Pakistan Olympic Association

LSU Sports Properties has developed news feeds to bring fans free, continual updates on LSU sports and scores and created GeauxMail to send fans e-mail messages about upcoming promotions. It's also launched Web sites for LSU's two biggest basketballstars, Glen Davis (www.glenbigbaby.com) and Sylvia Fowles (www.bigsyl34.com), complete with bios, quotes, videos, photos, and game-by-game statistics. Recently, the site added a link where fans can buy photos of past and present Tiger athletes, and created an online marketplace for secondary ticket sales. The department has also begun using barcodes on its tickets so it can send post-game e-mails with game highlights to people who haven't used their seats, which should cut down on no-shows.

 

The athletic department has developed new revenue streams from selling ringtones, wallpapers, video clips, gifts, online auction items, and advertisements on its Web site. The premium service, GeauxZone, has 3,000 subscribers who pay $9.95 per month or

$99.95 per year, and offers live audio streaming of all baseball, basketball, softball, and football games, along with on-demand video highlights; live video streaming of non- televised baseball, basketball, and gymnastics matches; live coaches' shows; and full- game, on-demand football video starting the day after a contest.

 

The key, says Vincent, is using the technology to keep fans returning to your site for new information. "We feel we have a very techno-savvy fan base," he says. "We believe an informed fan base is a productive, loyal fan base.

 

Another way LSU reaches out to its fans is through Athletic Director Skip Bertman's Cyber-Side Chats, a 21st century version of the old fireside chats, posted online. "He writes frankly about issues from bowl prospects to rising ticket prices to athletic financing to coaches' contracts—anything that might interest our fans," says Vincent. "Fans write back, because they're very knowledgeable about the operations of LSU athletics and have a tremendous passion for what we do, and we respond to them."

 

Beyond the Web, LSU is reaching out to fans through radio technology. At this year's football games, a tailgate area called Tiger One Village included a unique mobile radio studio, dubbed Tiger One. At ground level, it's a working radio studio where broadcasters host the LSU Sports Radio Network's pre-game show LSU Gameday, bringing fans at least eight hours of coverage for every football contest. On the upper deck, which is painted like a football field, tailgaters eat, drink, and watch the passing parade before and after the game. And because the entire studio is mobile, it hits the road with the football team, providing a focal point for traveling and long-distance LSU fans.

 

"It's a one-of-a-kind vehicle," says Vincent. "On one side, there's an exhibit area displaying Tiger memorabilia, along with some beer taps that—combined with the upper deck—help create a party atmosphere. On the other side is the radio studio, which folds out into a fully-functioning broadcast stage. It gives us a great studio for all our games and provides a gathering place for fans on the road, who always know where to look for Tiger One."

The concept for a mobile studio originated with LSU Sports Properties, which signed a

10-year contract for LSU's multimedia rights in 2005, and communication between it and the athletic department is constant. As athletic department liaison, Vincent speaks to his contacts at LSU Sports Properties and its LSU Sports Television Network multiple times a day.

 

"The agreement gives us tremendous influence in shaping everything to do with our presence on television, radio, and the Internet," says Vincent. "Even though LSU Sports Properties is an outside organization, we've incorporated them into our operation as much as possible. We've given them offices here in our building and use of our LSU logos, and their general manager sits in on our staff meetings as a member of the department. They're really part of our organization."

 

In one semester, the University of Virginia's student fan group grew from 400 members to 3,500. And it was thanks to an electronic ticketing system and Web site tools.

 

"Moving into John Paul Jones Arena, we knew we had to have a more active and unified student group for basketball games," says Todd Goodale, Associate Athletics Director for Marketing and Promotions at Virginia. "So we streamlined membership in the 'Hoo Crew, and it has worked wonders."

 

Virginia's first step was to allow students free online registration for the group. "That automatically gets them a T-shirt and an Orange Passport," says Goodale. "It also gives the department their contact information, which allows us to communicate directly with the students who are most interested in athletics."

 

The Orange Passport card, which has a barcode on the back, works in conjunction with the school's Student Hoops Online Ticketing System (SHOTS). Card holders earn points by attending men's basketball, women's basketball, and selected games in every other sport. Each time they attend a passport game, points are registered on their card. Then, they use those points to gain early entry into John Paul Jones Arena and to

choose the best seats remaining in the student section. With timed-entry tickets, groups of fans can enter the arena every five minutes, starting an hour and a half before tip-off, giving priority to the fans with the greatest number of points. To check their running

total, fans can log on to the SHOTS Web site.

 

"We've leveraged attendance at soccer, volleyball, and other Olympic sports to give our most passionate fans the best seats at men's basketball, and the response has been very good," says Goodale. "We set the NCAA single-season attendance record for men's soccer and a single-game attendance record for Virginia volleyball this fall.

