Book critique of sport marketing book Critique Sport Marketing
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Book Critique Sport Marketing Bernard J. Mullin, Stephen Hardy, William A. Sutton Prepared by Nick Sherman Submitted: December 2, 2016 In Partial Completion of Requirements for BUS310 Marketing Bridgewater College Overview of the Book Sport Marketing is the title of the book that I chose to do for my book critique paper. The style of the book is more of a textbook style. However, it is not as dense as a textbook. There is a lot of information in the book that is easy to get out without getting bored while reading it. I am familiar with this style of book because of how many textbooks that I have had to deal with over the course of my time in school. The first author of this book is Bernard J. Mullin. He holds a Ph.D from the University of Kansas. He was the CEO of the Atlanta Spirit LLC. At the time, this organization was in charge of all operations and facility management for the Atlanta Hawks professional basketball team and the Atlanta Thrashers professional ice hockey team. The name would eventually be changed to the Atlanta Hawks, LLC because the Thrashers moved out of town. He has nearly 30 years of experience in the sport management world. Some of his strengths deal with start-ups and turnarounds. While under his command, he has broken numerous ticket sales and attendance records for the entire league. Before he started his career in Atlanta, he was the NBA’s senior vice president of marketing and team operations. He has also served as the senior vice president for the Colorado Rockies organization. However, before his professional sports career, he served as the vice chancellor of athletics at the University of Denver. With all of his experience in the sports world, he is very qualified to take part in writing this book. The next author that took part in writing this book is Stephen Hardy. He is a professor of kinesiology at the University of New Hampshire. However, during his time as a kinesiology professor, he has also taught courses in sports marketing, athletic administration, sport history. One of the course that was a specialization in hockey was titled “Coolest Game? Hockey and History.” This course makes sense for him because he played Hockey at Bowdoin College. While at UNH he served as the Faculty Athletics Representative to the NCAA, served as the Interim Vice Provost for undergraduate students, and he is also the founder of the Charles Holt Archives of American Hockey which is located in UNH’s Dimond Library. With his extensive in kinesiology and sports, Hardy is qualified to take part in writing this book. The last author that took part in writing this book is William A. Sutton. He was a professor and associate department head for the DeVos Sport Management graduate program at the University of Central Florida. Before this, Sutton served as the vice president of team marketing and business operations for the National Basketball Association. He has also held academic positions at Ohio State University, Robert Morris University, and UMass Amherst. On top of these positions, Sutton was also a cofounder of the Sport Marketing Association and Sport Marketing Quarterly. He received all of his degrees (BA, MS, and EdD) from Oklahoma State University and has been inducted into the College of Education Hall of Fame at OSU. He is also an inaugural member of the Robert Morris University Sport Management Hall of Fame. With all of these qualifications and his experience in the sport management education field, he is qualified to take part in writing this book. The main idea of the book is to give its readers an idea of how marketing works in the sports industry. This book is also supposed to give the reader an idea of the ups and downs that come with marketing in the sports world. Like typical marketing, research needs to be done as well in the sport world so that the producers can get an idea what will work best for the consumer. The producers in this case are the executives of the sports teams. The marketing mix is an important part of marketing. For the sport marketing industry, this also stands true. Supporting Arguments For each chapter of the book, it is a different concept that goes into sport marketing and the authors use different examples to help explain these concepts. To get an idea of some of the examples that are used in the book to talk about some concepts, the authors talk about different sports teams and what they did that dealt with the concept. An example of this was when the authors were talking about the price of sport. Their example involved the Pittsburgh Pirates organization by saying, “One estimate of spending by fans attending Pittsburgh Pirates baseball games indicated that just one-third of the total cost paid by Pirates fans to watch Pirates games actually went to the Pirates organization” (Mullin, Hardy, Sutton, 19, 1993). Another type of this example is when the authors are talking about pricing strategies dealing with the Kansas University soccer team, “When soccer at KU was a club sport, no admission fee was charged for soccer games and only a handful of people would show up. A move to the football stadium, accompanied by an advertising campaign…gave the ticket perceived value (Mullin, Hardy, Sutton, 159, 1993). On top of these types of examples, the authors use case studies to help explain the information they are trying to present to the reader. To get an idea of how case studies are used, the authors will present a topic and then talk about the study that goes along with it. After they have talked about the topic and study, there is usually a table with data on it for the reader to interpret. One time the authors use a study is when they are talking about the concept of motivation and sport consumption in the chapter dealing with perspectives in sport consumer behavior. They use a study that was done by the Pacific-10 conference, “For instance, in a 1987 study the marketing and promotion personnel in the Pacific-10 conference overwhelmingly agreed that a team’s win-loss record was the greatest influence on football attendance” (Mullin, Hardy, Sutton, 76, 1993). Another time that the authors use a study to help explain a concept is when they are talking about market segmentation. They used a study by the Simmons Market Research Bureau, “For instance, the 1985 Simmons Market Research Bureau data on sports television consumers indicate that