Happy Anniversary Title IX

If there was ever a law with so little words that made a huge impact it was Title IX.  The 37-word law turns 40 this week and women everywhere are celebrating.  The legislation called the 1972 Education Amendment, Title IX was simple “No person in the United States shall, on the basis of sex, be excluded from participation in, be denied the benefits of, or be subjected to discrimination under any education program or activity receiving Federal financial assistance”. But a simple law made a huge impact in classroom, colleges, and boardrooms and in women’s confidence everywhere.  Since the legislation went into place women playing high school and college sports has jump 1,000 percent.  That said there are still issues and impacts of the law those needs to be addressed. 

When the conversation of pay for play comes up in college sports, Title IX benefits both women sports as well as men’s sports. In short Title IX ensures gender equality in college sports, but also will help smaller men’s programs like wrestling and lacrosse from being excluded from a pay for play system. As Mechelle Voepel describes in a 2011 ESPN article “there is no viable end-around Title IX to allow schools to pay only those athletes who are in a profitable sport, which generally are football and men’s basketball.” A court would rule that all sports, regardless of size, popularity, or revenue source for the university, would need to be a part of the pay for play system.

Sadly the playing field is still not equal 40 years later.  How many stories have you heard about a high school or college building a new state of the art complex and forgetting the girl’s softball field or a girl’s locker room?  In a summit held at the White House this week, Olympic gold medalist in women’s soccer, Julie Foudy, told the story of when she and fellow teammates planned the first Women’s World Cup tournament and were told to book stadiums that held no more than 5,000 fans and only on the East Coast because the women’s game had limited regional appeal.  To her and everyone else surprised they opened in a packed 80,000-seat Giants Stadium to a standing ovation.  A great sign of how far women sports and women in sports have come.

As a woman who wants to merge herself into a career in sports and in an industry that now has close to 60 percent of participants who are women runners, I say “Happy Anniversary, Title IX”, thank you President Nixon for the wonderful future you made for women like me everywhere. 

Women’s Running and The Competitor Group Team Up for Fitness

It was announced last week that Competitor Group Inc. had made another in a series of acquisitions.  This time acquiring Women’s Running Magazine and the Lady Speed Stick Half Marathon Series.  Many of you may know the founder of these two organizations as well as WomenRunning.com, Dawn Stone.  Dawn was the 2005 winner of the Martha Stewart version of The Apprentice.  At the time Dawn was the founder and publisher of Her Sports Magazine, the only magazine dedicated to women’s running. 

Dawn Stone was a pioneer in the marketing to women runners.  In 2009, she launched a half marathon in her hometown of St. Petersburg, Florida.  One that was marketed with one of the best “goody bags” in the industry and a revolutionary medal that provide participants that opportunity to take a part of it to wear daily to show off their accomplishments.   The Women’s Running Half Marathon is now a 4 event series held across the country with a new recently named head sponsor, Lady Speed Stick. 

So what might a mega event holder like Competitor Group, Inc. need with a women’s half marathon when it also runs all of the Rock n’ Roll Marathon and Half Marathon events?  Well it’s actually a good fit given Competitor Group’s current publishing background and ability to show how they have expanded the Rock n’ Roll series.  With over 50,000 runners in just the 3, short, years that the Women’s Running Half Marathon series has been in existence, the series is set for great growth and Competitor Group can take this into the hundreds of thousands as well as international expansion.  With the continued growth in women running the market isn’t taking a turn for the worse anytime soon.

With this acquisition, it doesn’t appear that Competitor Group, Inc. will slow down their acquisitions anytime soon.  They don’t stop finding niches were they can input themselves in.  The question is will the dedicated runner continue to find events run by the mega endurance organizer a continued draw for their running funds.  In October I’ll get to see for the first time what makes this group so great that Dawn Stone would partner up with them.  Only time will tell what impact this partnership will have on women’s running.  As a runner I hope this works out to my advantage and the magazine, website and the running series grow even better. 

Reward your employees. Go Green.

If there are two things that I have learned from my research on Joe Reynolds and Steve Ells is that your employees and the earth are the two most important things in a business and a business plan.  Regardless of if you are starting to put together a business plan or working for a company who is asking for your input into a business strategy you need to look at what can make you different and why your employees will want to continue to invest in your positive future. 

