Back in the 1960s. my Little League team was given the opportunity to sell books of chances, with a goal to raise money for the hugely popular kids' baseball program at Thillens Stadium at Devon and Kedzie on the far north side of Chicago.
So there I was on a hot summer Sunday evening, dressed in my wool flannel baseball uniform, carefully rolled baseball-stirrup stockings pulled over my white cotton sweat socks, and gym shoes, sweating to death!
I stood in the bright sun in front of a popular restaurant asking unsuspecting diners whether they would like to help support the game I loved.
My parentsdropped me off in front of that restaurant in order to give me something of a life lesson in dealing with people. They even provided me with some basic sales training (i.e., 'It's not chances you're selling, it's yourself!'). They knew that if I didn't sell the chances, they would have to buy them.
I don't remember how many chances I sold that night. I do remember introducing myself, telling people a little bit about Thillens, and then offering them the opportunity to support the cause by purchasing a chance, preferably a whole book of chances, to win a grand prize.
That was my introduction to 'sports marketing' on a micro level.Today, most of us think of sports marketing as something 'macro' -- or gigantic.
Corporate sponsorship and sports marketing as we know it started in the mid-1970s, when then-PGA Tour Commissioner Deane Beman transformed golf from a game with a lower profile than bowling into a multimillion dollar sport that's on TV all the time and even has its own cable channel.
Beman convinced large corporations to put up big purses and purchase television advertising packages in exchange for putting their company names on the tournaments.As a result, this generation of PGA Tour-ists recently played for an $8 million purse at the BMW Championship, while Jack Nicklaus took home a winner's share of $20,000 when he won the 1967 Western Open.
It didn't take long for other sports and marketing types to figure out Beman's formula.
In the '80s, Nike founder and visionary Phil Knight and perhaps the world's most potent sports marketing machine,Michael Jordan, became an icon. His rise propelled Nike.In the mid-90s, Knight correctly identified Tiger Woods as golf's version of Jordan. Woods was on his way to becoming the first billion-dollar athlete, thanks in part to 'macro' sports marketing.
But every day we still see signs of 'micro' sports marketing.The photo of the local Little League team hanging on the wall of the local dry cleaners, bank, insurance office, pizza joint or barber shop.The team jerseys with the names of the local business sponsor on the back.The sponsors in the ad books for the junior hockey teams.
I still believe that for local businesses, the best way to build awareness and real brand loyalty is to support your local sports teams.Get the photo. Hang it on your wall proudly. Maybe you think people don't notice, because they don't say anything to you.
They do.
Like those poor innocent diners who listened to my sales pitch back in the day and bought a book of chances,local businesses can make a difference.They may not think of it as sports marketing, because maybe it isn't.
It's more like community.
*Barry Cronin of Park Ridge is head of Cronin Communications, Inc., which specializes in sports media relations. He can be reached at bcronin@cronincommunications.com
