Season Ticket Holders Attracting & Keeping Them

Season Ticket Holders Attracting & Keeping Them

Chapter 5

TeamSportsMarketing.com

Goal Setting Studies have been

reported in various publications that 84% of a graduating class from Yale (or Harvard) had no goals; but the 3% with written goals earned 5-10 times as much when studied years later. This is an urban legend. You can often verify

such things at www.snopes.com

A real study was conducted at Dominican University

http://www.snopes.com/


Goal Setting

What are your goals?

Write them down. This semester? This year? Next 3-5 years? Next 10 years?

What is the value of writing them down?

Of sharing the goals with someone who will hold you accountable?


SegmentationCurrent & prospective season ticket

holders can be segmented according to four broad categories that influence likely ticket purchases:

DemographicsMedia-related behaviorsBarriers to attendanceIncentives to attend


For this chapter… We will use role-plays as a means to understand and

apply the concepts. For each of the chapter sections, a team of students will devise a

role play wherein one team member plays the part of a fan who may or may not be interested in buying some form of season tickets (mini-plans, partial season ticket plans, or complete season ticket plans).

Student teams will be given 15 minutes to devise the role play. Give careful thought as to how an actual buyer might respond to the

power questions provided. Have fun in creating your fictional fan for the role play, but also be realistic.

Feel free to adapt the questions and add questions to fit the conversation.

After learning the fan’s responses, the sales rep should attempt to close the sale by offering tickets (single tickets, mini-plans, group, partial season, full-season, game experience) that best fits the fan’s needs. (You may use the ticket options on the following slide.)

The buyer can decide to buy or not, dependent upon how well the seller does in listening & adapting the ticket offer to the buyer.

Mavericks Ticket Plans

Full Season - Dedicated Account Executive (AE)• Exclusive Season Ticket Customer Communication Services• Priority for tickets to NBA Playoff Games• Discount (15%) on Mavs Merchandise at American Airlines Center Fan Shops and NorthPark Center

Store • Prepaid Parking Option• Guaranteed seats for EVERY home game• Priority for your seat during ALL NBA Playoff games• Complimentary Media Guide • Premium seating areas reserved for full season plans onlyHalf Season Plans – Dedicated Account ExecutiveExclusive Season Ticket Customer Communication Services• Priority for tickets to NBA Playoff Games• Discount (15%) on Mavs Merchandise at American Airlines Center Fan Shops and NorthPark Center

Store • Prepaid Parking OptionMini Season Plan--iDedicated Account Executive• Exclusive Season Ticket Customer Communication Services• Discount (15%) on Mavs Merchandise at American Airlines Center Fan Shops and NorthPark Center

Store


Develop a realistic buyer-seller role play using the power questions from Chapter 5.

Role Play Category Students Assigned

Demographics

Media-related behaviors

Psychic costs & venue convenience

Popularity with family & friends & hometown acclimation

Perceived ticket value & availability

Involvement, loyalty, identification & similarity

Role Play #1Demographics


Demographics1. How many times each month do

you go out for entertainment ? What kind of places do you go? (Try to discern spending levels)

2. Tell me about your family living at home with you. (Listen for marital status and kids.)

3. Where do you live? How far is that from the stadium/arena?

Role Play #2Media-Related Behaviors


Media-Related Behaviors

1. How often do you listen to our games on the radio?

2. Do you find yourself talking with others about the team/game?

3. Did you see any of the games on TV last week?

4. Did you read the article in the paper about _____ this week?


Barriers to AttendanceTo overcome entertainment inertia,

barriers to attendance must be addressed:

1. Psychic costs2. Venue convenience3. Popularity with friends & family4. Acclimation to hometown5. Perceived Ticket Value


Scripts

Step Psychic Effort RequiredFan:

Buy ticket Knows the best way to go about buying tickets for events.

Drive Is familiar with the traffic routes around the venue.

Park Is familiar with the parking options around the venue.

Find seat Knows way in and around the venue.

Watch game Knows what you’re supposed to do at an event at the venue.

Drive home Knows the best traffic routes out of the venue.

Overall ComfortGoing to the Game Feels very comfortable about going to a game at the venue.

What is entertainment inertia?

Psychic costs are high until the fan becomes familiar with the game experience.

Role Play #3Psychic Costs & Venue Convenience


Psychic costs How many events have you

attended here before? (dependent upon response, follow-up with questions 2-5)

If you were to come to an event: …how would you get here? …where would you probably park? ….which side of the [venue] would you

be likely to enter? …do you know where to pick up tickets

at will-call?


Venue ConvenienceDirect: Is there anything about

going to the game itself that makes it inconvenient for you?

Indirect: If someone gave you tickets to the game, would there be any chance that you might stay home to watch the game on TV instead?

Role Play #4Popularity with Friends/Family & Hometown Acclimation


Popularity with friends & family

Who else of your family or friends would like to go to the game with you?This is also a useful time to consider the possibility that the prospect might not be able or willing to buy season tickets alone, but might be willing to share season tickets with others. In that case, ask these two questions:

Is there someone you know that might like to share season tickets with you?If there is someone, follow up with:

Would you mind if I contacted them to see if they are interested?


