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Beyond the Outfield Wall
Braves' Schiller Talks about the Ever-Expanding World of Sports Marketing
by Gary W. McKillips
Look at the oldest pictures you can find
of baseball parks and somewhere in
those grainy black and white images,
you are likely to see the roots of sports
marketing.
“Sports marketing is as old as the
outfield wall in baseball,” said Derek
Schiller, now executive vice president
of sales and marketing for the Atlanta
Braves. “When I worked for the Yankees
they had many pictures of old Yankee
Stadium from 70 or 80 years ago and you
could see those outfield signs.” The same
was true at Ebbets Field, the home of the
Brooklyn Dodgers, where one classic
sign, advertising Abe Stark’s men’s
clothiers, challenged batters to “Hit Sign,
Win Suit.”
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While sports marketing in those
early days involved mostly signage,
the industry has burgeoned and now,
Schiller says, it is one of the primary
ways that companies “find a connection
between a certain set of fans or
consumers. Sports allows you to connect
with fans in an emotional way and sports
marketing allows you also to connect a
brand in an emotional way.”
Signs are still prevalent, but many
are electronic, like those which flash
colorfully around the façade of the
second deck of Turner Field.
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Today the plethora of sports, from the
more traditional (football, basketball and
baseball) to the more exotic (extreme
sports and Mixed Martial Arts), means
there is something for every advertiser.
“The advantage to sports marketing
is that before a company aligns with a
brand it is able to determine how well the
opportunities for marketing its goods and
services match the demographics of the
sports property being considered,” said
Schiller.
There is a downside to sports
marketing, however, particularly when
firms align themselves with individual
sports properties. A recent example is
Tiger Woods, whose marital infidelities
cast a shadow upon the world’s top
golfer - so much so that many of his
backers, including brands such as AT&T
and Accenture, pulled their sponsorships.
“That’s part of the risk and reward of
aligning with an individual. The reward
is that you can find the connectivity
to a brand on a very personal level,
but the risks of what that person does
may translate into the association
with a brand. Tiger is the most glaring
example,” said Schiller, “but there are
many others.”
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While scandals were not a problem when
Schiller joined the Braves in 2003 from
the Atlanta Thrashers, he was greeted by
sagging attendance for a team that was
in the twilight of winning 14 consecutive
division titles. “Winning was somewhat
taken for granted,” said the EVP, “but
there were other issues, as well, mainly
related to the fan experience.” For
example, noted Schiller, “It was a given
that the experience the fans would
receive at the ball game was baseball and that’s it. Also, the servicing of our fans
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what we did to try to connect with fans
and deliver a great relationship with the
team - needed a lot of improvement. So
those are the things we really worked
on.” The Braves EVP cited the new
video board and Tooner Field, the
children’s cartoon-themed play area,
as two significant improvements. He
also said that the team hired a former
Ritz-Carlton executive to instill a new
customer service ethic in the nearly
2,000 game day employees.
Is winning really at the heart of
everything? According to Schiller,
“From the very first game of the season,
there must be hope for your team to do
well, otherwise marketing the team is
very challenging. But if there is hope, the
things that we can do as marketers add
onto the ability of fans to connect with
the team and enjoy following the team
throughout the season.”
What about the future? According to
Schiller, the future is now, particularly
when it comes to technology. He
notes that, “MLB Advanced media,
the interactive unit of Major League
Baseball, has come out with
MLB.com At Bat II, which
allows fans to connect with their teams using their
smart phones. You can watch a game
on your smart phone, view it in many
different graphical ways and look at
replays. But not only that, in the future
the device will be used to gain access to
the game, thereby eliminating any form
of paper ticket.”
Sports marketing has become a staple
of the marketing budgets of many local
and national corporations. They see
the emotional connection it brings and
the audiences it attracts. They also
know that as rewarding as it can be,
marketing through sports is becoming
vastly more complex, the playing field
is widening and those out to benefit
from the aura cast by a winning team
continue to multiply. It is why bright,
young marketing executives like Derek
Schiller, whether they are with teams or
companies, are having a more profound
effect on their organizations than ever
before and why sports marketing has
moved from the outfield wall to become
a major force in promoting products and
services around the world.
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Copyright © 2011 J. Mack Robinson College of Business/Georgia State University
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