almost the same percentage of American adults (37 percent) watch professional football as watch baseball” (Mullin, Hardy, Sutton, 120, 1993). These case studies are good because they present data that has been collected to support the topic the authors are trying to get across. One topic that was discussed in BUS310 was market segmentation. Market segmentation is the process of looking at demographics, psychographics, and social habits to break consumers up into different segments. These different segments can be used to understand what different group of consumers are interested in. Some of the demographics could be age of the consumer, gender of the consumer, race of the consumer. The age will play a part in segmenting a marketing in that different ages of people will show what goods and services they are interested in. However, there is some crossover. Younger people might take part in an activity that older people like and vice versa. Race is another thing that could be used to segment a market. Researchers can look at what products different races might buy and that will help segment a market. Gender is probably the best demographic that can help segment a market. It is obvious that females will buy different products than males. This goes for males as well. They will buy different products than females. Psychographics also play a part in segmenting a market. Some types of things that go into psychographics is attitude and aspirations. This is like the personality of the consumer. The last thing that goes in to segmenting a market is social habits. These are things that the consumer does in public that will help a researcher make a decision. In an article written by Lucian, he defines this model as a crucial part that makes up the sport business. He states, “Sport marketing is one of the most important functions of the business” (Lucian, 2015). Social habit is the largest thing that goes into sport marketing. When segmenting a sports market, social habits are primarily focused on. The reason for this is that there is no distinction in fans for a sports organization. It doesn’t matter the race, age, gender, or psychographics of the consumer. If they are a fan of a sports team, nothing will change that for them. In the book, the authors rely on social habit to segment a market. The authors present a lot of different data tables that show how to segment a sports market. The biggest one is on user group segment. They break the consumers up into heavy users, medium users, light users, defector, media consumer, non-aware consumer, and uninterested consumer. According to the authors, the heavy consumer is the season ticket holder and goes to every event. The medium consumer is the one that has a mini season package or the one that buys a membership for only a month. The light consumer is the one that buys single event tickets. The defector is the one that consumer a sport product in the last 12 months but hasn’t purchased one recently. The media consumer that does not attend events but follows the sports organization on social media or via the actual media. The non-aware consumer is the one that is unaware of product and the benefits. The uninterested consumer is the one that knows what the product is but they choose not to purchase it. The authors also present a data table with the age of consumers along with how many kids and if they are married or not. However, this table does not go into quite the detail that the user group table does. Overall, the different criteria that is used to segment markets isn’t fully used here. The authors use social habits largely. They use age and marriage less than the social habits. The authors mention nothing of race, gender, or psychographics to help segment the market. There is a disagreement from an article by Sam Fullerton and Robert Dodge that just isn’t right. They state, “…it is insufficient to lump all customers into a single market” (Fullerton, Dodge, 1995). The reason this is not entirely true because in an industry This proves that if the consumer enjoys the sports organization, they will be segmented as to how often they attend an event or purchase a product from that team. that is mainly based on social habits, it becomes a much broader market segment. Another BUS310 concept that we learned about that was presented in this book was the marketing mix. The marketing mix is made up of the four P’s, price, place, promotion, product. The product is what will be sold, the price is how much the consumer will be willing to pay for it, the place is where the product will be sold, and promotion is how the product will be portrayed to the consumer. All of these things different components to the marketing mix are important when working with a market. Some components however are a little more important than another. In an article that was written by Guler and Ayan, they state that marketing mix decisions will contribute to marketing activities in the sports world. He writes, “ It has been proposed that marketing mix decisions for the sports goods made according to the research results will contribute to fertile and active marketing activities and meet the needs of the consumers well” (Guler, Ayan, 2015). In the sport marketing world, some of these components are more important than the other. The authors of this book use the marketing mix to help portray the different parts that go into sport marketing. Each of the four P’s have their own chapter in the book. In another article that was written by Lucian, he describes the marketing mix to the point where it is a crucial part of business. He writes, “The marketing mix is crucial because it defines the sports business” (Lucian, 2013). For the first P, this is the product. According to the author, the sport product is a little more complex than a product in a different market. The sport product is made up of a variety of different things. To start, the sport product mostly isn’t something physical that one can hold. The reason for this is that when people purchase tickets to a sporting event, they are paying for the experience and from this experience there are extensions to it. According to the authors, these extensions include things like, “the pregame tailgate, halftime show, band, cheerleaders, and a game program (Mullin, Hardy, Sutton, 1993). Since the sport product is some complex, the organization must focus on these extensions so that they can make a profit. If the halftime show is bad or the band is bad, or