            Joe Reynolds, the founder of Red Frog Events, believes so strongly in the assets that are his employees, he provides them with a fun environment to work in.  That environment includes a rock climbing wall, a zip line and a tree house.  When he started he want a fun place to go to work where it didn’t feel like work.  With 2000 applicants a month, I believe he has created what he set out to do.  He also provides his employees with an unheard of unlimited vacation days and a mandatory sabbatical after 5 years. That’s putting a lot of trust in your employees to not take advantage of the perks, something that Joe Reynolds hasn’t experienced an issue with yet.

The one thing that Joe Reynolds provides each of his employees that I will incorporate into by business plan is an event budget.  My business plan is for an endurance sports event and while I want my event to be the best that is out there, I’ll never know it is the best if the people who for my event can’t see what else is out there.  Giving people the opportunity to train for a marathon, half marathon or triathlon and then providing them with the funds to enter the event ensures that employees can see the competition or unique events around the country and the world.  Giving them the opportunity to experience what being a participant is like and what other do right or not so well, will only improve my event.   

Steve Ells, the founder of Chipotle, believes in something called “Food with Integrity” which is about sustainable food, and responsible treatment of the land and animals.  Through everything that Chipotle does, it keeps the “Food with Integrity” in the forefront.  To the farmers they use, the materials in the building supplies in the restaurants to the advertising and creation of short films reminding people to think about the food that they eat.  Being an environment conscience company is at its core. 

Runners want to ensure that their carbon footprint is a positive one and the way that many races are moving.  I don’t feel we are doing it fast enough but my business plan that I have created addresses this from the start of the planning.  It takes everyone to make a conscience effort to improve the environment.  Even if my business plan never takes off, this will be the corner stone of any strategic initiative that I have involvement in during my future career in sports and endurance sports.  

Run Away With Your Business Plan

There are two things that runners love to do, have fun and run to eat.  When I think of two men who are instrumental in making an impact on these to fundamentals of running I think of Joe Reynolds, the founder of Red Frog Events and Steve Ells, the founder of Chipotle.  Both of these individuals have built incredible organizations from scratch and are doing what they love.  They are both experts in developing business plans and seeing them come to fruition.  They advise people everywhere on how to build a business, what’s important, from the name of the company to ensuring that your employees, the meat of your organization are happy and productive. 

When it comes to making sure your business plan finds a niche Steve Ells understands the concept well.  Mexican food isn’t new.  Fast food isn’t new. Sustainable food in a fast food environment on a mass scale is new.  Steve Ells perfected it with the Chipotle brand.  Now he is bring the same philosophy to Pan-Asian with his new ShopHouse restaurants. Steve Ells understands you have to, be different, think different and stir the pot a bit with your margins, ideas, and branding.

You may not have heard of Joe Reynolds or Red Frog Events, but I am sure you have heard of the Warrior Dash or the Great Urban Race.   Joe took $5,000 in 2007 and founded Red Frog Events, LLC.  The company was projected to make $50 million in revenue in 2011.

Joe Reynolds proves it’s important to take a normal function, like running, and turn it into something fun.  With a business venture you have to be different, be creative and stand out from the rest.  Make your marketing idea transcend geographical boundaries and differences.  Creating the Great Urban race for cities and the BeachDash for the cities by the bays.

Joe provides advice on how to make a great company including ensuring from the start you have a creative environment for your employees and a company mission that stands behind this.  Joe provides unlimited vacation to his 81 employees and offers a four-week sabbatical after 5 years of service. 

If you’re looking at being entrepreneurs take the advice of Steve Ells and Joe Reynolds:

1.     Be creative – Pick a great name, have unique titles, have a great different logo

2.     Be different – Take something simple and make it better, unique

3.     Grow quickly but not too quickly

4.     Do well for your employees and the earth.

If you are just starting out in business these two individuals are great resources to gain an understanding of what makes a great business plan and entrepreneurs.  So don’t just stand in place, come up with a grand concept and get running. http://warriordash.com/

Earth Day: Sports and Marathons Go Green/Eco-Friendly

The world is talking about Earth Day and the crazy weather we are having. Record heat for the 2012 Boston Marathon caused 4000 plus participants to defer their entries until 2013. With high temperatures of 86 degrees who would blame them. Although it is the Boston Marathon. Followed this weekend by snow in the Northeast part of the United States it makes the weather another topic on Earth Day for discussion on global warming.

Many sports teams and marathons are looking for ways to go green and install eco-friendly methods in their events. The stadium that the Miami Marlins play in is eco-friendly LEED Certified construction project. According to the Miami Marlins Facebook page they are doing even more than just playing in a “green” facility. The Marlins players have taken their fight to be green the streets of Little Havana to encourage their fans and neighbors to be more energy efficient. The caravan as they are calling it was long before the new stadium opened and long before Earth Day 2012.

