College vs Pros in Fans Perception

What's the difference between collegiate and professional sports?

Several things come to mind: the athletes are students and accountable to NCAA compliance standards, the athletic department doesn't necessarily have autonomy from the rest of the college/university when it comes to branding, legislation mandates college athletic departments must support sports programs that lose money every year instead of bolstering their cash-cow sports, and so on and so forth.

Every analogy comes to an end when enough holes are able to be poked into it. I wanted to get those out of the way early so that the rest of what I have to say can start to be built instead of torn down. And just to be clear, I am not putting down collegiate athletics when naming differences. This is not to criticize the structure of the NCAA or how college athletic departments all across the country operate. Instead, I am just pointing out the differences that come to mind for myself and many others and possibly discover why there is such a distinction in perception between collegiate and professional sports.

I mentioned in the first post I wrote on this blog that I am a young sports marketer working for a NCAA Division II athletics department. That athletics department has been around for many decades, and has won National Championships in two different sports, and is consistently successful in sports such as men's and women's basketball, cross country, track & field, and baseball. While we do have a football program, basketball is the sport we can hang our hat on and know we have a good and competitive product on the court year in and year out.

However, we have become stagnant in growth of season ticket holders and walk-up sales have plateaued in recent years (it should be said, though, with recent implementation of some fully integrated promotions and concentration on group sale strategies, we are projected to have the best per-game season in terms of revenue since we have accurate numbers). We do not come close to packing our gymnasium (which, to be fair, is on the larger side of DII gyms that I know of with capacity at about 3,200) and we have a poor season ticket redemption rate. This has been the case for several years now, and in that time span we have been ranked #1 in the country, constantly competed at a high level, had two conference players of the year (and likely a third this season), and won a regular season and tournament championship. Again this season, our men's team sits at third in the conference standings and just one game out of second. We have only lost one conference game at home all year. And yet ... the community in which we reside has not truly embraced us as an entertainment option.

At the same time, an independent professional baseball team had its inaugural season last summer, and while it under-performed its own expectations, the baseball team (with a 50 game home schedule) averaged more than twice the fans in paid attendance as our basketball program. Yes, everyone loves new, and baseball is still one of the best sports to watch live, and they serve beer, and on and on and on; but more than twice as much?! Who knows what kind of paid attendance the baseball team would have received if the organization was better-run (long story)! It's this revelation that made me realize how fans view our college sports, and it goes a lot like this scene from the movie 300.

Right or wrong, fans in our community would rather buy-in to the new independent baseball team than our college sports programs. So that made me think the question I posed at the beginning of the post: what is the difference between collegiate and professional sports?

Obviously, some schools don't have to worry about this. The state of Alabama doesn't need a pro-football team. Why would an NBA team move to the Sprint Center in Kansas City when half its citizens are already pre-occupied with Kansas basketball? Those schools have strong brands. Even some DII schools have strong brands. But for the rest of us, I think our athletic departments are too reliant on piggy-backing on our university's marketing and branding strategies instead of aggressively pursuing their own.

What do I mean by that? I mean that athletic departments should market themselves the way professional teams do. Athletic departments need to give fans a reason to come to games; they need to position themselves as a source for entertainment in the area, they need to encourage members of the community who are alumni and who are not alumni to spend money and come to their venues. Athletic departments need to brand themselves.

To better explain this, I will make up a fake school and use it as an example. Say the Southeast North Dakota Penguins are a NCAA Division II athletics department. They have several successful sports programs but consistently get outdrawn by the North Dakota Prairie Dogs, an unaffiliated minor league hockey team in town. Now say their athletic department doesn't garner much pride outside the alumni base, and they struggle getting young adult fans with families to their games.What can they do to be more successful in attracting fans?

Well, what makes the hockey team more appealing to fans? Is it that you don't have to be an alum to enjoy a game? Does cheering for a minor league hockey team require less buy-in than a similar sports program that's part of a larger institution for higher education? Does it help the hockey team that they have a brand they can control as they see fit and a singular mission to increase revenue? Maybe it's all of the above.

