Talking Tickets 30 July 2021: Scott O'Neil! The Guardians! Touring Productions! Bob Lefsetz! And, More!
Episode 95
Hey There!
Back in fine form now that I have officially spent a full week in the office!
Make sure you get your tickets to Ticket Summit in Las Vegas. My travel plans are set. I’ll be in Las Vegas from Saturday until Wednesday. And, I will be watching Spurs’ season opener at a TBD location and I’ll invite y’all to meet me!
Did you see me pop up on Scott’s Takes this week? I cracked a few jokes, plugged the newsletter, and told Scott I’m proud of him for putting in the effort to create a weekly video series.
The best way to grow these newsletters, I’m told, is by you sharing them with the folks that you think might benefit. If you think someone would benefit, I’d be grateful if you shared!
To the Tickets!
————————
1. The baseball team in Cleveland changes their name to the Guardians:
Big Ideas:
History is filled with teams changing their names, mascots, or logos.
There are challenges to any rebrand because a lot of them don’t work.
Opportunities from a rebrand include exposure, reconnecting with your place, and creating a new audience.
There was a lot of press and a bunch of hot takes about the name change in Cleveland this week.
To me, this is just another in a long history of name changes like:
The Bullets becoming the Wizards.
The Boston Braves becoming the Washington Redskins…who are now the Washington Football Team and could have another name.
The New York Highlanders becoming the New York Yankees.
At a certain point, every brand likely needs a revisit.
I’m of the opinion from my work that most rebrands are unsuccessful because the underlying business is stale, but in the case of changing the name of the Indians to the Guardians the rebrand is a reflection of changing societal tastes.
In thinking through the challenges that the Guardians will deal with in launching, I’ve come up with three challenges and three opportunities that are likely to present themselves.
Let’s begin by looking at the challenges:
First, it can be difficult to overcome the past.
This is likely something that won’t play much of a factor in Cleveland’s efforts. By changing the name, they are stepping away from their past and drawing a line that points to the future.
That’s the point.
Second, they could upset some of their old customers.
I’m certain this will be something that continues to be proclaimed in the short-term. I’m also sure it likely is completely BS.
Remember, the squeaky wheel often gets the grease, but what was the behavior of the people that are moaning and complaining.
The Indians weren’t drawing particularly well, even when they were doing well. So I have a hard time believing that a lot of this greviance is real anyway.
Finally, a confused message could lead to a lack of success.
This is true of all communications plans.
You have to have a clear plan for the launch and the various stages your relaunch will move through.
This seems like a real potential issue since the news broke in the middle of July and not at a time when the story would get a lot of coverage, allowing the team to create momentum.
On the flip side, the opportunities are pretty attractive.
First, we can start with the exposure that a rebrand like this can get for your team.
Again, you have to manage the process well. But you can gain a lot of positive exposure if the process is managed well.
In this case, it could be that the news broke in a way that the team didn’t want to see happen and they are having to revisit their plan.
If that is the case, it is okay. Because you still have a few opportunities to regain momentum with your rebranded uniforms, schedule launch, or something you manufacture.
Second, you can reintegrate the city with the community.
Remember earlier in the season when the Red Sox’s City Edition uniforms dropped?
People were like, “Where is the red?”
As you dug into the story of how the uniforms were designed, you saw that the story was really cool and the uniforms definitely reflected Boston.
I mean the uniforms look just like the finish line at the Boston Marathon! What’s more Boston than the Red Sox and the marathon?
In checking in on some of the historical references of Cleveland, the Guardians of Traffic sculptures are a symbol of Cleveland’s place in American history.
It is these kinds of references and connections that help build a brand and establish a sense of place or structure to the brand.
Finally, this is a great time to establish a connection with a new audience.
Look at the work that Tiffany is doing, messing with their brand codes and thumbing their nose at the preconcieved notions around their brand.
The same thing is going on here.
By being conscious of the work you are doing to move away from the past, you are able to bring in a new audience. While you may lose a few of the older audience members that will never embrace change, you must reach out to move forward and this is an opportunity to do just that.
On the whole, I’m concerned about the roll out, but knowing the history of Cleveland, I think there is promise here.
What do you think?
2. Women’s sports continues to show a lot of potential:
Big Ideas:
The continued growth of women’s sports is about strategy.
Each strategy deserves its own set of research.
Positioning is the key to success here because you have to make the choice of what your position is in the market.
I like to write about the business of women’s professional sports because I know an opportunity when I see it. And, I like to focus my business on elevating people and getting them to the next level. So women’s sports often presents me with both ideas.
I’ll start by highlighting that the WNBA caught up with me in December when they hired their first Chief Marketing Officer. About 5 years ago, I wrote about what I thought the WNBA needed to do to grow. (Long time Seattle Storm fan, BTW!)
To add to my belief in the opportunities here, some of the first and biggest NIL deals were signed by female athletes.
The heart of this is strategy. Which is a drum I’ve been beating for months now.
Let’s look at this topic through the lens of women’s sports.
The foundation of strategy is research.
