How Sports Brands Create Brand Fanatics

by Barry Silverstein

http://www.brandchannel.com/features_effect.asp?pf_id=490

•Incredibly, Wakefield writes, “identification with a sports team seems to shield against the potential consequences of death…evidence suggests that one’s identification and involvement with a sports team in some ways makes the highly identified fan feel immortal.” Now that’s the ultimate in brand loyalty.

•In their book, The Elusive Fan, authors Irving Rein, Philip Kotler and Ben Shields say competition among sports brands for market share is increasingly intense because of fragmentation.

They believe there are six distinct sports sectors vying for fans’ attention: older sports (such as European soccer and Major League Baseball), reemerging older sports (such as cricket, rugby and golf), school sports (high schools, youth development teams and the like), new sports (extreme sports and paintball, for example), declining older sports (such as boxing and horse racing) and sporting goods (including team merchandise and sports equipment).

•must also broaden their star power mix to include facilities, food, teams, places, events, and individuals, such as owners, who have not been a part of the storyline.

July 2009 issue of SportsPro magazine ranking:

European team property:

1.Ferrari Formula One team US$ 1.55 billion.

2. Manchester United US$ 1.495 billion

American sports brands, top four in the ranking:

1. NFL 2. MLB 3. NBA 4. NASCAR

5. FIFA World Cup, valued at US$ 1.7 billion

But the big surprise was the two-year-old Indian Premier League (cricket), the newest property in the top ten, valued at US$ 1.6 billion.

Yankees organization announced it would market its own grass: Yankees Sod.