The Elusive Fan: Reinventing Sports in a Crowded Marketplace

by Irving Rein, kotler philip

Sports are a multibillion-dollar global business that will continue to grow by leaps and bounds into the foreseeable future. The bad news It's never been harder to attract, engage, and retain the sports fan.

Today's sports fans are bombarded by choices. Traditional sports, such as baseball, football, and basketball, compete for fans' dollars with snowboarding, lacrosse, poker…even paintball. The old business formulas, developed in the age of three TV networks and creaky stadiums, no longer apply.

World-renowned communication expert Irving Rein, international marketing guru Philip Kotler, and communication specialist Ben Shields deliver an innovative new business model centered squarely on fan satisfaction and retention. They give you the tools to transform your sports product into an enduring brand-immune to the vagaries of winning and losing-that quickly adapts to changing market conditions. Along the way they illustrate their points with fascinating case studies, including

Manchester United's transformation from a plucky home team to a billion-dollar international franchise Professional golf phenomenon Michelle Wie's quest to maximize her talents and marketability Southlake Carroll High School football team's benchmarking of professional and college football programs to build its own brand Daytona International Speedway's reinvention of fan intimacy Combining expert analysis with field-tested strategies for winning hearts and minds, The Elusive Fan is your guide to surviving and thriving in today's ever-widening world of sports.

Genres: Sports

300 pages, Kindle Edition

First published January 1, 2006

Reviews

[Michael Griswold · Rating 3 out of 5]

Rein and his associates start out from the premise that the sports world is changing for a multitude of reasons including: increased competition for the fans attention and money, the decreasing social aspects of going to the ballgame, and technology that means fans don't have to physically go to the game to watch it, along with the increasingly individualized nature of sports itself presents a major challenge to those who make a living off of live game attendance.

I really enjoyed the section discussing the history of sports-fan relationships from the Monopoly generation through the Highlight Generation because it really puts the later discussions of rebranding strategies into proper context. The levels of fan involvement and explanations of how fans make decisions is perhaps the most useful thing for sports management types because I've been to a number of venues where teams just don't get that aspect. It is not Field of Dreams "You may build it, but we don't have to come."

Then came the scenarios at the start of each chapter, which nearly derailed several of the earlier chapters. I felt like they really undercut the authors general ideas about fan decision-making and the entire idea of reaching out to the Elusive Fan. What fan in this economy has $2000 dollars to jet across the Atlantic for soccer matches? That might be the type of fan you want as a sports manager, but he would be a far easier get then the average fan. The average fan will be lucky to afford the cheapest seats at a minor league baseball or hockey game. Often watching on television or online is a necessity for the average fan. Rich people will not be the savior of sports. Just ask the many teams and leagues that have folded.

Rein et al. redeem themselves in later chapters by producing a logical common sense approach to rebranding whatever the sports product is. I also enjoyed this part of the book because it does not require a fancy degree in marketing or sports management to comprehend. While I believe that the general premise the authors lay out in the book is correct about the changing nature of the sports world and the challenges, one will need to sort through the mystifying scenarios of the first few chapters.