 

"It's also led to a nice, organized system for entry, because students no longer have to wait in line outside the entrance," he continues. "They know exactly when they'll be allowed inside because their time is printed on the ticket, and once they're in the arena, we keep promoting the 'Hoo Crew through our promotions and video board."

During those 90 minutes before the contest, 'Hoo Crew members are kept entertained by playing X-Box games projected onto the video screen and with a steady stream of on-court contests. In one, the prize is an opportunity to sit directly behind the home

bench, and in another, student fans are able to win a semester's free tuition by sinking a shot from half-court. Then, throughout the game, cameras constantly draw attention back to the 'Hoo Crew, using crowd cutaways on the scoreboard video screen to create an upbeat atmosphere in the stands.

 

"Students set the tone for our sporting events," says Goodale. "Their energy, passion, and enthusiasm travel around the arena. We need that passionate core of students to create a buzz because it makes the whole arena that much more energetic. The challenge is to take that larger base of fans, the people who are interested but not necessarily passionate, and turn them into passionate fans. We found the key is to make it easy for them to join up."

 

When Boston University's athletic marketers wanted a new way to reach their students and recent alumni, they decided to offer video podcast highlights of their hockey and basketball games for free. They did so by partnering with Apple and using the iTunes

Web site.

 

"We're trying to give people a new and unique way to look at BU athletics," says Becky Collet, Associate Athletic Director for Marketing Communications. "We have an incredibly active alumni base and our fans are interested in getting access to BU athletics any time, anywhere, anyway they can."

 

Apple makes the podcasts available exclusively through iTunes. In return, the BU podcasts draw more customers to iTunes's online store. "Because video podcasting is so new, we wanted to marry our brand to iTunes," says Collet. "They have a much

wider distribution network than we do, with the ability to reach a larger and more diverse audience."

 

Although the downloads are routed through the Apple site, the videos are actually maintained on BU's own servers, which allows the athletic department to track downloads, as well as to permanently archive as many podcasts as it wants. At the end of 2006, 26,000 unique viewers had downloaded 150,000 podcasts, mostly three- minute reels of BU men's hockey games. The podcasts are available an hour after the end of the game and are produced with little extra expense to the department by overlaying the scoreboard's video feed with commentary from BU's radio broadcast. They can be watched on computers or personal video players.

 

To publicize the program at the start of the 2006-07 season, athletic marketers sent an e-mail schedule of podcasts to 100,000 alumni, along with an e-mail copy of the five- minute men's ice hockey pre-game video shown on the scoreboard before player introductions. They also podcasted a half-hour interview with Head Men's Ice Hockey

Coach Jack Parker, who talked about the upcoming season and the state of college hockey.

 

Fans could sign up for single podcasts or receive every podcast the department produces. During the season, the department sent e-mail reminders encouraging fans

to check out the action of the previous day's game, and it plans to offer a podcast of the season's highlights this spring.

 

The department is considering sending its video highlights to cell phones and is researching ways to reach fans and alumni through YouTube. "We've invested a lot of time and energy in making sure we're pleased with the quality of the product we're putting out," says Collet. "With these podcasts, we're reaching almost double the number of fans we used to reach through traditional broadcasting."

 

In the first year of its three-year contract with NCAA Division II, CSTV agreed to nationally broadcast three Thursday night football games and six men's and women's basketball games, and to deliver video broadband streaming of 40 football games and

32 men's and women's basketball games. Emporia State University was determined to

make the most of the opportunity.

 

"Until now, we've been reaching people on a regional level," says Donald Weast, Assistant Athletic Director for Media Relations at Emporia State. "But the new media is here, and it's important for all of us to embrace it. It gives us new opportunities to reach our fans, grow our fan base, and stay in contact with people as they move around the country."

 

The athletic department put a lot of effort into lobbying the Division II Media Advisory Group, which selected the games to be broadcast. This fall, Emporia State's football game at Missouri Western State College was broadcast on the Internet, and this winter it will enjoy a nationwide telecast of its women's basketball game against rival Washburn University.

 

"When we first heard about this collaboration, we immediately thought of our women's basketball games against Washburn, which have generated some of the biggest crowds we've ever had at White Auditorium," says Weast. "So we put together a packet of information about the number of close games we've played against Washburn and the number of near-capacity crowds we've drawn and sent it to the NCAA. We felt this

would be a great opportunity to showcase our program and our venue."

 

Weast expects to fill the 5,000-seat auditorium without a lot of additional effort. "It'll be the biggest audience we have for any regular season game this year, and we're going to put on a good show," he says. "We'll have a handful of promotions, like Putting for Prizes, Remote-Control Racecars, the Subway Shootout, the Pyramid Pizza Fan of the Game, and free T-shirts tossed into the crowd every time we hit a three-point shot.

