Do’s and Don’ts of Sports Marketing

By: Kellen Brechbill

For over decades, sports marketing has been a key factor in generating revenue for sporting brands, major universities, franchises and all other entities involved. It even plays a role in team and employee wages and can also have an effect on ticket prices. Without marketing and advertising in sports, owning a franchise wouldn’t be profitable and it would consequently become more expensive for the fans as ticket prices would skyrocket. In this article, I’m going to explain the do’s and don’ts of effective marketing in sports and why you should follow these tactics.

First, let’s start with what you should not do. One of the biggest mistakes a marketer can make is false association, this occurs when a brand promotes a campaign or advertisement implying an association with another team, franchise or sporting event under false pretenses. It is vital to avoid this because it can result in major lawsuits. Next, marketers are not allowed to advertise in any way that influences or condones customers to bet and gamble. It is considered illegal against advertising codes and can also result in lawsuits. Overall, it’s best to focus on your product and price and let those two categories speak for themselves while advertising.

Lastly, there are three important concepts that all sports marketers should follow. First, create engaging content, for sports marketing the best way to do this is to use a famous sports figure or celebrity. Doing this instantly engages the audience because it relates your product with someone they like or are familiar with. Next, is to time your message correctly, the best way to do this in the sports market is to time your content right before gametime. Pre-game time is when fans are most engaged and tuned in with what they are watching. They also happen to be in a more excited mood because the game is about to start. Lastly, develop a target audience, developing a target audience helps you determine how to reach them. In the sports world, most the audience is likely to be male or older depending on the sport. So, if you sell make-up or women’s clothing, it is probably in your best interest to not advertise during a football game but a woman’s basketball game or gymnastics meet instead. To conclude, don’t make false associations or condone gambling and create timely engaging content that targets the correct audience.