do when I went to a game was um drink a lot of beer and yell at the refs and um yell with my friends and whatnot, you know, cuss and and and be rowdy, right? And lo and behold, I'd have a 5-year-old sitting in front of me. And you do that in front of a 5-year-old, chances are the mom or the dad are going to be really upset with you. And so it severely um negatively impacted my experience. And had I screamed and yelled anyway, it would have negatively impacted the family's experience. And so that's where I said that seat segmentation should come in. You see it in some ballparks, their family sections. You mostly see it in like minor league stadiums where they'll have um a singles section for example um or college section and they'll have a family section. Um, but it has not caught on as much as you would think.

Equipment and apparel. Obviously, we have the equipment that's um on on that's on the players. Um and in my era, um we didn't really wear jerseys. We didn't wear, you know, you can see here, sweaters. I I would have never bought a Carolina Hurricane sweater and worn it to a game. I I never had one, right? But t in today's modern era, it's really really common if you don't have a jersey on or at least some apparel. Um you're like people are like what kind of fan are you? Right? And these uh organization organizations have obviously capitalized on this. Right? So, in this picture, you can see that these are um uh the these this is an effort by the NHL to be more hip. And you you've seen it all across professional sports, the City Connect jerseys, they're called in in the NBA and in Major League Baseball. I believe they're both I believe they're called that in both of those. Maybe they're even called that in um in NHL. I'm not 100%. But this is their version of that, right? In trying to make um sweaters that are hipper, that look cooler, that sort of thing, right? And so obviously that's a huge element um in growing um your sales. Um and so uh that's uh that's there.

And then of course the venue. The venue obviously is really important. Um the picture here is of Beijing National also known as the bird's nest. This was um I believe this was built um for the last um Olympics but has become become an iconic venue because of the the bird's nest design and and obviously teams and franchises are closely associated with their venues. You know the Cubs and Wrigley Field uh Boston and Fenway Park. And so, uh, you know, uh, the Green Bay Packers and and Lambo Field, uh, that sort of thing, right? And as the slide says, memories and communities are created within these venues, right? They and and the modern venue is also used as an additional money-making um, uh, uh, outlet for a revenue generator for teams. Um because you know like if you if you think about a football stadium for example um there's like what maximum of 12 games played in your home stadium per year and 52 weeks of the year, right? And so what are you going to do in those other 40 weeks? and and so obviously um organizations have gotten pretty savvy in um in in making them multiuse venues.

Next we have personnel process and physical facilities. And so these are the behind the scenes. This refers to the event staff in terms of making the event experience more seamless. Making it a positive um uh experience for those who come and go who come to our to the games or to the events or to the activities or to the tournament, right? And so, um, from a sport consumer's perspective, right, they they ultimately expect the event staff to be helpful to to to be voiced in customer service. And, you know, you think to yourself, I'm sure a lot of you have had similar experiences to me, where that can be hit or miss, right? You can get that usher that's like the nicest person in the world, right? And you're like, "God, I wish this person was like my grand my my a lot of times they're older people." Um, retired people who are doing it, but so that's why I say this, but I I've I've had times where I'm like, "Man, I wish this person was my grandmother. This is this is the nicest woman I've ever met." I had that at a Broadway play uh recently, right? where um she actually was not the nicest person I've ever met, but I loved her because she had this like thick New York accent and she was not taking any mess off of anyone. You're not supposed to uh take pictures um inside a Broadway play. And she told people that everybody she sat down, she told that. And then what would they do? they would sit down and start taking pictures and she was not having it. Right. So, it was really really awesome. I thought she was so great at her job the way she did that. Because she was not taking any mess um from uh in terms of enforcing that rule. But for me, since I wasn't breaking the rule, I thought she was the greatest. I'm sure those people who were breaking the rule thought she was the worst. But anyway, that is a significant.

Next, we have product extensions. And so, these are um the elements that um enhance the value of of an event experience. And so, obviously on this slide, I have a picture of a um Aaron Judge bobblehead. And bobbleheads have become incredibly popular. I remember they when they first came out, I remember I I'll be honest, I remember thinking to myself, what? Like seriously? Um I wasn't very interested at all. Um but now I have a few bobbleheads and you know, it's kind of fun to give my kids one when I if I go to a game and get one. um you know and they've become collector's items that um people um people absolutely love and people will um I imagine some of you have probably done this. I'm not sure uh if most of you have or not, but if you go to a game where they are giving out a bobblehead or they have a giveaway of some sort, and almost all Major League Baseball games now have a giveaway, not not all, but most have one of some sort. Um they're usually during um they're usually weekday games. Um but not always. It just kind of depends. Um but they if you go um people start lining up really really early because they want to make sure that they get the giveaway because sometimes the giveaways run out or sometimes they say to the first 10,000 or whatever. And that's incentivizing obviously people getting to the game early and they get you in the stadium and you know you got to buy food and merchandise and all that sort of thing and the 8020 rule comes into play here, right? But ultimately the product extensions are um the they're they're all ultimately to enhance the value, right? So, if I go to a a Yankees game and and one of the one of the uh bobbleheads that they've been doing are this special Seinfeld series and and Seinfeld with the Yankees um there were a couple of seasons um where George um from Seinfeld was working as a Yankees employee and um so they're giving out a special George Bobblehead this year. Um, and they the they're the the prices for those um are are through the roof. Like $250 or more people are sell are are um going to be able to sell those on on the open market. So, it's pretty it's pretty competitive um in terms of how that sort of thing goes right now.

