Friday, November 21, 2008
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Location: Blogs Stl ADvice: Media Buying, Advertising and Web Marketing in St. Louis |
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| Posted by: anchorstl |
9/7/2007 |
St. Louis is a fair weather sports town, that is for sure, but if your a good sports marketing meteorologist you can prognosticate serious R.O.I. for your clients
It's 5:50 pm on a Friday and for once I am not at the river, not because it's raining, but because I am sick as a dog and fully medicated so I hope this makes sense. I have enjoyed years of sports marketing in St. Louis and consider it one of the best markets for it, unless your customers are basketball fans! The Cardinals come off a world series championship, get some DWI's, loose a truckload of games and seemingly have a bad season, but they keep us on our toes and the ratings high by being only one or two games out in early September. Then you have the Rams, only 16 games, a great recent history and a national fan base, but they're home opener is still sold out and scheduled to be blacked out on TV. (why wouldn't KTVI just buy the unsold seats and give them away to gain the inventory?) The point is that the Rams had a crappy season last year and the fans loose interest so fast that a home opener remains not sold out.
Then you've got the St. Louis Blues, playoff action for decades or so it seemed. Then the ownership cuts overhead, looses all the star players and runs the team into the ground to sell it off creating an instant lack of fan base last year.
As a matter of fact, I handled the short lived St. Louis Steamers Soccer teams media buying and creative direction during they're second half of the season last year and we were able out sell the blues attendance on at least one occasion. Just another perfect example of fair weather fan base.
So where am I going with this, I may not even know, but the point I am leading to is what happens when a spark hits the fan base. When some small change creates a tipping point and brings the fans out in droves. The media goes crazy with it and tickets become a scalpers dream. (oh wait, I forgot it's legal in St. Louis now)
As a sports marketing prognosticator and a media buyer, I believe a tipping point like that is upon us with the St. Louis Blues Hockey team and here is why:
Andy Murray took over after the first 32 games.
The Blues were 7–20–5 before Andy Murray for 19 points (.59 points per game).
The Blues played the final 50 games 27-16-7 with Andy Murray for 61 points (1.22 points per game).
The first 32 games the Blues scored 2.2 goals per game and gave up 3.5 goals per game.
The last 50 games under Murray, the Blues scored 2.9 goals per game and gave up only 2.8 goals per game.
FSN Midwest ratings increased 36% during Andy Murray’s tenure. The final 50 games showed a 36% increase in MAA-49 ratings over the first 32 games.
KPLR-TV ratings increased 40% during Andy Murray’s tenure. The final 50 games showed a 40% increase in MAA-49 ratings over the first 32 games.
Mix that with Paul Kariya, Keith Tkachuk and the new 1st round 19 year old Eric Johnson and you have a noteworthy season.
It is like buying a stock after the company has crashed, lost value and hired G. Gordon Liddy to reorganize. The Blues will be a solid buy this year and those who score Eric Johnson as endorsement personality before he is a star will be stars themselves.
Now back to the St. Louis Cardinals, the media reported tonight that the star savior of the dismal season, Rick Ankiel has been tied to performance enhancing drugs that he alledgedly ordered back in 2004..... Who cares? Wasn't that when his pitching career fell apart? At least it wasn't crack. Anyway anything to keep fans talking and defending they're team. I think the Cardinals have had a bad year in part because the media focus on every negative they can find, kinda sounds like politics doesn't it?
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