Talking Tickets 19 August 2022: The Lionesses! The Boss! Creating Change! And, More!
Number 149
Hi Oh!
Hello from somewhere on the road: again, August has me in Atlanta, Athens, Charlotte, Asheville, and Durham. I’ll be back in DC tomorrow so you’ve likey missed this part of the Dave road show, but let me know what’s going on because I’m likely going to be visiting a few new destinations the last week of August.
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To the tickets!
1. The Big Story: The Lionesses and the US Women’s team sell out Wembley:
Big Ideas:
Women’s sports have been growing like crazy the past year or two with WSL, AFLW, and many others hitting new highs.
This friendly is likely the biggest matchup heading into the next Women’s World Cup.
We need to pay attention to the way that these sports are targeting new audiences and positioning themselves effectively in their markets.
I’ve been sharing a lot about women’s sports over the past year or so. Maybe not 50%, but I’m trying to highlight the successes of women’s sports and there have been many.
We have looked at the success of Tottenham bringing in Alex Morgan and raising their profile.
We’ve hit on the AFLW and their success using proper marketing to achieve success.
Now, we see the Lionesses hitting new highs and bringing football home.
This match between England and the United States is likely the biggest friendly in the lead-up to the 2023 Women’s World Cup in New Zealand and Australia. This should be the most competitive Women’s World Cup ever because many nations are catching up to the US Women’s team.
Why do we see these women’s sports growing?
It might seem simple, but it is all about proper marketing.
What does proper marketing look like?
Well, you can start by listening to my podcast episode with Giles Edwards from a few months back. We got into it pretty well around marketing.
Moving beyond that conversation, proper marketing follows the following playbook:
Market Research
STP (Segmentation, Targeting, Positioning)
Set a strategy
4 Ps
Where we’ve seen real success is when these organizations have used their market research to identify new target markets, not falling into the trap of just trying the approach that many men’s organizations’ segmentation and targeting will work for them.
They recognize that they have to do their own segmentation and draw their own maps.
Once they’ve identified their target market, the real success has come in positioning: about themselves and against the other options in the market. The WSL draws a different audience than the Premier League, but there are tons of crossover that happens between audiences.
The example that the AFLW set with their approach showed that you can attract an entirely new audience to your matches by understanding your customers and giving them an experience that is unique and fits their needs.
Compared to a bad strategy which would likely get folks to try and use the same playbook that is used for men’s sports…even when they are entirely different experiences.
Take homes:
Do the work of proper marketing.
Don’t think that someone else’s segmentation is going to be the same as everyone else’s.
Don’t sleep on women’s sports, but don’t sleep on any opportunity until you’ve done the right research.
2. The Road to Recovery: Barcelona spent big and got into trouble and now they will spend big to get out of trouble?!
Big Ideas:
Barcelona are mortgaging their future for the hope of not destroying their future.
Laporta does know how to spin money.
Selling off 25% of your revenue!
These deals are tough to comprehend, yeah?
Selling off 25% of your merchandise, broadcasting, technology, and more.
Like, whoa!
Barcelona is treading into dangerous territory because the slightest misstep could bring ruin to the club which is owned by the fans, not by a corporation or an owner.
This strategy is one that has high risk/high reward. Even if I don’t know how high the reward really is because even if the team is successful, they’ll be throwing off more than a quarter million dollars a year to pay off investors and partners.
What I do know about this situation is that Laporta knows how to spin money. So if anyone is going to pull off this high wire act, it will be him.
3. How To: Create Change!
Big Ideas:
Creating change doesn’t always make you popular.
Sometimes, you just have to jump.
The only thing certain in life is change.
Dave Trott is a great advertising thinker and copywriter from London. Our paths haven’t passed, but I do know Mike Yershon’s daughter, Nicole. I’ve been looking for an excuse to have her on the podcast…so now I think I might have found one.
Anyway, this piece on the making of the Premier League TV package highlights the idea of change.
I’ve talked about change a lot of the years and I wish I could find a video of the Pat Riley commercial that says, “Change, the only thing that is certain in life is change. And, when she rears her beautiful face, you embrace her.”
I haven’t found it yet, but trust me it is powerful stuff.
What Pat Riley’s words and Dave Trott’s column tell us are two things about change:
Sometimes the only way to create change is to do it.
Change doesn’t always make you popular until it works.
Both of these things have been true in my life and in my work. I tell people nothing is risk free, even doing nothing, but you can manage risk. That’s the best I can offer you, manage risk because you can’t eliminate it.
Take aways:
Manage risk. Everything has risk. Even doing nothing.
Recognize that change is coming no matter what.
