There have been a number of articles floating around in the ether the last week or two that have talked about the decline in attendance, the decline in ratings, and the challenges that are at the heart of tackling these twin issues in a meaningful way.
I’ve seen the millennials attention span in regards to speed of play blamed for baseball’s decline, even if participation has been on the decline for years, even with a modest bump over the last year or two.
In football, we’ve heard that politics got in the way. But participation in football has been declining for about the last 5-7 years at all levels.
For basketball, the declining attendance and ratings are just being swept under the rug under the PR of the NBA’s success with their stars on social media.
MLS says it is growing rapidly, but the numbers don’t quite add up. Especially when you compare the “growth” with the amount of expansion that is going on. (Or, in other words, if I keep adding teams, my attendance better go up.)
The NHL has seen its attendance and ratings take hits too. With the NHL’s ratings dropping significantly this year. All the while, participation in Canada’s national pastime has been dropping for the last several years.
These are all terrible signs and painful to write about because they signal a long term challenge that has been ignored for a long time.
And, we all know the saying that it is better to fix something earlier than later.
If you pay attention to sports business, you could even be fooled that the leagues and teams are paying attention to the challenges, right?
MLB is “addressing” the issues of pace of play.
The MLS is expanding.
The NBA seems to be doing everything it can to spruce up their arenas.
The NFL is going to change its timeout structure to not make the game faster, but to have less stoppages of play that are longer.
Which, minus the NHL hiring a new CMO, don’t address the real issue at the heart of all of these shared challenges…which is that fans just don’t care the way that they used to.
Unfortunately, no amount of new stadium amenities, revamped commercial breaks, or expansions will change that fact.
The solutions to many of these issues are disguised as things that are easy to neglect or avoid all together like:
- Marketing in a holistic manner.
- Undertaking long-term fan development.
- Creating communities around your teams and buildings.
- Focusing on the experience that your customers have from start to finish of their journey.
Let’s take a look at all 4 of these ideas as a starting point because while there is no end to the number of different ways that we can tackle the issue of growing and maintaining sports and sports business, these 4 are pretty good places to start.
Marketing in a holistic manner:
Let’s be honest, most of what passes for marketing in American sports right now is pretty haphazard, at best.
Especially at the local level where most sales happen.
I’m on the email lists of a number of teams that are local or that I have lived near over the years. Unfortunately, they are all pretty uniform in their lack of compelling content.
Or, have you visited your own websites lately?
Because I visited 5 and they all had some sort of popup, but not one had a legible headline or big, splashy attention grabbing “THIS IS WHAT I WANT YOU TO KNOW!” that you could read from the landing page.
Better on mobile?
Not really.
Maybe the score of the most recent game was right there, but whatever the big thing you want your fans to do or know when they visit your site? Not so much.
That’s a problem because these are all touch points that add up.
And, one of the big issues in solving ratings and attendance issues is in marketing.
In sports, too many of people involved just imagine that everyone cares as much as they do. But the truth is that in many cases, no…no they don’t.
They may care very little.
That is your problem not theirs.
Because that money is being spent somewhere.
The thing about it is, in the world of sports, we have year round opportunities to talk with our prospects and customers.
And, with the plethora of opportunities we have to communicate with our fan base and customers, it is essential that we think about the journey we are going to take our customers and fans on.
What is the story of the season?
What’s the off season story and focus?
Are you generating content everyday?
Are you using content as a tool to draw passive followers closer and closer?
Do you use one content platform to feed another to create a web that catches people all over the place.
The thing about the holistic marketing strategy is that it doesn’t mean you need to be everywhere or on everything, but it does mean that you need to have a story that starts and builds over the course of a season and renews itself in the off season.
Instead of allowing each year to be its own independent entity, maybe there is a beauty in doing something like Tottenham does in the Premier League with #COYS or the Washington Nationals did for many years with #Natitude that gave the organization a sense of continuity.
Whatever it is, create a consistent narrative and a consistency of touch points and engagements.
Undertake Long Term Fan Development:
This should be a no-brainer.