In the case of women’s sports let’s look at some fun statistics to get your opportunity muscles flexing:
Women spent $31.8 trillion dollars in 2019.
Ratings for women’s sports is surging anywhere from 16-28% depending on the sport and the time.
For the 2019, Women’s World Cup, ad revenue jumped around 120% to around $96 million.
This isn’t a complete research project by any stretch, but it shows you that there are definitely behavioral attributes that we should be paying attention to and opportunities if we are willing to take advantage of them.
The second step here is STP.
If you didn’t hear me speak at the National Sports Forum in the fall, I did a full presentation on STP:
Segmentation
Targeting
Positioning
You segment based on behavior.
I use a tool called ‘the meaningful/actionable’ grid to figure out how to do a proper segmentation, but the big key is what people do is more important than what they say.
In looking at the examples above, we see people tuning in, spending on, and paying attention to women’s sports in a way that they haven’t ever before.
Targeting is about picking the place where the opportunity is the greatest.
The mistake that happens here is that a team goes into the strategy session thinking all markets look the same or that they can target all the businesses in a given market.
This is a mistake made out of hubris, arrogance, or ineptitude.
You target the best opportunities.
Then, you position yourself for or against your competition.
In the case of women’s sports, go back and read what I wrote about AFLW. They didn’t try to position themselves in the same way as the AFL, they were different.
Positioning is a choice whether you are going to position about you or against the competition.
But it all depends on your strategy.
The final step here is setting up a strategy which boils down to the knowing where you are going to compete and how you will win business.
In this process, you’ll want to set some SMART objectives so that you can tell whether or not you are making progress or not.
How many?
Somewhere between 1 and 3.
As we see the numbers for women’s sports improve, it seems like a lot of places are getting their strategies together.
But the same advice and ideas should apply to all of us!
Where are you with your strategy right now?
3. Touring musicals are set to return:
Big Ideas:
Touring productions are coming back!
There will be a lot of competition in the market, meaning you have to get your marketing right.
Delta could still mess things up.
After what feels like a very long time to be without culture, touring musicals, Broadway, and tryouts are all back in the mix for the fall. Strangely enough, DC is going to be a big player in the next season of Broadway musicals, and if things go well, the return of touring.
In places like Chicago, Seattle, and San Diego, theatres are beginning the process of coming alive again with the help of grants from the federal government meant to help businesses that were entirely shut down due to the pandemic.
Tours aren’t just an American thing either…look at what is going on in Manchester this year!
Italy is also coming back to life!
I’m often skeptical of the buyer’s stated intent, but after looking at some numbers and considering my own behaviors so far: things are looking pretty good.
Despite that, we still have to grapple with the question: will fans return?
Ain’t that the question on everyone’s mind?
To me, what happens boils down to one concept: demand generation.
The key jumping off point of demand generation is strategy. We covered that above, but we also need to think through the 4 Ps of marketing:
Product
Price
Place
Promotion
Because they are going to have an impact on whether or not returning to the road is successful or not.
Begin with product.
Your product is three things:
The core benefit
The actual product
The augmented product
As a refresher, the core benefit is what people get from going to your show or game. The actual product is the ticket or package of items folks get. The augmented product is everything from the parking, the merchandise, the website, and on and on.
Looking at the return, you are going to need to think through all three of these aspects of your product to tailor something that can add value, cut through the noise of other options, and entices folks to actually choose you over someone else.
Next, price.
Guess what?
I’m doing a pricing panel at Ticket Summit next month. I’ll be in Vegas from Saturday to Wednesday. So let me know if you are going to be there.
Currently, I’ve got a stack of research on my desk all about price.
The basics on price as you reopen are:
Be careful not to overprice out of the shoot. I know some of my partners have been pushing their prices and getting them, but you also have to be careful not to burn your market by being too aggressive right away. Especially if you were struggling with attendance before the pandemic.
Do some research on pricing. Pricing demands research.
Be fast to reset your price, but don’t discount. Reset means that you say, “We got it wrong. Here’s a new price.” A discount is just a Hail Mary that you throw in hopes that is going to move some seats. Reset, reduce, but don’t discount. Discount codes are blinking signs that say you don’t believe in your product.
Place!
Place is about distribution.
I saw that FEVO just created a partnership with Costco. In the past, we’ve heard about how you need to partner with a certain secondary market platform or partner to maximize reach.
All of these things are potentially helpful, but don’t miss the larger point that distribution is about doing what’s right for your products.
Do you want direct distribution? Indirect distribution? Some combination?
You have to decide. Now, that is going to be more important than ever.
Promotion.
In doing my research for the new Dave Wakeman site, I found that for too many businesses the marketing department is the coloring in department…meaning, promotions.
Looking at the environment heading forward, a key aspect of your sales and marketing efforts will be how well you cut through the clutter that is certain to follow the signs of recovery.
To break through, you are going to need your strategy to be set effectively.
There is a formula, remember?