Also um in in terms of um in terms of of looking at the sport marketing experience and and and how to make the experience better. If we look at the organization and what the organization means, we can also look at it in terms of okay, how can we enhance the product that we have, right? And so I use this example of Kalpali um of Kalpali night at the San Francisco Giants, right? And so this was started back in 2024 was wildly successful. One of our um one of our alumni um Greg Geianaso was the one who came up with this idea. He sold it to the promotions team and they said, "Okay, let's run with it." He did a f he and his team did a fabulous job of marketing it and um and it they sold out the segment right so if we go back to a segment the market segmentation the strategy is hey we've got a lot of Calpali alumni in the Bay Area St. Abyispo is not that far away. We could get people to travel for this. This would be a good thing. Did they know whether it was going to work? No, they did not. Right. And but I mean, you know, you can do the research and you can say, "Okay, we've got this number of alumni in the area that we think are Giants fans that would want to come out to this. We can give them an incentive through a beanie or a hoodie or whatever." Um, I believe it was a beanie in 2024. I believe it was a hoodie in 2025, right? And so the overarching strategy um says, how can we add value to the sport organization? And so the Giants saw um an ability to add value here with the Calpali Knight. And they can they continue they've continued to do that with all kinds like heritage knights and um and Star Wars knights and things like that as a means of enhancing. Now you can be creative and you can be unique here. Um but you can also benchmark right? So, if you are in sports promotions and you should be looking around the league to see what others are doing and if the Brewers do a um do a an uh a certain night that is very successful, then you might look at it and you might go, "Huh, that might not work. That worked in Milwaukee. That might not work here, but how could we make it unique?" Right? How could we capitalize on it in LA? How could we cap capitalize on it in Arizona? Right, if you're a marketer for those teams.

Next, we get to the sport product strategy. All right. So we're going to go through four different areas. Differentiation, product development, product position, and then brands and branding. And so those are the four areas that go into the sport product strategy.

First is differentiation. All right. So ultimately differentiation is in a market where there are other entertainment opportunities. How are we going to differentiate ourselves from those? Right? So we look at the image. Right? We've got the Slow Blues. The Slow Blues market themselves as a familyfriendly baseball environment that is affordable, that is um a way for um for families and um and friends to get together in a communitydriven baseball environment, right? That differentiates them from the other maybe more high-priced entertainment options that may be around St. Louis Abyspo in and around St. Louis Abyispo and the Blues um I think and many of you I know are a part of pulling this off. I think do a fabulous job, right? But ultimately Adam and Nico and the team um they have to continue to evaluate and re-evaluate. When I was on the board for for the Blues, there was a board member who wanted to do away with the Blues score. um beer um promotion because he thought it promoted um drunkenness and took away from the family environment. Okay. There were those of us who were adamant and saying no no no no absolutely not. This is like one place where people can go, where where young families can go and the mom and the dad can have a beer and can enjoy themselves. Are there a few drunken college kids or drunken people that occasionally make uh a scene? Yes. but it's not uh it doesn't rise to the point where it detracts from the overall experience. And so what Adam and the team said is that we can monitor that and we're not going to take away something that's very very popular with the community. The blue score you score promotion has been um has been a part of it for years and years and years. What we said was that would significantly detract from the experience and therefore would not help in this differentiation um a product differentiation strategy. Thankfully they kept it.