if the game program isn’t up the standards of the consumer, then that could mean less profit because will not come to the events as often. Another extension of the sport product is merchandise and concessions. They are extensions to the sport product but these things are sold at the sporting event and these are physical products that the consumer can hold. The next P in sport marketing mix is place. This part of the marketing mix is important. A good facility for a sports team to play in will draw in people. They will want to go there for the events and keep coming back, not only for just sporting events but they will come back for concerts that could be held there when a sporting event is not held there. A good facility is not just the only place that this sport market mix is incorporating. Yes, it is the most obvious but there are other things that go in to the place of the market mix. Merchandise stores is another place that goes into the market mix. These stores are the stores that sell team merchandise and some of the profit goes to the sport organization. The next P in the sport marketing mix is price. This is what the organization will charge for certain things for the consumer to buy. For an industry like the sports world, price is extremely important. It is important because the majority of profits for a sports organization come from consumers attending the sporting events. Prices for tickets of admission need to be set at a price that consumers will be willing to pay for. However, price inside the stadium can be whatever the organization wants to charge. Once the consumers are inside, they will be exposed to things that will be overpriced in the stadium but they will have no choice but to buy the product. The last P in the marketing mix is promotion. This is an interesting one. The reason that it is interesting is because with a sports team, the amount of promotion really depends on how the team is doing. If a team is doing well, then they will promote themselves. People will want to show up to games and buy their merchandise because they are doing well. On top of this, the media will be providing free promotion because they will cover the good teams and in turn, this will reduce the cost of advertising for the organization. This will increase profits because of how well the team is doing, it could bring in bandwagon fans to buy merchandise and attend games just because they want to see a good team. However, more promotion will be needed for a team that is doing poorly. If a team is doing poorly, they will not get the free media coverage that a good team gets. From this, the organization will have to spend more money to get the name out to the consumers so that people will buy tickets to the games and buy their merchandise. Weaknesses/Biases This book is written by some highly credentialed people and although they hold all these attributes, not many people will know who they are. On top of not being well known by everyone, the three authors all have views that they come together on and put into the book. From this, there isn’t much input from anyone else on what seems to be important. Yes, the authors use different studies and data to help convey their points to the reader but that’s all it is, studies and data. These studies and the data that has been collected was collected by other people and just used by the authors. The authors have their own opinions and this could be a little biased. An example of the author’s bias comes on page 243 when they are talking about the place and how it is a critical part to the marketing mix. The authors make a variety of points when talking about the place. The location of the facility is one of the points that they make. The authors say “…it is critical to the success of high impulse sport businesses, particularly in the retail trades” (Mullin, Hardy, Sutton, 1993). This is understandable as to why the authors would say the location is important. If the location of the facility is not remotely close to the large population of consumers, then there will be small numbers of people that are attending the sporting events. Another point they make about the facility is that the facility layout is important to consumer satisfaction. This also holds true. An easy to navigate facility will bode well for the owner because consumers will not have a problem when being in it while at a sporting event. The last point that is made about the facility is about the portrayal of it. The criteria that goes into the portrayal of the facility are things like amenities, facility personnel, etc. All of these points that are made by the authors are great points. However, the place is not the just the most important part of the marketing mix. To counter the authors stating that the place is the most critical part of the marketing mix, price and promotion is just as important if not more important to the marketing mix. Price is what consumers are willing to pay for the good or service. This is an important thing to remember when it comes to sports. There are good teams and there are bad teams. Obviously, the better teams will have higher prices on their tickets and on their merchandise. People want to see good sports and they will pay to see these good teams. However, these prices need to be at an amount that people can afford. It is a complex task at setting prices for things for good teams. An organization doesn’t want to make the price too high because people will not show up or buy the merchandise. The price also cannot be too low or else the organization will lose money. It is common nature that good teams will promote themselves due to the fact that fans want to watch the best. In turn, this will allow for the organization to not spend as much on advertising for the team since the team is doing that for itself. The media coverage will play a big part in making sure the team is known. With the self-promotion from the team’s performance and low advertising costs, the price can be set so that it will guarantee maximum profit for the organization. An example of a good team in a bad facility would bet the Oakland Raiders in O.CO Stadium. Their stadium ranks at one of the worst in the NFL but it is home to one of the better teams in football of the 2016 season (Chase 2016). Their home games are sold out, regardless of how poor the facility is. This proves the point that a good team will promote itself. On top of this, the ticket prices for the Oakland raiders are higher for a