Discussion question

Please read carefully.

You are the marketing director for an NFL team and need to prepare marketing strategies for upcoming home games.Read the post below on sports fans, respond to it, and discuss marketing strategies you would use to address each category of sports fans they introduced. Be sure to include your references (can be scholarly or non-scholarly).

Here is the post:

One can immediately realize that sport fans are an important factor for the sport industry and the games in general. Through fan identification and marketing techniques, businesses, clubs and organizations find ways to attract different types of fans. (Sutton & McDonald & Milne, 1997) Additionally, sport fans experience a great amount of devotion for the sport and the players and that makes the game even more interesting. So, as mentioned above there are different types of fans with different traits and characteristics. The first type of fan is the occasional fan, a type of fan who doesn’t always watch his or her team and doesn’t really know the names of the players or the results of the team. It’s more like a hobby for them than anything else. (Sutton & McDonald & Milne, 1997) The second type of fan is the fair-weather fan. This fan is only showing support and interest when his/her team is winning. Basically, they are not one hundred percent invested on their team. (Sutton & McDonald & Milne, 1997) The third type of fan is the die-hard fan. These fans are loyal to their team all the time, no matter the result. These fans usually attend or watch every single game of their team and try to support financially. They usually wear shirts of their team and are very intense when a game is on. (Sutton & McDonald & Milne, 1997) Furthermore, there are three more categories of fans that one could list them as sub-categories of the previous ones. The first sub-type is the social fan who attends games to be socially involved. This type of fan could be related to the fair-weather classification since he or she has limited sense of identification with a team. (Sutton & McDonald & Milne, 1997) The second type is the focused fan who shows moderate levels of identification with a team or a sport and could be related with the occasional fan. (Sutton & McDonald & Milne, 1997) The final type is the vested type. A type related to the die-hard fan, where the fan is highly emotional when his or her team play. There is a great amount of attachment (Sutton & McDonald & Milne, 1997). These are the main sport fan categories that businesses focus on and try to make the best decisions possible regarding sales, promotion and revenue.

References

Sutton W. & McDonald M. & Milne G., (1997), Creating and Fostering Fan Identification in Professional Sports, Retrieved from: http://journals.fitpublishing.com/smqEletricVersion/SMQpdf/CONSUMERBEHAVIOR61.pdf