If we don’t start fans early, they are going to develop other interests.
If they are interested in other things, even if we win them over…they are less attached to us and don’t have the same cultural touchstones that cement the relationship.
This is why the sports participation numbers are so important.
If you play a sport, the likelihood that you are going to be a fan goes up.
Again, duh.
Unfortunately, too much long term fan development is haphazard.
I wrote somewhere earlier in the year that I loved the idea of a team giving a kid a gift bag at birth, then the Capitals did it during their playoff run.
Do you think that the parents aren’t going to pay a little more attention to the team?
Do you not think that the kid is going to hear stories about her first onesie being a Caps’ onesie?
These are just easy ways to catch on some of the emotional moments that bring fans to sports.
From birth, it should be a long journey to get people to engage with sports, play sports, and pay attention to sports.
Besides the positive benefits to our bottom line, we also get tons of positives like:
- Healthier people.
- Closer communities through a shared touchpoint.
- Civic pride.
Don’t try to jump from zero to 100, but take what you are already doing and figure out how you can include more kids, more people, get more kids involved in your sport.
Creating Communities Around Your Team and Building:
This is a favorite topic of mine because I feel like we don’t do as good a job worshipping our buildings and their history as teams in other countries do.
Minus, Fenway and Wrigley that is.
But even if we have a new building, we can still build a community around the team and the building.
Look at NY, where the Mets fans have suffered.
The thing about being a Mets’ fan is that you are still a part of a community. Maybe a disgruntled community, but still a community.
In Manchester, England, Manchester United has turned this into an art form. They have over 200 authorized fan clubs around the world. Their fans have followed the team all over the world to see their matches. And, they are estimated to have over 600 million “fans” on social media.
That’s a pretty great community.
The thing is, if Manchester United can do that, why can’t we?
We may not get to 6o0 million fans or 200 fan clubs right away, but there is real power in our teams, our history, and our buildings. If we don’t tap into it and extend it, we are missing out on an opportunity to pull our fans, customers, and prospects closer and closer to us.
Again, start with where you are:
- What kind of social media presence do you have now?
- Are you cultivating an email list like I talked about above?
- How are you treating your fans at the games?
- Are you creating opportunities for your community to watch your games when you aren’t at home?
Which brings me to:
Focusing On The Experience:
Experience is at the core of everything we do.
Which is great because we know that more and more, people demand experiences.
You know what we do better than anyone else?
We offer up experiences.
Unfortunately, that doesn’t always equate to a great experience when fans show up.
Which is a shame.
But we have it in our power to make even the most meaningless games a great experience for our fans.
The easiest place to start is by making sure that the people we have interacting with our guests are really happy to have them there.
I can’t count how many times I have been to a game where the staff has been disinterested or, even, negative towards guests.
That’s unacceptable.
Institute a one strike rule.
People are dying to get into sports business, maybe they can offer up a level of service that is better suited to have customers feel appreciated and like they want to come back regularly. (I’M SERIOUS!)
What about the food and beverage choices?
I know some of us love a stadium hot dog and a Bud Light…but what about when they set you back $20?
Or, I love a stadium dog, but what local food can you offer up?
Do you have to cut out all of the local stuff?
Can you add local beer?
Food carts?
What about traditions?
What about new traditions like the bar inside the Green Monster in Boston?
Can we steal things about experience from other forms of entertainment? Like how the Sydney Opera House will use old stage furniture for popup bars and seating locations?
Or like visiting the Grove on a Saturday in Oxford.
Or the Quad in Tuscaloosa.
Whatever the idea is, there are so many ways to enhance and build on the experience at our stadiums.
Because we aren’t competing against other sports, we are competing against other forms of entertainment. We are competing against the phones in our pockets. We are competing against doing nothing at all.
This goes for all of the things on my list.
We aren’t just competing against other sports, we are in a competition against almost everything imaginable.
Which makes the battle we are fighting that much tougher.
Because right now we have more entertainment options than ever: dining, video, books, etc.
We have to reimagine everything about how we market and sell our sports, our experiences. Because if we don’t, we will get left behind.