Talking Tickets 6 November 2020: Mets! Dr Fauci! NBA! And, More!
Year 2 Show 6
Hey!
Y’all good?
One interesting thing about the elections was watching the conversation about polling and the value of polls. Once all the votes are counted and final vote totals are confirmed, we will be able to tell whether or not the vote totals and polling were really that far off.
Where my thinking on the topic is around the way it highlights the lack of market orientation in many of our businesses and our ways of viewing the world.
Customer Orientation and the meaning of it and how to apply it to our businesses will be a part of a future podcast episode.
Come have a drink with me, Matt Wolff, and Ken Troupe tonight.
To The Tickets!
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Ah, The Mets!
This story came out before Steve Cohen went to Twitter and thrilled Mets’ fans from around the world, but it does highlight what is likely to be a challenging environment for Major League Baseball heading into the off-season and what the 2021 season becomes.
First, there is a changing environment around the world as the economic and psychological impact of the pandemic continues to change the ways we look at the world.
I’m a big believer that in most financial recessions, the old normal is a lot like the new normal.
But pandemics have a way of realigning people’s views and beliefs on a lot of things.
While we don’t know what the future is going to look like, I think making an assumption that going back to the way things were or even doubling down on things that were showing themselves as being detrimental to our businesses is likely not a good idea.
Like raising prices and pushing demands on customers in a pandemic when the necessity for you is tremendous but the incentive for the customer isn’t very high.
Second, pricing is going to be a make or break thing coming out of the pandemic.
In the introduction, I talked about polling and market-orientation, I’ve also been doing some studying up on pricing and the pricing thermometer idea to get a better grasp on where pricing can and should be at.
I’d have to do a lot more studying with a team to give you a complete answer, but what I can tell you is that this $33,000 for 5 tickets reported in the article reflects too much emphasis on the organization being too focused on their product and having a sales focus that is unhealthy.
To explain the two concepts quickly and why they are harmful. Product Orientation simply means you build something and go looking for customers for it. Sales Orientation means that all sales are good sales and that you’ll do anything to make the sale even if it ends up being harmful for the customer or the business.
Market Oriented just means looking at the business through the eyes of the customer and finding out what they value so you can create something that reflects the reality that your market and customers are dealing with.
Finally, this shows the limits of the current thinking in sports business around driving demand.
I’ve sat in a few meetings over the last 3 years where I’ve heard people open relationships with a lie and have no shame about doing that.
You do you!
But you don’t build a great career or a sustainable business built on lies and bluster.
Demand begins by looking at the market through the customers’ eyes, researching the world you are going to focus on, STP (which is the theme of my NSF presentation), and coming up with a strategy built on research, data, and process oriented decision making.
Once you are through that, all of the 4 Ps of product, place, price, and promotion can be used to greatest impact.
Strategy before tactics!
It is my rant and it is also more profitable!
Also, with a lot of teams that have still been rolling over their customers’ money and holding people up, I’d say check out the way that the Warrington Wolves are handling their members during the pandemic.
The long term implications of the decisions you are making today will be severe if you make poor decisions now.
2. If your federal government won’t act to save live events maybe your city will:
I love seeing creative ways to approach problems.
The City of San Francisco is offering 300 venues fee wavers and tax relief as a way to help those venues survive the pandemic.
I don’t know if this will ultimately be a successful initiative or not, but as we continue into the fall and winter with the ability for live events to take place any time in the near future far from a certainty, finding ways to offer relief to the world of live entertainment is going to be essential to many places having any chance to make it out on the other side.
If I were the decision maker on this stuff, I’d look to do two things:
Find a way to offer some sort of European type furlough plan that has enabled more people to keep their jobs during the pandemic.
Offer direct support to the businesses that have been impacted by the pandemic the most like hospitality, travel, and the arts that are essential, drive positive business and marketing impact for the country, and would enable these businesses to survive the pandemic.
In my opinion, this sense of panic and constant doom has made the pandemic even worse because waiting for support that may or may not come has created an environment where a lot of businesses can only panic and stress instead of rethinking their processes and operations to make them more resilent in the future.
