Deck 4: Branding and Sport Brand Management, and Sales Management in Sport

Question 1

An individual engaged in sport sales management must understand the type of decision that are being made by sport consumers. There were four main types of customers discussed in this chapter. Explain the steps in the sport buying process, and explain how you would entice each type of customer to make the decision to make a purchase of four season tickets to the NFL team you work for?

Answer 1

The six steps in the sport buying process are identifying the need, searching for products or services that satisfied that need, evaluating options, making a decision, purchasing the product or service, and eventually re-evaluating the decision to determine whether to make the same purchase again or to change.
The examples provide by students should address the four types of customers discussed in this chapter:
The perfect sport customer who already knows the sport product or services they wish to purchase - right down to the features, brands, colors and even model number.
The sport shopper who knows that they need something, but are still in the process of narrowing their choices.
The sport browser (impulse buyer) is just looking around as the sport products and services available with no plan to purchase.
The sport non-customer is lost or not interested in the sport products or services being offered.

Question 2

You have been just hired as the new ticket sales manager with a minor league soccer team that is affiliated with a Major League Soccer club. You were brought in because of your expertise in minor league baseball, and the need to motivate an underachieving sales force. After two weeks of observation, you determine that motivation is not the problem. You determine the real problem is that the salespersons have no understanding of the sport selling process.
You decide to offer a two-day off-site seminar to educate the staff. By defining the various elements of the sport selling process, what would you do to articulate these concepts to the sales force, and provide them with the tools to go back to the office and succeed in selling the inventory of sport products being offered by the team?

Answer 2

The steps on the sport selling process are as follows. The student should demonstrate an understanding of each area, and should show how they would ensure that the salesperson understands each area.
Prospecting for Customers - the process of identifying potential customers to purchase products and services.
Determining Communication Method - the salesperson must choose the type of communication method (verbal or nonverbal) to use in order to build relationships with customers.
Making Contact and the Pitch - the actual contact of potential customers that articulates measurable and quantifiable sales objectives to the potential customer in terms they can relate to via numerous methods ranging from email to phone to mail to television or in person.
Closing the Sale - The various methods and timings involves with enticing the customer to make the purchase.
Servicing after the Sale - the process of providing work or a duty to a customer in response to a need or demand, and then creating a relationship that helps a customer make an initial or repeat purchase.

Question 3

There are numerous ticket inventories available for sale by a sport organization, including season ticket equivalencies, advanced ticket sales, group sales, walk-up sales, and specialty seating. Define each inventory, and discuss the relationship of the four ticket sales strategies discussed in this chapter to each of those inventories.

Answer 3

The relationships provided by the students will vary, but should show an understanding of the ticket inventories and the strategies.
The major ticket inventories are:
Season Ticket Equivalencies: 50% of tickets sold; are the combination of season tickets sold and partial season ticket packages.
Advanced Ticket Sales - 25% of tickets sold; are individuals who purchase tickets before the day of the event.
Group Sales - usually made up of a number of individuals coming to an event together (some teams have group packages starting at 10, while other expect a minimum of 20-25 to be considered a group).
Walk-Up Sales - individuals who come to the ticket window at the facility to purchase tickets on the day of the event.
Specialty Seating - includes club seats with access to a private restaurant, and executive suites and club box luxury seats with catered food service.
The four ticket sales strategies are:
Database Management - the process of developing an organized collection of demographic, geographic and other personal data (usually through a computerized program), and uses that information to maximize sales efforts
Benefit Selling - the creation of new opportunities, conditions, or perks that will counteract the objections a potential customer may have about a product or service, and offers additional value to the consumer
Upselling - the movement of customers from less profitable products or services in a specific category to either a more profitable one in the same category, or into another, more profitable category
Aftermarketing - a visionary sales process that encourages salespersons to communicate and service the sport ticket holders after the purchase is completed

Question 4

As the Director of Sport Marketing for a sport e-business, you must be able to understand the new economy, and evaluate the sport marketing opportunities available. What is the new economy? Using any sport e-business of your choice, how would you manage the sport marketing opportunities available specifically as related to competition and consumer behavior?

Question 5

Choose a sport organization and explain its brand in terms of monolithic, endorsed, and branded structures. Also describe how you would use the entire brand architecture to market the sport entity in a new marketplace.

Question 6

The purpose of sport branding is to articulate reputation, build awareness, and communicate status within the marketplace. Examine how the Las Vegas Knights of the NHL accomplished this as an expansion franchise in 2017-2018 and overcame having no reputation as a team and the city having no experience as a host of a regular ongoing major professional sports team. How did they build their brand awareness and communicate a professional status in Las Vegas, again considering ice hockey is not exactly a native sport to the region because of climate? What major brand elements did they employ to build the brand identity?

Question 7

Explain how the Balanced Scorecard would be utilized by a major sport apparel company (Nike, Under Armour, New Balance, etc.) to measure the effectiveness of sport marketing efforts employed to enhance brand awareness, equity, and identity.

Question 8

Recovery marketing, in the forms of crisis and marketing communications, can be utilized for numerous negative situations. Choose three scenarios, and going beyond the examples provided in the textbook, research and explain how recovery marketing efforts were implemented to reduce the effects of the negative scenario.