MLS

There are many cynics that may say President Obama can spend his time, and the countries’ dollars…doing better things than glad handing the MLS champion Columbus Crew at the White House before heading off to throw the first pitch and hang out in the FOX booth at the All-Star game. However, the man who the Washington Times called this week the “Sports Fan Chief” , was astute enough with his team to recognize early on in his run to the White House that sports is a common bond for those on the fence about anything political, and gave him, more than any other candidate, another link to a demo that may or may not have voted or listened to him at all.

The announcement in this week’s Sports Business Journal that Tom Fox will join Arsenal to run their startegic marketing is the latest in a series of moves by elite clubs and sports around the world to try and not only capture ways to engage their own fans, but to try and begin carving niches to make their brands interesting and meaningful to fans in North America, whether those fans are expats now living in the States, new fans or sport like cricket and rugby, and more importantly, brands that may be looking to activate more on a global level.

The announcement in this week’s Sports Business Journal that Tom Fox will join Arsenal to run their startegic marketing is the latest in a series of moves by elite clubs and sports around the world to try and not only capture ways to engage their own fans, but to try and begin carving niches to make their brands interesting and meaningful to fans in North America, whether those fans are expats now living in the States, new fans or sport like cricket and rugby, and more importantly, brands that may be looking to activate more on a global level.

Speaking with one voice, whether it is to a business partner, the media, or to fans is always important, especially in the alphabet soup of niche or second tier sports. With the limited dollars and eyeballs available for the casual fan, splitting the marketplace with alphabet soup of organizations usually leads to confusion and can ultimately drive partners on to a platform which is much more simple to understand. The latest example of split markets being a killer is in indoor soccer, which despite the huge success the outdoor game is seeing in the US, just fell further off the roadmap this week.

Within a 24 hour period this week, the brand value sport of professional soccer in the United States took a huge jump.

As everyone gets in a tizzy about which athletes and entertainers are on twitter, facebooking and breaking news on their own websites it is important to remember that the interraction between the media and those they are covering and reporting about…whether that reporting is on CNN or CNBC or the New York Times or blogtalk radio…is still pretty important. No matter how much people can crow about the use of social media, it remains just a part, and still a small part, of effective brand management and communication for fans and the companies associated with teams, entertainment properties and organizations.

Media Post had another disturbing story about the shrinking conventional media world with three sports/entertainment magazines…the highly regarded Best Life, along with Travel and Leisure Golf and Tennis Week all going down for the count. While that crosses more “traditional” places off the pitch list, the opportunities to place and populate news stories, and compelling activation and feature pieces still are there for those who can place effectively.

Innovative brand integration is become more key as partners count their dollars more efficiently. Logos on apparel, nets, side backboards, virtual signage are all accepted and used now, but the NBA this coming weekend will take naming rights to a new place, renaming the most popular part of TNT All-Star Saturday Night from HORSE to GEICO. Now is it a cheesy sellout, as Barry Horn pointed out in the Dallas Morning News, or is it a bit more innovative as Darren Rovell seems to think. If you are the NBA and the brand, neither matters.

We started this blog almost a year ago, and one of the more unique promotions that came up was The Million Dollar Arm, a promotion to find baseball players in India and grow the game there, with a chance for some young player who could learn baseball to get a chance to make his way to the pros.  Whether ot not there would be a payoff would be the great unknown, but as profiled in USA Today this week, the competition found not one, but at least two young pitchers who are developing with a chance to play professionally.  The contest may have hit the international scene at the right time…baseball had a good run in Beijing and is now fighting for inclusion in 2016, MLB has never b