Sport Marketing Defined

Professional teams, small colleges, high schools, sports clubs, and youth programs have all looked for a better way to attract and maintain consumers. Among other things, they know thet they compete for time and mnoney with a host of rivals, including malls, mega movie complexes, Internet providers, concerts, and museums. Today's marketers clearly need a rational, coherent system that can match sport consumers with sport products.

The term of sports marketing was coined by Advertising Age in 1979 to describe the activities of consumer and industrial product and service marketers who are increasingly using sport as a promotional vehicle. Even a casual television viewer cannot help noticing the use of sport images and personalities to sell beer, cars, and a whole range of other products.

Another confusing element is use of the therm sports (plural) marketing rather than sport (singular) marketing connotes an industry of diverse and uncoordinated segments that have a little commonality.

Sport marketing consists of all activities designed to meet the needs and wants of sport consumers through exchange processes. Sport marketing has developed two major thrusts: the marketing of sport products and services directly to consumers of sport, and marketing of their consumers and industrial products or services through the use of sport promotions.