Growing up in New York, I never thought about marketing in sports. Everyone there was either a Yankees fan or a Mets fan. You always loved one and hated the other, and so did your entire family. It was more of a tribal allegiance than a decision. The fact that, beyond the sports events, there was another competition going on never occurred to me. I never thought about the fact that the teams were not only fighting for victory, but also fighting for fans. Until I fell into a sports marketer position, I was pretty much oblivious to how much money changes hands behind the scenes. Professional sports marketing is a multi billion dollar business, and it is growing every year. Most sports teams, in fact, make more money off of selling sports clothing than off of tickets!
Finding myself in a sports marketing firm was a pretty odd development for me. In many ways, I don't fit in there at all. Although I majored in marketing and advertising, I have never been a big sports fan. This placed me at odds with a company filled with sports fanatics. Nevertheless, I have done my job pretty well. At first, I was not up to date on the different teams. This made my sports marketing job tough! People expect you to be able to talk sports with them if you're going to promote their teams. Even if you are an effective marketer,If you can't talk shop and socialize with fluidity, it's hard to keep your position.
Basically, I approached sports marketing like I approached school. I sat down and crammed for weeks at a time. Soon, I knew more about sports statistics than many of the most die-hard fans in the company. After them, it was a breeze. Good sports teams sell themselves, so it is just a matter of playing on existing brand loyalty. As for the lower ranking sports teams, you can always play off of the underdog factor. There are some people who just love to root for a team that loses year after year. Marketing sports to these kinds of fans is a smaller business, But what they lack in numbers than make up for in brand loyalty. They are the most dedicated fans in the business. The only time when sports marketing is a tough sell is when a good team starts to slide. Suddenly, no one wants anything to do with them. The rest of the time, however, the job is pretty much a breeze.
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