Research
STP
Objectives, Funnels, and Briefing lead to strategy
To break through, your promotions need to be focused, effective, and profitable. You shouldn’t just be slamming messages out there under the guise of “impressions”. You shouldn’t settle for campaigns that are veiled versions of spam because “average” is 2-3% open rate.
For comparision, this newsletter gets an average open rate of around 45%. And, around 20% of those openers click on a link, or links.
You have to focus on your audience, look at the behaviors that will drive actions, and focus!
This should be a normal part of what you are doing at this point. But as a reminder, remember these lessons going forward:
Strategy before tactics
Do your research
Segment based on behavior
Target big opportunities
Position about you or against the competition, but not both.
The 4 Ps are your friend
Why does this matter?
Because:
Recovery + Volatility = Opportunity
But opportunities aren’t equally distributed.
Also, we still have the Delta to deal with!?!
Big Ideas:
Love this book! Buy it!
Events, games, bands, shows…are about the audience, never forget.
We should never lose sight of how lame things were without fans.
The name Michael Calvin may not mean much to most of the readers of this newsletter, but for my money, he is the best writer in the world on the human side of football (soccer) and this book that he wrote during the pandemic is a must-read for everyone that is involved in the business of live entertainment because Michael says that he realized at some point during his journey as a writer and observer of football and sports that he had fallen out of love with the game.
As we work through the book, you learn about Michael’s history with key figures in English football like Elton John and his trips around the world, witnessing history like Apartheid, Mike Tyson’s fights, and Nelson Mandela giving out the World Cup trophy.
I’m including this piece here today because, over the last 18 months, we’ve seen the nature of the business of tickets, sports, and live entertainment laid bare and struggle due to the coronavirus.
Right now, we are watching an Olympics take place with no fans because it probably isn’t safe.
We’ve also seen games go on in bubbles, without fans, or with limited capacity. And, we’ve seen ratings decline everywhere as sports has returned.
This is a lot to take in, but it should just highlight the importance of the people that attend concerts, games, shows, plays, or performances.
That’s what sticks with me as I read through this book, the need to focus on the customer and the fan, not just as a tool to hit my goals, but as a way to make an impact to bring a community together…or, most importantly, to add importance to the games, shows, and performances.
For me, I recognized myself in the story of the Bury FC fans that couldn’t watch a game, didn’t care about the sport, and just turned their back on the whole concept of the sport after their team was put into administration because I had the same feeling about being a fan of the NBA after the Supersonics moved to Oklahoma City.
It was also powerful to read about how a cricket team and soccer were key tools in bringing about meaningful change in South Africa because sports had the chance to break a story through to a larger audience.
And, I think about how great it was to be surrounded by people at the 76ers game I went to or the Red Sox game I went to when an exciting play happened and people jumped out of their seats, high-fiving, cheering, and celebrating together.
An interesting case study in putting the fan at the core of everything is starting to take place in Australia where the Australian Professional League is talking about putting the fan at the center of the experience and making it easier for their fans to consume soccer content from anywhere in the world.
At the end of the book, Michael Calvin sums up the whole book by talking about how the game belongs to the fans, people that love the games, and the way that people come together.
I don’t really have a lot more to add to that sentiment, but reading the book and thinking through what we’ve had to deal with the last 18 months it seemed like something I should share. And, should remind us all to keep in mind all of the things we missed when fans couldn’t get into buildings for shows, concerts, events, and games.
5. Michael Rapino and Bob Lefsetz talk about the business of concerts and Live Nation: I was going to write a much fuller write up on this, but I’m still working through what I learned and what I didn’t learn from this thing. But you should check it out.
Everton ends partnership with StubHub: This is a trend in markets around the world to allow resale, but only under the organization’s terms. We’ve seen this in Australia and a few other places as well.
NFL tickets have increased a lot in the last 15 years: The Chargers have the lowest increase with an increase of 25%, but there are also 5 teams of over 100%. These are some pretty staggering numbers. It will be interesting to see if anything changes here due to the pandemic.
My conversation with Scott O’Neil is live now: There was a problem with the file in Libsyn and it didn’t go live everywhere. You can get it now. All set. And, order Scott’s book. I really enjoyed it.
—————-
Y’all can find everything I’m doing by going to my Linktree. I add everything to this thing so the links are all in one place.
I tell you about research constantly. I know this. But don’t listen to me, listen to old episodes of the podcast with Kate Howard and Lisa Walker where we talk about the success that Eventellect has had with research in their market and learning their NPS number. On top of that, we’ve put together a worksheet to help you do the same thing. Email me and I’ll share it.
Some new cool stuff is in the works between me and the team at Booking Protect. We discussed the newest data on refund protection uptake rates. We talked about helping teams get back to being succcessful and we talked about sharing new ideas. So give Booking Protect a look and find out how you can offer your guests refund protection and why it matters to you and them.
My friends at Activity Stream are doing some really great stuff with their new email marketing tool, Activate. The touchpoints you can create by being thoughtful, focused, and consistent in your email marketing can be powerful in helping you rebuild your audience. So check out Activate to find out how you can use your data to improve your emailing!