You are never going to feel 100% comfortable with any new decision or action. The best you can do is make all the preparations that you can and minimize your risk…but don’t get talked out of taking that next action.
4. Tech/Tools/Profile: NJ Speaker wants an investigation into Springsteen ticket prices:
Keys:
If you’ve built a brand that can support a price, good for you. Value-based pricing isn’t something that should be regulated.
Are there issues with market consolidation and the impact that has on fans? Sure.
Is tickets an easy issue to attack? Duh!
I find the way that Speaker Coughlin is talking about Bruce Springsteen’s ticket prices to be confusing two different issues:
Pricing and the pricing power of strong artists, teams, and performers.
The consolidation of the ticket market so that there isn’t much competition in the market.
First, on the pricing thing. Bruce Springsteen has developed a fan base and a brand over his decades in the music industry.
This means that he has tremendous brand equity and that gives him pricing power.
Is $4,000+ for a concert ticket too much?
I’m not paying it, but if someone is willing to pay that and Bruce is happy to take their money…so it goes.
There are options that other bands use to control their ticket distribution and their pricing that Bruce Springsteen chose not to use in this case.
So…that’s on him.
All I can say about dynamic pricing is that it has to be a part of your strategy because it has pluses and minuses for your brand and your reputation.
On the plus side:
You maximize revenue.
You can realize more of the uplift that might have been lost to the secondary market.
You can reprice more quickly if you use technology and people to price effectively.
On the minus side:
Fans can feel put off by the practice like they are just numbers on a spreadsheet.
This can erode your brand equity because the relationship becomes more transactional.
You can get negative press and brand impressions when a rogue algorithm sends tickets up to the $4,000+ range like Bruce Springsteen has seen tickets hit in some markets.
Again, there are pros and cons here, but you have to go in with your eyes open and with a clear understanding that there will be impacts that you might not be able to control.
On the side of consolidation of the market, that’s a different issue and that is one that needs attention as Congressman Pascrell and Senator Klobuchar have been discussing.
This issue comes up in the form of the number and amount of the fees that are imposed on customers.
When a fan highlights that the uplift on their tickets from fees can be 30% or so, they aren’t wrong. And, they aren’t wrong when they talk about how going direct to a ticket broker can often save them money on that price.
As for tickets in general, it is an election year and tickets are an easy subject to swing at…so we have to know that these issues will be showing up from now until election day and probably through the next one as well.
Take homes:
Tickets are an easy target.
Consolidation of the market for ticket technology can cause prices to rise for everyone in the ecosystem.
Dynamic Pricing has pros and cons. So you have to make the decision with your eyes wide open.
5. Blurbs and Such:
Football fans are warned about fraudulent tickets: I’m not 100% sure how much of a problem fraud is in European football, but if the Champions League Final is any indication, fraud is extremely rare…but it is a good issue to bang on about and a good way to show you are concerned about your fans.
Joyce Carol Oates writes about Mike Tyson: These two stories about Mike Tyson are pretty amazing because JCO is one of America’s great writers. Her attention to detail is amazing and Mike Tyson at the peak of his powers was so electric.
Twickets expands to more countries: Twickets is billed as face-value or less resale, but the NATB had some research that pointed to the argument that most resale happens below face value anyway. I don’t know if a platform like Twickets stops above face-value resale or what this means in a world of dynamic pricing…but it is interesting to see another secondary market marketplace gain traction.
Vertigo Dance Company has success with a different business model: A dance company built around a Kibbutz…that seems pretty cool. I drop this in here because the idea of a new way of approaching your business can stretch you to propose ideas that may have seemed ridiculous previously.
Kenya is seeing a resurgence in their arts industry: The decline of the arts in Kenya can be partially credited to the idea that the arts are dangerous to the powerful. Now, with a new focus on a more open society, the arts come back and it takes a full-time effort to make sure they stick.
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We continue to see the value of offering refund protection in the data. Feedback shows that the most challenging issues since re-opening have been pretty consistent for teams, theatres, and venues:
Consumer confidence
Changes in buyer behavior
COVID policies coupled with refund or exchange policies.
Offering refund protection helps you provide a solution for these challenges.
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I did the FREE webinar a few weeks back but had some technical issues with the live stream on Microsoft Teams. I’m not sure if was Teams or my new desktop computer, either way…I’m going to continue to play with the tech stack and I posted the audio file in the podcast stream. So, pricing ideas to your heart’s desire.
Lots of great podcast conversations: check out recent conversations with Amanda Lester, Paul Williamson, and, Brett Goldberg.
Let me know who you’d like to hear from by sharing your ideas with me here.