Again, I’m not sure if this will ultimately be a successful program or not, but I applaud the ingenuity in finding a way to offer the live entertainment sector some relief.
I’m doing a little click baiting here with the title, but a German study this week said that transmission of the coronavirus is low if folks follow the proper guidelines, act hygenically, and venues provide proper ventilation.
What does this tell us?
Common sense and a little bit of civic responsibility will go a long way.
While the German study was going on, Dr. Fauci was talking about what it will take to get back to normal with a vaccine being the only certain way to ensure that we can get back to what we might all define as “normal”.
The gist of Dr. Fauci’s conversation came down to a few ideas:
We will see public health measures and restrictions for another 12 months or so, depending on a vaccine.
A vaccine will not be a magic bullet because we will have to see how effective the vaccine is through the population.
The return to “normal” will be in stages.
Nothing shocking there, but it does highlight that a few things are certain:
Wear a mask, wash your hands, and maintain social distancing where possible.
Recognize that we have to get to an environment where that isn’t some sort of radical idea.
Understand that the next several months will likely be up and down still.
We will get through this!
4. The NBA is looking for new revenue streams:
I’ll say that these just seem like adding to the streams that are already available and the lowest hanging fruit, but the thinking around finding new streams of revenue is appropriate.
From reading the article, it does seem that the danger on display is trying to squeeze more out of an audience that has already been declining so I’m going to flip this example around and focus on how you can expand your market despite the pandemic with three quick examples.
First, begin by asking where is the value for their target audience right now?
We have sponsors and if you look at the expansion of ads in the arena, on the baselines, and from international sponsors, you know it is eyeballs.
But if the trends of less viewers continues and there are less people in the stands, that limits your ability to generate revenue.
Instead, start by looking at the value that your fans are looking for now.
You may find that they are looking for distractions from the lockdowns, pandemic, or homeschooling. You may see that there is great opportunity for folks to connect over a game.
You have to begin by understanding what your first market, your customers want and value right now.
Second, there is a lot of room for creativity in regards to what you offer to your fans.
I’ll beat a dead horse here, but in countries outside of the US like Australia, England, and Spain, we see great use of the membership model to bring fans closer to their clubs and provide opportunities to develop better relationships, make more money, and grow an audience.
Again, look at the work that of Man City with the Cityzens program that drives people to their site with all kinds of revenue opportunities and relationship building opportunities.
Look at what Billie Elish is doing right now.
Third, you can use your team and your assets to combine a customer focus, an emphasis on leading with value to your fans together, and combine that with new opportunities for your corporate partners that actually end up delivering more than just impressions which are less and less valuable by the moment.
What could be valuable to your fans?
Probably have to do some research, but one example that likely has some hints of new ways to deliver value right now lies in how Maverick Carter was able to get his players’ team workouts produced and broadcast.
The point here is if you turn the lens out to what your fans are living right now and see the sport or event through your fans’ eyes, you’ll be able to recognize what they find valuable, where you can add value, and, you should be able to create new ways to monetize this intersection.
5. A few links with some observations to close out the week:
ESPN lays off a lot of staff: The article talks about ESPN taking these actions to make a run at a lot of new content.
Cricket Australia is working to recover from an A120m deficit this year: Revenue challenges, staff reductions, and rethinking your business is the theme of the year in 2020. Cricket Australia is dealing with what a lot of people are dealing with right now. In their case, not having some competitions that would generate a lot of revenue is a possibility.
Vulnerability is okay: My friend, Ryan Wallman, shares how vulnerability can be a key skill in selling and marketing, but also connecting in a time like now.
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What am I up to?
I’m hanging around DC!
Check out the new, improved DaveWakeman.com
Go and listen to this week’s podcast with Greg Githens on strategy, strategic thinking, and microskills. It is a good one.
Check out the new and improved Booking Protect website. Great new content including a discussion about relationships and things that may happen once the pandemic is over.
Go and dig into the We Will Recover initiative. The Activity Stream team has put together a great resource to help you and your organization overcome the pandemic and come out on the other side in a position to be successful.