low end seat at their games versus a low end seat a bad team’s home game like the Cleveland Browns. The higher ticket prices for a better team will bring in a larger profit. An example of a great facility with a bad team is Petco Stadium for the San Diego Padres. Their stadium is one of the best stadiums in the MLB because of its view of the city skyline and the view of the field from all seats. However, the Padres are not a good baseball team and this stadium is hardly ever sold out for their games. The organization has to set a lower price on their tickets to get people at the games. This in turn brings in a smaller profit for the Padres organization. The points that the authors made about the facility were good, but the facility is not just the most important part, price and promotion are in that category as well. Practical Applications For a book of this style, the targeted audience would be anyone that would like to learn more about sport marketing and possibly make a career out of it. I say for anyone that wants to make a career out of it because it is a textbook style. It is full of information that would be useful for anyone that would like to learn. However, for someone that wants to pursue a career in this field, this wouldn’t be the only thing for them to go off of. I think this book would be useful for a practicing manager because of the style it is written and the amount of information that is in it. With a textbook style, there is a lot of useful information that a practicing manager could use to put toward their daily activities. If there was something that they didn’t know how to do, they could reference the book to understand what to do. This book would be useful for all levels of managers. However, the level of usefulness would be different for each level. For a top level manager, the book would be the least useful. The reason for this is because they are at the top. They wouldn’t be at the top if they didn’t know the subject and the type of things that go into it. The book would be the most useful for top managers in their process to making it to the top. Middle managers would use the book a little more than the top managers because they wouldn’t know as much. That would be why they are in the middle. However, they would still get use out of it if they are trying to make it to the top. They can use the book to learn things that will help put them at the top. For first line managers, they would use the book the most. Although they are managers in this field, they still would need to learn things as they managed their business. First line managers deal with the consumer usually on a face to face basis, so there would be questions that the consumer would have for the manager and if the manager didn’t know, they could reference the book to provide the answer for the consumer. For a business student to read this book, it would be useful for them. They will take a marketing course in their time in school but unless their school offered it, they wouldn’t learn about sport marketing. For those that wouldn’t have the opportunity to take the course that could be offered by the school or for the ones that just decided not to take the course if their school offered it, reading this book will provide them with another concept that would build on their marketing knowledge. Chances are the business students will learn about or already know how marketing works. This book will just allow them to see how it is used in a different industry. If a non-business major were to read this book, it wouldn’t be a bad thing. It never is a bad thing for people to learn about something. However, if the non-business student chose to read this book, they would learn things that will help them understand why companies are doing what they are to get their product out. Even if the book is a sport marketing book, the things that the non-business student would learn wouldn’t just apply to the sport industry. The concepts would be the same, they could just apply the concepts to different industries. Conclusion I would have to say that my overall rating of this book would be favorable. I think it was favorable for me because I have been in sports my entire life and I can relate to the things that are in this book. Marketing also interests me, so a sport marketing book would interest me more than one of the topics alone. I also think my opinion of this book was favorable because of how it was written. Yes, it was a textbook style book and we all have this idea that textbooks are boring. The way this one was written, it wasn’t dense. It got the information out to the reader without boring them. References Chase. C. (2016). Ranking the Best NFL Stadiums from no. 1 to 31. For the Win. Retrieved 30 November 2016 from http://ftw.usatoday.com/2015/10/best-worst-nfl-stadiums-capacity rankings-lambeau-field-solder-field-size-super-bowls Fullerton, S. Dodge, R. (1995). An Application of Market Segmentation in a Sports Marketing Arena: We all can't be Greg Norman. Sport Marketing Quarterly. 4, (3). 43. Guler, Y.B. Ayan, S. (2015). The Research of Consumer’s Preferences for Determining the Active Marketing Mix in the Market of Sports Goods. Gümüshane University Electronic
Lucian, A. (2013). Sport Marketing Mix Strategies. SEA: Practical Application of Science. 1 (1). 298-303. Lucian, A. (2015). The Sport Marketing Management Model. SEA: Practical Application of
Mullin, B. Hardy, S. Sutton, William. (1993). Sport Marketing. Champaign, Illinois. Human Kinetics Publishers. Directory: 2017 2017 -> 2017 afoCo Landmark Scholarship Program 2017 -> Florida Supplement to the 2015 ibc chapters 1-35 icc edit version note 1 2017 -> Florida Supplement to the 2015 ibc chapters 1-35 icc edit version note 1 2017 -> 2017 global korea scholarship korean Government Scholarship Program Application Guidelines for Undergraduate Degrees 2017 -> Department of natural resources 2017 -> Kansas 4-h shooting Sports Committee Application 2017 -> Astronomy (C) Teams will demonstrate an understanding of stellar evolution and Type Ia supernova. Bottle Rocket (B) 2017 -> Alabama Association of Educational Opportunity Program Personnel College Scholarship Competition 2017 -> Alabama Association of Educational Opportunity Program Personnel Survivor Scholarship Competition 2017 -> Recitals 2 Article 1 General Provisions 4 a 1 Purpose 4 b 2 Applicable Law and Regulation 4 Download 35.18 Kb. Share with your friends:
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