The Wharton Sports Business Club, in conjunction with the Wharton Marketing Club, held a panel entitled “Leveraging and Maximizing Sports Marketing Partnerships in Today’s Economy” at the 2008 Wharton Marketing Conference. The high profile panel, chaired by Wharton’s Professor Scott Rosner, included representatives from three of Philadelphia’s major sports franchises, as well as executives from two major corporations involved with sports sponsorship. The panel consisted of Mark Donovan (Senior VP/Business Operations, Philadelphia Eagles), Lara Price (President of Business Operations, Philadelphia 76ers), Shawn Tilger (SVP, Business Operations, Philadelphia Flyers), Amanda Trautmann (Product Director, J&J Personal Care) and Paul Bamundo (Senior Brand Manager, Sports and Entertainment, Subway).
The discussion centered around reflections on the effect of the current challenging economic environment on sports marketing. The representatives from the professional team organizations agreed that there are significant challenges, particularly with corporate and premium sales. Clients may be trading down, and sponsors are taking longer to respond. Shawn Tilger commented that in circumstances such as these, the aim is to prevent sales and sponsors from sliding too much, while positioning the organization to be able to capitalize on the good times when they return.
The panel, however, also reflected that these conditions present opportunities for building stronger relationships with fans and sponsors. Mark Donovan commented that “now is the time to be really good partners”. One of the success factors of the Eagles organization has been to lock in longer term relationships before tougher times hit. But in the current conditions they are trying to offer even greater value to sponsors and corporate clients. For example, they have a program of premium sponsors eating with players and riding on team buses, which has not previously been offered, but has generated significant goodwill.
Amanda Trautmann provided some interesting insight into J&J’s sponsorship efforts with the Beijing Olympic games. This represented a unique opportunity for J&J to think ahead about large future markets, and to associate the corporation with some of the key values of the Olympic games. However, it was still a difficult challenge for the 10 members of the internal J&J team to convince decision-makers in the company as a whole that this made sense. At the games themselves, J&J operated a pavilion with both a public side and a private media side. Through the sponsorship efforts, J&J saw significant benefits through equity tracker metrics to become known as a leading healthcare brand in China.
The panel was asked for thoughts on the effect of two recent Philadelphia events – first the recent announcements that the city is cutting back its budget, particularly on recreation spending, and second, the Phillies world series victory. The panel discussed the opportunities for local teams to build brand equity, and make a real difference, within the city. The 76ers, for example, have refurbished local basketball courts together with major sponsors such as Toyota. In terms of riding the Phillies victory tide, the team representatives agreed on a number of comments. First, while they each obviously wanted to be the first to bring home a national title since the early 1980s, they acknowledge the need to do the right thing – congratulate the Phillies and work with them. The victory brings a positive vibe to the city and is good for all sports (just as the NHL lockout was a negative for all sports). Second, it represents an opportunity to get many of the more casual fans involved. On the sponsor side, Subway tried to line the right things up so that if the Phillies won they would be ready to capitalize (for example with the “From one big Philly to another” advertisements).
Finally, Paul Bamundo was asked about the “Subway effect” – the apparent positive effect that sponsorship by Subway seems to have on athletes. Examples include Ryan Howard (World Series), Michael Strahan (Superbowl) and Tony Parker (NBA Championship). While Paul Bamundo played down the significance of this effect, many audience members were later seen trying to negotiate Subway business school sponsorship in the hope that it would help them secure future jobs!
The panel provided interesting insight into sports marketing in the current economic circumstances, and thanks goes to the SBC and the Marketing Club for putting together an impressive event.
Article Contributor: Ben Knepler
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