"In Division II, our audiences are generally regional," he continues. "But we think there are a lot of games worthy of national recognition, and we're planning to show the rest of the country the kind of atmosphere and competition we've got here."

 

With so many new ideas and technologies emerging, how do you know what your fans really want in new media? The University of Wisconsin decided to find out last spring

before redesigning its Web site, which is handled completely in-house.

 

Through a Web survey, administrators discovered that fans especially valued the site's game schedules, followed closely by headlines, department information, audio/video features, ticket sales, player statistics, and merchandise. Sixty percent of respondents used the site as their primary source of information about UW athletics, checking uwbadgers.com at least once a week, and almost two-thirds of users accessed the site through broadband connections. When surveyed about what they'd like to see in the redesign, fans asked for more live video streaming, news conferences, and exclusive behind-the-scenes features.

 

In response, the department's redesigned Web site includes live Web streaming of all its non-televised men's and women's ice hockey, men's and women's basketball, and volleyball games. With nearly 15,000 unique pages, the site includes a video guide to Badger athletics, virtual tours of the campus, a message from the athletic director, and a slide show of gameday action with a soundtrack featuring Gnarls Barkley, Coldplay, and the Dave Matthews Band. Exclusive Web offerings include lessons given by tennis, golf, and strength coaches, a department blog from a behind-the-scenes perspective, highlights from the basketball arena's crowd cameras, and student-produced day-in-the- life video profiles of UW athletes.

 

"New media is a great way to get your message out," says Tamara Flarup, Director of Web Site Services at the University of Wisconsin. "It gives another dimension to your program, and it's much more effective than just using print because it shows more personality and provides an inside look at your department."

 

In keeping with a tradition that began when the site first went online in 1995, all the design, programming, and production is done within the athletic department and all the content is provided without charge. "Keeping the site free enhances the whole openness of the athletic program," says Flarup. "We projected about $100,000 that could potentially be raised by charging for Web premiums, but we didn't feel that was enough reason to deny some of our fans the opportunity to see our live streaming."

 

For Flarup, the greatest advantages of keeping the Web site in-house are responsiveness, flexibility, and the ability to carry on the university's mission by working closely with the undergraduates producing the site's video content. "We have 10 multimedia students who come up with ideas and do all the shooting, editing, and streaming," she says. "We get to tap into these young geniuses and at the same time provide them with educational opportunities.

"Working independently, we don't need to give our site a cookie cutter look," Flarup continues. "We looked at a lot of different sites, took what we liked, and created something unique. We have the ability to make changes on the fly. And in a field like this, where you always want to stay state of the art, you need that kind of flexibility to keep renewing your site."

 

 

 

Sidebar: MAKING CONNECTIONS

State University has some of the most technologically advanced Web communications in collegiate athletics, but marketers haven't forgotten the importance of using the personal touch. To increase ticket sales for its 72,000-seat Sun Devil Stadium, the department used old-fashioned technology: phones. In June 2006, ASU created a telephone-marketing Sales Academy, which raised over $1 million in revenue in its first six months.

 

"At Arizona State, our main mission is to educate," says Steve Hank, Assistant Athletic Director. "So we hire students for the Sales Academy, teach them marketing, and help place them with professional sports organizations after they graduate."

 

The athletic department hired pro sports consultant Charlie Chislaghi to help set up the Sales Academy, which is open year-round with as many as a dozen callers working at a time. Before making their first call, academy staffers go through 10 days of training, where they learn about the history of Arizona State athletics, tour the stadium, study the full range of ticketing options, and role-play typical questions and answers.

 

"The main thing our sales staff provides is good, old-fashioned customer service," says Hank. "We look for people who are intelligent, because to the person on the other end of the phone, these students are the experts. And we look for people who can listen as well as they talk, because they have to understand the needs of the customer before they can meet them."

 

Staffers work in three shifts, with mornings and afternoons focused on pitching ticket packages to businesses and evenings concentrated on consumers at home. Using a database that integrates alumni information, single ticket purchases, and Sun Devil merchandise sales, the Sales Academy is able to target customers with the greatest potential to become season ticket holders. It also contacts fans who have declined to renew their seats, converting two-thirds of them back into season ticket holders this fall.

 

By next year, in a formal partnership with ASU's W.P. Carey School of Sports Business, academy staffers will receive class credit for their work. The department will also hire a second manager to concentrate specifically on business-to-business sales.

 

To Hank, the lessons are clear. "Business is about one thing and one thing only: relationships," he says. "For a long time, college athletics has been waiting for people to call us. Well, this is a very passion-driven business, and what we've re-learned through this process is the value of having personal relationships with our fans. Our ability to