The Marlins are not the only ones working to save the planet. The White Sox in Chicago unveiled a new parking lot at US Cellular field considered the “grand slam” for water management. The parking lot, which does not have to be paved for at least 40 years, is designed to absorb water instead of creating standing water. This prevents flooding and takes the water to where it is needed the most, in the ground.

By reducing the runner’s footprint, marathons are going green as well. Many race directors are looking for ways to create an eco-friendly environment for what many runners believe is already and eco-friendly sport. Marathons are encouraging runners to carry their own water or cups for pouring water into.

The Boston Marathon going green effort includes using less trash to limit the number of cars on race day. At the top of ever list of the greenest races is the Austin Marathon, with a farmers markets at the end and the use of recycled toilet paper in the Porta Potties and tons of recycled trash bins along the course. You can’t go much greener then this race.

On this Earth Day, if you are looking for ways to go green while running, I highly recommend the website Running Planet for tips. If you are a race director or just want your race to go green, stop by Road Race Management and order the newest book The Road Race Management
 Guide to Greener 
Running Events - 2nd Edition. It’s every thing wanted to know but were afraid to ask about going green with your events.

As you celebrate Earth Day watching Americans favorite pass time played on eco-friendly turf or your going out for a run in last years race shirts instead of buying a new one, remember you to can help the world one step a time.

Digital Marketing in Sports – Building a Community

It is hard to believe that Facebook and Twitter have only been around for 5+ years and the Internet less than 20 years.  Our lives have changed in the last 5 years and so has the way that Sports teams and Athletes interact with fans and participants. Sports Marketing and Digital Marketing in Sports has changed from the days of TV Advertising, Radio Advertising and Newspaper columns to reach fans. Communicating with Fans and participants has become so much easier and instantaneous.  With Facebook Fan pages, YouTube Channels, Mobile Media and iPhone Applications, SMS and MMS channels you and your fans can be in constant communication.  We now place the way a Sports Fan or participant communicates in their own hands, they determine the method that works best for them, we as business owners, and marketers do not.  

Of course everyone in a community follows one team or another, if you’re an Ohio State Buckeye’s fan the people around you know it and you participate in anything from Twitter meet-ups to LinkedIn groups dedicated to your school.  Companies are realizing the benefits of these communities and are creating them for those that follow their brands or creating communities so more people will interact with their brands.  Two companies that are at the forefront of this are Nike and Rebook.

A pioneer in the Digital Marketing is Nike.  Nike created an entire division dedicated to developing technology that allows users to track their participation in sports and fitness and integrate the results into a communication process through Facebook and Twitter to broadcast the results.  Through all of this Nike is creating a mega channel for data that can be used by marketers.  Nike is building on-line communities for wearers of the new Nike Fuel to interact with other owners of the product.  Nike was very successful with the Nike+ in creating a community that allowed Nike to gather data to target marketing to those who regularly provided feedback on their logged runs and created incentives for runners to participate in competitions against others in the Nike+ community, bring followers back to the Nike site over and over again.  Participants broadcasted their results on Twitter and Facebook and encouraged Friends to provide “Cheering” or challenged Facebook Friends to get in on the experience by joining the Nike+ community.  This built additional brand awareness for Nike and put them on the forefront of Digital Marketing.

Rebook is another brand that has tapped into the digital community of an underground fitness crazy CrossFit.  Rebook became the initial sponsor of CrossFit in 2010 and launching the partnership with a shoes and clothing line during the 2012 Superbowl.  CrossFit is a social media networking crazy in-and-of it-self, with WOD, CrossFit games and barebones gyms.  Instead of changing what CrossFit is, Rebook is embracing the CrossFit culture with the partnership.  Rebook is bringing CrossFit to everyone with large shipping containers being dropped all over the country for people to try out the sport, most times locations only learned about via social media marketing on Facebook and Twitter. 

So what as Sports Marketing professionals can we learn from all of this?  Don’t stop believing in the next big digital marketing method.  Find a way to engage your customers now in a community, whether you are a professional sports team, a marathon or fitness crazy, find a way to build a community for your current fans and for your future fans to interact.  All the while you will be collecting data on them. How to use the data will be another Oprah Show in Sports Marketing.  