Next is product development. And so we've already talked about the city connect jerseys but uh we'll talk about them a little bit more here. you know, so that idea uh someone had to generate that idea. Someone I I don't know the origins of the city uh connect jersey. I'm sure you could I'm sure we could all Google it and look it up. Who was the the first one to design a a jersey that it was an alternate jersey for a professional sport team? But someone generated that idea, right? And as part of it, right, you got to refine it. I mean, I I got to tell you, my Phillies, the Phillies City Connect jerseys, I detest. They are the ugliest things I've ever seen. I would never put one on my body. Um, if it was the last thing on earth, I would never put it on. It's so ugly to me, but I'm not the market, right? I assume that they tested that because they I see a ton of people wearing them. The hat I actually love. I think the hat is really, really cool, right? But ultimately as a sport marketer, you've got to refine that. You've got to analyze. You've got to develop the actual product. You come up with the idea. You screen it. You test it with with um with the market. You um and then you ultimately take it to the market and commercialize it. And you go and that's when you say, "Okay, here we go. We're selling show hazes for $250. Will people buy it? You best believe people will buy it and have bought it. I witnessed it firsthand with one of my son's good friends. I could not believe that his mom was spending $250 on this exact jersey, but he did. But they did.

Okay, continuing on with uh with uh product development, right? So there are perceptual perceptual issues um whenever there's product innovation. All right. So, I feel like this is a good example when we look at the Washington football team and and most of you, I would say most of you know um that the Washington football team had a name that for many years was deemed as derogatory towards Native Americans and you know their own their former owner Dan Snyder. I remember the morning when he made the statement. We we will never change the Washington and then obviously he said the name. I will not say it but um he said the name of the team and he said that will last forever. And I said I remember I said it out loud. I said yeah, we'll see about that. Never say never. And sure enough, within 10 years of him saying that, not only was the team name changed, but he lost ownership through scandal, um was forced out, um and now they are the Washington Commanders, and they are rebranding. And everyone's not happy about the innovation. Everyone's not happy about the change, right? I actually I'm not a a fan of the Washington football team, but um my grandfather was growing up and you know, so um, you know, I have my opinions and I I think that the Commanders is a horrible name. Personally, I think the Guardians are as well. Cleveland Guardians, those are two that I think they could have done a much better job. I actually thought that the Washington Red Tales, which was proposed as a um um as a nod to the Tuskegee airmen who were called the Red Tales. Um, I felt like that would have been a really um socially uh the the the the Washington football team had been through a lot in terms of scandal and how they treated people and um the derogatory name and all of that. I thought that that tribute to um from a social activism standpoint, I thought that that would have been amazing and they could have kept some of the identity. Um but they didn't go that route. Um I don't like the commanders as like a I mean I don't know what what even is a commander. I don't know. I don't like it. But but hey, you know, they ultimately have to consider all of those things. And so when you look at it, when you break it down, um there are a number of things that go into it. You have to think about the relative advantage of the new over the old. Obviously, no matter what, any name was better than that old name, right? Um and you know, are they going to get everyone to adopt it? Absolutely not. there are still people that hold out and that are buying up the old stuff and still wearing it to games and whatnot, right? Um and so they ultimately then have to look at what about in moving forward um are we compatible with consumer values? How are we going to stay compatible? And then you have to break it down into smaller trials and that ba that basically relates to the segments that we were talking about. And then you have to be adept at communicating the benefits.

Next, we have product position. We've talked about product position before. Um, and it it's ultimately how marketers attempt to showcase or influence through their marketing activities. Um, the the USP your book um gives you this this USP unique selling proposition. That's the focus on unique features, attributes or benefits of a product that may be seen as attractive to a target market. And then ultimately a tagline is used as a brief phrase. And I have an example here where Nike has been working to try to capitalize on the women's sports trend. And so we have Shakari Richardson here and they have a number of female athletes that they're highlighting through this. you can't win, so win campaign um to try and um uh capitalize on this. And they've they've got this is just a sampling of one of the quotes from the different athletes. Um and you know, uh we'll see. Yeah, I mean we'll see how successful they are with this marketing campaign, but um obviously in promoting sport um women's sports um they've they've done a fabulous job and hopefully will continue to do a fabulous job.

Finally, we have brands and branding, right? And branding is both a means and an end to product differentiation. When we see the swoosh, we know Nike, right? when we see the three lines. I think that's three lines for Adidas. We know Adidas, right? Not as much, right? It's because of uh I'm not even sure if it's three or four, right? But um brands can be created or retained through good names, through good marks, through good designs, and through good images. And that relates when you look at that image there, right? Ultimately, you want to have trust in the brand, you want to identify with the brand um as a consumer. Those two, right? Two of the things that you very much want, right? And then from a marketer standpoint, you've got to be effective in your advertising, effective in your marketing. You got to have a good quality logo. You got to have a good quality marketing strategy. You got to be able to design a product that people need and want and then ultimately you have to convince the people of the value.