Acclimation to Hometown

What % of the population are likely to be transplants in these age groups (p.95):

20-34 35-44 45-54

How long have you lived here?

Where do you call home?


Acclimation to Hometown

What % of the population are likely to be transplants in these age groups

20-34 75% 35-44 30% 45-54 20%

How long have you lived here?

Where do you call home?

Role Play #5Perceived Ticket Value & Availability


Perceived Ticket Value & Availability

1. Have you ever bought season tickets for any sport?

Follow-up if yes: Tell me about it. For what you paid for the tickets, was it a good value? What did you like or dislike in the package?

Follow-up if no: When was the last time you bought tickets to a game? For what you paid for the tickets, was it a good value? What did you like or dislike?

2. If you were to buy (season) tickets here, what price range per game interests you?

3. Have you ever attempted to buy a ticket to the game and couldn’t find what you wanted?


Low

High

Perceived Ticket Value

Perceived ticket value in sports

Most sports fans perceive higher value for higher priced tickets….and the more they attend the more they prefer the higher priced tickets.


Ways to increase perceived ticket value

Options to renew same seat or upgrade to other seats as they become available.

Guaranteed playoff seats Invitation to special team sponsored events & other private functions Team store discounts Personal account executive assistance First right to purchase tickets for all other arena events Improved seating comfort (wider, softer, etc.) Guaranteed promotional items Parking passes Access to private club lounge and other “Goldmember” privileges In-seat wait service Access to private club-level restrooms Coupons for free/discounted events with team partners (ice skating, golf,

movies, etc.) Ticket Exchange Programs (unused tickets transferred or sold to others) Assistance buying road game tickets Exclusive email offers for various ticket or merchandise discounts Subscriptions to team magazine or newsletters

Some teams are tempted to cut prices to compensate for poor performance on the field or court. But what happens when the team performs well? Will fans react well to the price increases? Instead, try increasing ticket value with added services and other benefits. Which of these would add value to your local team’s season tickets?


INCENTIVES TO ATTEND

Salespeople should determine how committed the fan is to the team in terms of:

1. Involvement with the sport2. Loyalty to the team3. Identification with the team4. Similarity with the team


Levels of fan commitment

Role Play #6Involvement, Loyalty, Identification, & Similarity


Involvement & Loyalty On a scale of 1-10, how much of an

(NBA) fan are you? Across all sports, who is your

favorite sports team? Within this sport, who is your

favorite team? On a scale of 1-10, how loyal would

you say that you are to our team?


Identification & Similarity

Who are some of the players on the team that you are familiar with?

What players on the team do you follow?

How do you feel about the players on this year’s team?


Scorecard1. Radio listening2. Age (older more likely)3. Times going out per month and spending $25+ each time4. Household Income5. Perceived ticket availability6. Psychic Costs7. Involvement with sport8. Game-talk: Frequency of talking about the game with others9. Marital status (married more likely)10. Hometown acclimation11. Popularity with friends & family12. Perceived ticket value

In order, these are the best predictors of frequent game attendance among 5000+ NBA fans.


Reducing Churn

Contact non-attendersExecutive

communicationFocus groups


Reducing churn Proactive listening

means that you seek to maintain high levels of communication and interchange between clients and sales associates as an ongoing process throughout the season after the sale.

What’s the difference between proactive & reactive listening?


Reducing churnWhy do you need to contact non-

attending season ticket holders? In what ways can the team engage

in executive communication programs?

For what types of decisions should the team make use of season-ticket focus groups?

Management Action Consequence

The University of Utah moved from an open seating policy for home soccer matches to reserved, assigned seating for the final game of the season (which was to determine the conference championship).

Faithful fans who had attended every other home were not aware of the policy change and many were unable to sit in the same seats that they had occupied all season long.

In 2002, organizers for the FIFA World Cup in Seoul, South Korea, designated blocks of tickets for sale to specific global markets, so as to allow fans from all countries to attend the matches. Unfortunately, some markets did not respond and the tickets were not made available to other markets.

Matches were announced as sold-out, despite the fact that TV camera shots showed entire lower bowl sections empty. As many as 20,000 seats went unused in the opening round. Japanese and South Korean fans were unable to purchase tickets to these matches.

Students who pay $135 for basketball season tickets at Michigan State cannot miss more than two games and must wear an “Izzone” shirt to be eligible to use their own tickets. Students can avoid losing their seats if they have a doctor's note, death notice of a family member or paperwork showing a class conflict.

Students have protested to the Student Alumni Association, written letters to the school newspaper and started a Web site to oppose the policy.

When the Cincinnati Reds moved to the new Great American Ball Park, fans were only allowed to buy opening day tickets via phone or the internet. No tickets were sold at the Reds’ box office.

Phone and internet sales allowed non-Reds’ fans (including people from Great Britain) to buy up tickets online and resell on eBay and ticket outlets at multiples of face value, leaving many locals out of luck.

Ways to upset season ticket holders

ListeningThere is no such thing as a worthless conversation, provided you know what to listen for. Questions are the breath of life for a conversation. ~ James Nathan Miller

Season Ticket Holders Attracting & Keeping Them

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