Sports marketing is usually a form of event marketing, but event marketing doesn't have to reflect sports element. But you could be a sports marketer and be responsible for an event that doesn't feature sports. An example of this involves sports stadiums as venues. The stadium needs to be filled other days or nights of the year when a team is not scheduled. So work concerts may be scheduled, for example. Thus, teams have a whole roster of people who manage events and because of this there are in fact specialized events agencies. All those specialized folks do is Event Management. Event Management is its own entire sector of marketing. We're going to talk about it through the lens of sports, though there is as much work in the world of events as there are in any other part of marketing. You may have attended events where you've been the guest. In some way, your attendance had to be managed. So when you think about events, you need to think about who the audience is. Is the audience the people who are coming for a game or perhaps the people who are coming for a walk concert or youth league championship? Always ask yourself who is the audience and what's the objective of having that event at that location. Let's look at the stadium rental example. First, you will need to determine the advantage of selecting the stadium. Next, you'll need to think about managing the audience. Are you going to fill this stadium? If the stadium seats 20,000 or 40,000 or 90,000, do you need to remove seats, rope off exits, or change signage or focus? In this example, you also need to back out a timeline for your event, so you can determine what you need to do six or even nine months ahead of time. You also need to think about the logistics. How are you going to get the talent, the vendors, the needed equipment in? Maybe you also need to build a sound stage for the concert. For the operation of the events themselves you'll need somebody taking the tickets. The audience needs to know where to go. The volunteers need to know where to go. The people who are on the field need to know where to be. There needs to be signage. On the customer service side, people want to know how to pick up tickets, change their seats, get a refund. They want to know where the restrooms are. They want to know where the food is. Why there isn't different food? What's in the food? They want to know what time the event starts even if the ticket says it starts at eight pm. In short, they want to know how to complain. Lastly, you have to think about the post event assessment because you thought you were going to make $100,000 but you look like you're about to lose $20,000. What's going on with that? Now, let's dive into some examples of event management all of which involve several stakeholders you'll need to know how to work with. On November 3rd 2018, the University of Notre Dame is playing Northwestern University at Ryan field, the smaller university stadium miles north of Chicago, in Evanston, a suburb. They're playing for the first time in 40 years at that location. The Fighting Irish of Notre Dame could sell out Soldier Field where the National Football League, the Chicago Bears play. But instead, they're coming to Evanston, which means that there are no seats left. Northwestern University needs to figure out what to do with all the people who are going to be asking for tickets to that event who are going to be disappointed. Not to mention the 40,000 Notre Dame fans and alumni who live in the surrounding 20 miles of Evanston who will drive to the stadium thinking they can pick up tickets. Northwestern has to figure out how to manage the players, the participants, the managers, the referees, the medical staff, the attendees, and the media. Now, let's look at an example with international implications. In 2016, Chicago hosted a national rugby match featuring Ireland and the New Zealand All Blacks, two amazing teams featuring the result when Ireland beat the All Blacks. For this event, we needed to have the governments of both countries in Chicago. In addition to hosting both conferences and leagues, we needed sponsors and advertisers who were sourced in America but who were being piped back the both countries. The event was held at Soldier Field and the community around it needed to be fully prepared. Let's look at some other considerations. If you're going to put on an event, you need to figure out if it's going to be a one-off event, like the rugby match, which is a lot of work for one week. Are you going to try to figure out a program that's longer-term? For example, if you sell fans the ownership rights to box seats at soldier field for the Chicago Bears of the National Football League, are you going to give the season ticket holders first dibs on any music event that's going to be held there? Most venues have sponsors and advertising for the main sports events being played there. That is great but when you bring in new events and have to reach out to new sponsors, do you block the original signage. Do you reach out to original sponsors asking them to spend even more money? If so, they may not have more money in their budget for your extra event. When weighing whether or not to host additional events at a venue, there's a choice to either in-source or outsource this extra work of managing the event. If you insource, you have to understand all the ins and outs of the problems and concerns, but you also have all the logistical headaches of managing multiple events. You need to figure out the budgeting and creativity with a limited set of in-house resources. If you outsource, you need to keep an in house manager and you need to figure out how to ensure that every event feels like it comes from in-house. For some big events, like the Olympics, much of the work will be outsourced to huge event management companies. So there's a lot of bidding and contracting taking place. Let's look at the 2012 summer Olympics in London. In this example, agencies are managing events on behalf of the city of London and the Olympics. As the bids all come in, they get priced and valued. These bids include proposals to ensure not only that the Olympics will actually take place but that there is a land regeneration in East London, and that the community around East London will be much better off and a better sports environment will be available to the citizens of London years after the Olympics or just a memory. As you can see, event management truly does make up an entire sector of marketing.