Sponsors, Sponsors, Everywhere is a Sponsor

Over the last few weeks a number of sponsors have renewed or announced a partnership with a sports team. Budweiser and the Olympics announced the renewal of the long-standing partnership.  Toys R Us announced a first time agreement with the Special Olympics and Milk became the official refuel beverage for the Ironman series.  Everywhere you look in sports there is some kind of sponsor.  The NBA is even considering allowing sponsors logo’s on the players’ jerseys. 

Do you remember the very bright red with black and yellow uniforms of the University of Maryland?  Yes they were different and many remember they were sponsored by Under Armour. The uniforms of the University of Oregon, done by Nike.  While the super fan and those that watch college football on Saturday’s in the fall know this the causal fan may not.  What the causal fan may know better is the name of the stadium that they watch their favorite teams in.  Citi field in New York, Lucas Oil Stadium in Indi and Pet Co Park in San Diego. 

Pretty much every marathon you run has a sponsor.  The ING New York Marathon.  The Bank of America Chicago Marathon.  The Honda LA Marathon.  Just this month Allstate signed to sponsor the 13.1 Marathon series across the county. 

It is not just ballparks and marathon names that can get sponsored.  Have you ever run a small 5k race where the water stop is manned with people from a local bank?  They are a sponsor.  The back of your shirt from any race will have every sponsors logo, the front may as well if they have a title sponsor, like ING, Bank of America or Honda. 

If you run a half or full marathon, your guaranteed to experience the “official” drink and the “official” pick-me up like GU, Power Shots or Gatorade. 

So what is in it for the sponsors?  Maybe the sponsor is trying to break out into a new market with a new audience or a new product. The sponsor might desire an image boost and by partnering with a non-for-profit they achieve a residual effect based on their good will.  It used to be that sponsors worked with sports organizations that their CEO’s liked so that they could be seen at every event.  That’s not the case anymore and most organizations are looking for a return on their investments. 

For the big and the small sporting organizations, from the major leagues to the little leagues sponsors are everywhere, and frankly that’s a good thing.  Without sponsors the teams on the field might not be as good as they are, or the events we enter and buy tickets for would cost much more.  Without sponsors, little league teams with dreams of making it to the big leagues wouldn’t exist.  So next time your out at a sports event or running in a race, look out for the sponsors names and support them at your next opportunity you never know what good is coming out of that sponsorship. 

Goofy For Disney

Over the last 4 years I have competed in 8 Disney running events, now known as RunDisney.  I love every race for the fun and enjoyable atmosphere, yes if you are looking at qualifying for Boston this is not the place.  If you want to have a great time, love getting pictures and don’t mind running in a tutu or Mickey ears this is the place for your first or 20th run. 

From a marketers standpoint my favorite part about Disney is how they take the information I provide when I register and incorporate it in all of their communications to me.  From using personalized emails with my name, to emails with pictures of me, to a personalized url (PURL) with my picture, time and favorite characters.  Not only is this done through the email and online communication, but also on the race bibs we receive with our chips included.  They understand that I love the Princess and the Frog and ensure that my emails show scenes from the movie.  By having the characters we love on the race course they encourage you to stop for pictures, and one of those pictures is going to be sent in an email congratulating you on your awesome finish, of course with a link for you to buy that picture and more. 

Once you finish you are sure to receive a virtual certificate that you can download with your time and finishing place and of course your name in the color of one of your favorite characters.  You would really be surprised at how many races don’t supply this one great takeaway for free or don’t provide it electronically.  Many only support the top ten percent of their finishers in acknowledging they even finished.  Those of us in the middle and the back of the pack burned more calories over a longer time period but hey what does it matter if we aren’t Boston bound. Disney don’t care as long as you had fun and come back for more fun.

 

One thing that I have seen a lot from races of late is Facebook badges, this is something that RunDisney doesn’t do. This might add a personal touch to the pictures we download and would increase the brand awareness of the great number of Disney races.  Of course incorporating the personalization into the badge would provide the Disney touch that many of the badges are missing now.

If you are looking for a well-executed race that uses the marketing best practices that only Disney does best then look no further than Disney for your greatest competition and your most enjoyable event. There are 5 more events in 2012 waiting for your registration and of course the 20-year anniversary of the Disney Marathon in January 2013. If your crazy like me you’ll register for the Goofy Challenge, a half marathon on Saturday and a full marathon on Sunday.  3 t-shirts, and 3 medals.  Yes it’s Goofy but not Dopey (add a 5K).