All right. Um so uh that brings us then to brand equity and so when we look at it now it is it is three I was correct with Adidas it's three lines right so brand equity relates to this name recognition or awareness right so if Yanx was not there and you just saw the Y would you know that that's Yanx right do you know that's in New Balance from the N and the B. Right? So, some logos um they don't want to leave it for you to question, right? And so, they have their name built into their logo. Okay? Um others just simply have the logo, right? And the logo is enough in and of itself. If you saw that logo beside uh without quicks written there, would you know what it was? If you saw that star with um the circle around it, would you know Converse? Right? Under Armour, same thing, right? And so um the name recognition and the awareness of the logo, those are all um relate to the to to what we're talking about with brand equity. Do you have a strong mental or emotional association with the brand? Do you perceive the brand as high quality? And do you have a strong customer loyalty to the brand? In terms of major professional sport franchises, brand equity has never been higher. We've talked already about that valuation.

Now, it's important for you to also understand the product life cycle. Okay? So the product life cycle is typically introduction, growth, maturity, decline. Okay. Now they've added we've added a couple here. This is a this is a more modern um viewpoint of the product life cycle that includes introduction, growth, maturity, saturation, meaning you are saturating the market with your product, right? Then decline. Okay. And then if you reinvigorate, if you um continue to innovate, you may see revival. The ultimately ultimately there the the theory goes that every product has a life cycle. That's hard for some of us to think about, right? So that's hard for us as um as human beings that live on a on the planet in a finite amount of time. It's hard for us to think about that. But in 500 years, will Disney still be around or will Disneyland be a ghost town ghost town? I don't know. I don't know. Um a thousand years Right? We keep going and going, right? When we think about the the the the life cycle, right? Um will someone eventually run Disney into the ground where it will no longer be Disney and it will become something else, right? That may be the revival part of it. Okay? And so ultimately um uh products do have a life cycle. They're introduced. Um if they catch on, they have growth. they get to the stage of maturity and saturation, that's where you see the highest returns, okay? Um, in terms of revenue and whatnot, and then they start to decline. Um, and like I said, in order to prevent that decline, um companies, organizations that have products try to reinvigorate, try to revive. Okay? And so, um, I think it's, uh, it's a pretty interesting concept.

Now, when we get into speculations about the sport product life cycle, um, I've I've used pickle ball as an example here. So, three things have been um h have been determined related to the to the sport product life cycle. And that is one game forms that enjoy any kind of maturity seem to be resistant to decline. All right. And so um some would say that pickle ball has not reached maturity yet. Okay. They have been in explo pickle ball has been an explosive growth stage for a couple uh for a number of years now or several years now, right? And so, um, we'll see. I I don't know whether they'll reach maturity. Um, but based on the explosive growth that we've seen, more than likely that will be the case. All right.

Teams and franchises obviously have more volatile and unpredictable cycles than those of their overall sport. Right? So, obviously, you think about um the Dodgers, right? the Dodgers as World Series champs are on top of their game, have uh, you know, are spending more money than ever, have one of the best teams in the league. Um, but that wasn't always the case, right? They've been volatile and unpredictable, and those cycles are unpredictable because of the uncertainty of sport, but baseball by and large has remained pretty popular. Now, have did we see a dip in baseball? Yeah, absolutely. Um, we did from America's pastime to a dip in the um in the 2000s and um what some believe is a revival.

Now, equipment cycles, those obviously are technologydriven and um uh and are are more so than apparel, right? Apparel um ultimately comes and goes with fashion, right? Whereas equipment, if you just think about something like um uh well, you know, we're seeing the pickle ball here, but you just think about tennis rackets. Um my my some of my college buddies have recently gotten into like old school wooden rackets and have like um have been like um collecting old school wooden rackets that they first started playing tennis with, right? And those have become a relic now, right? because technology drove the sport to where the uh the rackets now are graphied and are are obviously um much more technologically driven than um the old wooden rackets. Okay.

And then the final um couple of speculations about the sport product life cycle. Uh, you know, I said a minute ago that apparel cycles um there there's some more stable trends in terms of like when we think about active wear and that sort of thing. Um uh but there's obviously wide fluctuations in terms of fashion, right? And I use the example here on the screen of the fit walk, right? And so the WNBA has caught on with uh uh you know, I kind of feel like it was um I feel like Russell Westbrook was one of the very first to to really start the fit walk um as far as the NBA goes. And obviously Russell was really um Russ is really into fashion. He has his own fashion brand. And so he kind of started that trend of the fit walk um into the locker room, right? And the WNBA um athletes have realized that that's a way for them to up their their star power, right? And so um you see um you see fashion and um and sport kind of going hand in hand and that obviously helps to promote the sport and the league and the individual teams and players.

And then finally teams, leagues and sport organizations that embrace technology and digital innovation will experience greater potential for growth. Obviously, as we look into the future and we think about the future, uh technology is only going to continue to enhance the experience. And so those who are on the cutting edge of that innovation will continue to flourish.

All right, hope you've enjoyed this. Sorry it's a little longer than normal. See you.