A Career in Sports Marketing

A Career in Sports Marketing

The business of sports is one of the fastest growing industries in the country. All over the world, many people participate as players and spectators in a variety of sporting activities, creating opportunities for the marketing of a company’s goods and services. An important part of the business of sports is sports marketing, which revolves around understanding consumer behavior and motivating target markets to purchase goods and services. Sports marketing at Clemson University has many different aspects ranging from sports and technology and sport law to sponsorship and sports economics.

“Sports marketing is simply any sales or publicity-related activity associated with an organized sporting event (or events), its personalities, or the celebrity lifestyle of its participants” (Schaaf 22). There are two components of sports marketing: the marketing of sport and marketing through sports. Marketing of sport consists of the actual marketing of a particular sport such as football or baseball. This includes, but is not limited to, signage, endorsements, print media, broadcast media, billboards, and news media. Examples of marketing through endorsements are Michael Jordan wearing Nike shoes or John Elway drinking Coors Beer. Any type of media that mentions a team or athletic organizations is an example of marketing through the use of media. There are also many other ways of actually marketing or promoting the sporting event.

Unlike marketing of sports which consists of marketing before and after a particular event, marketing through sports consists of marketing or promoting a particular product at a sporting event or in conjunction with a sporting event. This includes, ...

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...all corporate customers who participate in the marketing to the fans. Corporate customers include Coca-Cola, BI-LO, Hooters, and Naturally Fresh. They provide the money needed to support the Athletic Department in return for signs and advertisements at the game. Another aspect of Seketa’s job is to market the event so attendance at all events will increase.

Some of my experiences with this process include hanging up signs downtown and passing out schedule cards. While working for John Seketa for a year and a half, I have learned what it takes to market an event of Clemson’s caliber. It takes hard work and long hours. Without John Seketa, Clemson would be a less profitable athletic heritage.

As you can see, sports marketing involves more than just making sure people attend the events; it involves a strategic plan to assure the success of the whole event.