Weekend Heroics Remind Us of the Power of Sport

In the midst of work stoppages, lockouts and court rulings, what at the beginning of the year was expected to be a sleepy July sports weekend reminded us of the power of sport.

Those of us in the industry work hard to convince clients to invest marketing funds into sport. Extensive research has shown that sports marketing and sponsorship, when executed well, can enhance brand image, increase purchase intention, drive sales and improve employee morale.

But it's the intangible benefits of sports sponsorship that are the most difficult to measure and nearly impossible to prove.

Yet it is weekends like this that can help explain the unexplainable attraction consumers have for sport.

Who could have predicted that Derek Jeter would not only become just the 28th player in baseball history to reach the 3,000-hit plateau on the same day that he would go 5-for-5 and lead the Yankees to a 5-4 win, but that his 3,000th hit would come via a home run?

In his Hall of Fame career, Jeter had only hit 236 home runs in more than 10,000 plate appearances. Jeter hadn't hit a home run since May 8, and hadn't homered at Yankee Stadium since last July 22.


He had only notched five hits in a game one other time in his career, over a decade ago. 


Fast forward less than 24 hours later.


The U.S. women's soccer team is the beneficiary of an own goal less than two minutes into their quarterfinal match-up against Brazil, who had humiliated the U.S. in a 4-0 win in the World Cup semis four years earlier.

This incredible luck was followed by an unbelievable series of misfortunes. A red card puts the U.S. a man down 66 minutes into the match. U.S. goalkeeper Hope Solo blocked the ensuing penalty kick, only to be issued a yellow card after being told that Brazil would get another kick. 


Brazil would eventually take the lead, and in order to tie the game the U.S. would have to score a goal a man down against a defense falling back to 
prevent exactly that from happening. 


What were the chances that the U.S., playing a man down for nearly half the match, would score in the game's 122nd minute, in stoppage time?


Zilch. Zero. Nada.


But they did, the latest goal in the history of the Women's World Cup, and won the match on penalty kicks. 


The win took place 12 years to the day of the U.S.'s first World Cup win in 1999.


Unbelievable. Unfathomable. And yet another reminder to us all why we watch, invest in, fret about and intensely follow sport. 

Xerox Should Consider Dropping Mets from "Real Business" Campaign

Our friends at Xerox have done a fine job of leveraging their partnerships with high profile clients to shed light on how they support their customers' day-to-day businesses.

Their campaign suggests that Xerox's role is to handle all of the monotony of daily document-related logistics so their clients can focus on the important things, whether it's winning ballgames or excelling in business.

The University of Notre Dame, Proctor & Gamble, Ducati and Target Corporation are among the various clients who have been featured in the campaign. At minimum, the campaign is a terrific example of how a company can leverage its sponsorships and business partnerships with the likes of sports teams and universities to help spotlight the more menial (read: boring) aspects of day-to-day business, including document management, direct mail, publications and managing printing costs.

The fully integrated campaign includes advertising creative, digital, online video, social media and public relations.

One property that has also been featured in the campaign is the New York Mets. Below is an example of some of the digital creative from the campaign. The creative includes the line "The Mets are ready for real business."

Those who astutely follow sport business are aware of the fact that the owners of the Mets recently received a loan from Major League Baseball to cover their payroll and other administrative costs. Many may also be aware that the Mets' ownership group have been accused by the trustee representing victims of Bernie Madoff that the Mets' owners profited from their association with Madoff, allowing them to use the profits received from their investments with him to cover deferred player payroll payments and provide the capital to start SNY, their team-owned regional sports network.

The Mets were also recently forced to bring on a minority investor, David Einhorn, presumably to add needed capital to cover operating costs.

To be fair, Major League Baseball has publicly supported the Mets' ownership group and there has heretofore been no proof that Mets ownership was aware of Madoff's schemes. During my career I have found the Mets to be a wonderful group of individuals and partners for multiple clients I have worked with.

However, given these challenges and accusations, perhaps it is time for Xerox to pull the plug on the inclusion of the Mets in such a high profile campaign.

Or at minimum, modify creative to water down the suggestion that the Mets are the perfect embodiment of "real business."

Kellogg School of Management Sports Business Conference

I had the opportunity to moderate a panel at the Kellogg School of Management SportsBusiness Conference at Northwestern last weekend.

The subject of the panel was "The Economy's Effect on Sports Business." For more information on the annual conference, which is only one of three organized by MBA students, click here.

I was joined on the panel by the esteemed Jay Blunk from the Chicago Blackhawks, Andrew Miller from the Cleveland Indians and Ryan Luckey, who heads up sports and entertainment marketing at MillerCoors.

We tackled a number of subjects. I began by looking back at the events of approximately two years ago, when a group of Congressmen sent a letter to Northern Trust criticizing the company's support of the Northern Trust Open golf tournament. This came on the heels of the Citizens Against Government Waste attacking Bank of America for hosting hospitality at the Super Bowl.

The events had a chilling effect on the sponsorship industry, and in particular the financial services and automotive categories, which had received federal bailouts.

For many of us, it was a signal that although many had previously deemed the sports marketing and sponsorship industry "recession-proof," that would not be the case this time around.

During the discussion we also had the chance to talk about ways in which many in the industry have become more creative during the economic downturn, how co-marketing and cross-promotions have increased over the past two years and the increased level of scrutiny on measurement and effectiveness of sponsorship programs.

A former colleague of mine, the great Jonathan Norman from GMR Marketing, also did a nice write-up on the conference for his agency's blog. Click here to view Jonathan's post.