So, here's another question: could a college athletic department simply find more success by going by their mascot name and branding themselves as sports/entertainment? If the athletic department started putting more emphasis on their Penguins name and less emphasis on the fact they are a portion of Southeast North Dakota, would their perception in the community change? If they started acting more like a professional organization - advertising their upcoming games via media channels, implementing more fully integrated promotions, emphasizing ticket and groups sales, etc. - would the fans start seeing them that way as well?

Yes, athletic departments many times serve as the front porch for the University, and there is value for the University to have that association. However, just a little over 20 public universities in the country made profits last year. These universities were all in the "Power 5" conferences. So that means of 1,083 college sports programs in America, none outside of this handful operated outside of a deficit.

That being the case, I think it would be more beneficial to encourage athletic departments to try to make as much profit as possible (within NCAA and Title IX compliance), and if that means de-emphasizing the institution they are apart of, then so be it. This concentration on building the athletics department as a separate brand could bring in more money to the school by making the athletics department less reliant on funds from the university's budget. This seems like a goal many school presidents would love to embrace after reviewing the balance sheet every year.

This is all hypothetical of course. I would have a hard time imagining this would be a strategy any athletic director would be excited to pitch to the board. However, I do believe if those of us that work in sports entertainment are allowed to make college athletics more about sports entertainment, then it would ultimately be beneficial to everyone involved.

Higher education or not, money is money.

Introduction

Hello everyone,

Me

First, before I go any further, I want to introduce myself. I am a young sports marketer working for a NCAA Division II school in southwest Missouri. Specifically, I handle ticketing operations, event management, group sales, promotions, and I supervise our concessions manager. A lot, right? But I'm not sure if I would like it any other way. In sports, you wear a lot of hats (both literally and figuratively), and you have to be well-rounded in all aspects of your position, as well as other people's positions. And the hours, oh boy I can't forget about the hours. They can sure pile-up in a hurry.

This is the profession I chose, however, and I accept everything that comes with the territory. Some of you reading this might be in the sports business as well. I'm sure many of you are further along in your profession and you don't give the stuff others would scoff at a second thought. Maybe others are just getting into sports or trying to find that first paid position (what seems like the hardest task in the world sometimes) or even accepting your first internship (even if that's not what it's called anymore because of Obamacare legislation) and want to learn more about what it's like. No matter your status working in sports, I hope you find what I have to write entertaining as well as informative. I'm not writing this blog for it to become an industry standard or to even compete with the Sports Business Journal (if only in my mind); I am instead writing this blog for three reasons:

1. To Share
2. To Grow 
3. To Learn

If you enjoy brainstorming and implementing new or borrowed promotions, you are like me and the right hemisphere of the brain dominates your thought process. That's the side that makes you creative, artistic, and incapable of enjoying professions such as accounting. Those of us that are right-brain oriented get enjoyment from sharing what we do with others, and perhaps even find validation from their compliments. It's this personal fulfillment tier on Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs that finds me wanting to share my experiences. 

As a professional in the sports industry, I'm constantly looking to grow. Ambition drives me, and I don't want to settle or become complacent on where I'm at or the job I'm doing. I want to continue to become better, and on the off-chance that this blog attracts others in a similar position as myself and allows for a connection to be established and my network to grow, then the extra work I put into this will be immediately worth it. If there's one thing I've learned so far in this industry, it's not who you know but who knows you. 

Finally, and probably most importantly, I want to learn. I want to learn what others in the industry are doing, all the way from their ticket-office operations and mini-pack plans to their game-day operations and promotional schedule. I want to learn what others have found successful and the failures they've encountered. Some might call sports marketing a copy-cat league, but I believe it's truly an example of impersonation being the sincerest form of flattery. 

It was my first internship in minor league baseball that
confirmed this is what I want to do for the rest of my life.

At the end of the day, however, I know my role. I'm not a lawyer, I'm not a teacher, and I don't serve in the armed forces. I simply love sports, and have chosen to make it my career. It's not the most important job in the world, but I couldn't picture myself doing anything else. It's this passion that allowed me to intern in minor league baseball for next-to-nothing; it's what motivated me to acquire my master's degree while working for that school's athletic department; and it's what is inspiring me to write this blog now. 

Enjoy, and like I mentioned before, feedback is highly encouraged.