I received an email last week from the St. Louis Rams about a new program called “Football University” that I thought was a great idea, so I wanted to share it with you here:

Teams are always looking for new packages and experiences to sell, and this package has a lot of unique benefits outside of just revenue:

• It’s a great integration with existing health care partners, creating more value for their sponsorship (and a nice mention for the team’s catering provider as well)
• The pink color scheme is consistent with all of the NFL’s breast cancer awareness messaging
• The package itself, with inside access to the team’s staff and facilities appeals to casual and hardcore fans alike
• Offering it with and without a game ticket creates flexibility for the consumers, while also hopefully providing a lift for ticket sales
• The inclusion of a charitable component (the United Way) is a great way to give back, and can also encourage more purchases
• Finally, I really like the name of the event – “Football University”

A lockout is never a good thing for an organization. The stress it creates can have a long-lasting impact on the relationship between the team and its fans. As such, it’s very important to find a way to foster that relationship as much as possible while the labor issues are addressed.

The Denver Nuggets have taken the approach during this time to create Fan Features on Nuggets.com. According to the team, they will feature a different fan each week for at least three months, and maybe longer. The features will cover a mix of long-term season ticket holders, top group leaders, and even new buyers, highlighting their experiences being Nuggets fans.

The first profile went up about a month ago and featured 36-year season ticket holder Brian Dyet. You can read his profile here, or check out the most recent profile of Cheryl Burger (seen on the right), and scroll down for links to all their fan features to date. All fan features are also promoted on the Nuggets Facebook page and other social media outlets.

These features serve multiple important functions, including:

• Rewarding the team’s most valuable customers
• Building goodwill during a tenuous time
• Create some that other customers can aspire to be a part of
• Generate positive content to drive visitors back to the team website
• Potentially generate sales interest from fans that relate to the fan features

Content like this is a great tactic to use not just during a lockout, but year-round. I wouldn’t be surprised to see the Nuggets continue this feature once the lockout is resolved. This type of fan-focused content can also extend beyond the website to things like yearbooks, programs, dedicated social media content, in-stadium features and even the physical tickets (several teams in the NFL used fan images on tickets this year).

During the Global Sports Forum, I had the chance to sit down with former NBA player John Amaechi to get his thoughts on several current topics, including:

• The NBA’s efforts to expand their footprint in Europe and how the league compares to existing European professional leagues
• The way athletes use Twitter, both good and bad, to engage with their fans
• What CSR (corporate social responsibility) really means, and how some programs are more marketing than CSR
• His work at the Amaechi Basketball Centre

I hope you enjoy the interview!

Tonight was the official opening of this year’s Global Sports Forum Barcelona, kicking off with a wonderful reception for the attendees and speakers. While no “official business” has been discussed so far, from the conversations I’ve had with other attendees, there is a definite trend towards the importance of community outreach through sports.

Through by wandering about the reception, I spoke to folks at:

• Kick4Life: Based in Lesotho in South Africa, this company is focused on tackling HIV through sports-based health education, voluntary testing, life-skills development and support into education and employment.
• IMBEWU: This organization seeks to strengthen the psychosocial development of children and young South African and Swiss to give them the tools necessary to become responsible citizens by using sport and education as means of development.
• PlayAble: A non profit social business designing adapted sports programs and coaches training toenhance the lives of people with disabilities through sports.
• Sports Sans Frontieres: Sports Without Borders undertakes to promote education through sport towards those in difficulty to participate actively in reducing global inequality, with efforts in Afghanistan, Burundi, Haiti and Kosovo.

These are four incredible organizations with noble goals to use sports as a means to improve lives in communities that struggle, with disease, war, poverty and disability. Please take a moment to learn more about these organizations and be inspired by them.

Today’s post is courtesy of guest blogger Adam Sherlip from The Hockey Foundation.

At the end of the day, we all know the sports industry is about making money.  Sure, there’s a part of it that is entertainment, but not to the degree that the industry claims, and certainly not how we perceive it to be.  Listen to sports radio.  People rarely call in to talk about the amazing entertainment of the teams they watched.  They call in to complain or criticize or say they can do better.  Look at the advertisements by the teams, that tell you about the “grit”, “energy” and “determination” of their “experienced” or “youthful” team.  It’s a marketing of emotions.  It’s the business of sports.

I have no issue with capitalism.  Everybody deserves to make money for what they do.  Owners deserve to make a profit off of sales/sponsorship reps that fill the arena with fans and sponsors that are paying to see players they believe can help their local team win.  What I do have an issue with is pretending that it is for the betterment of the community if this team wins.  I’m not saying local fans shouldn’t enjoy themselves when their local favorite team wins a game or a championship, but keep in perspective that watching highly compensated salaried athletes from another state/country play against others of the same breed should not determine your mood the following day.  If/when those athletes go out into the community to do charity work, keep in mind that while there are absolutely those that do these events out of the kindness of their hearts, many more of them go out of obligation to an organization/league that requires they do goodwill because it will endear the player/team/league to the fans, ultimately resulting in more tickets sold.  Many community relations departments will strategize what organizations to help based on how it affects ticket sales.  Not all, but most.  An important distinction is in the case of natural disasters or tragic events, like Hurricane Katrina or 9/11.  Everybody opened up their hearts when these disasters happened, and players that supported recovery in any way should be appreciated as kind-hearted human beings, not charitable athletes.

I comment on this because of the Winter Classic, the annual NHL game played outside on New Year’s Day.  It’s a relatively new brand concept for the NHL, but for what my opinion’s worth as someone that has now worked more time since my time at the Islanders than working for the Islanders, it was the purest hockey game event I’ve seen at the professional level in quite a while.

The Winter Classic is a big business for the NHL.  It is the Super Bowl (because it’s a one day event in the Winter), without the ring.  NBC throws a lot of money to televise this game, and sponsors have returned to the league to be aligned with a magical event.  And I get it.  Even Mike Milbury was warmer than usual because this game was about a bunch of hockey players and hockey fans enjoying themselves.  The fun was palpable, even through the fighting and aggression, because it was highly skilled children playing in front of a lot of people.

When the players were asked whether the poor weather was a factor, they all brushed it off as a natural aspect of playing outside.  They were blinded with adrenaline because of the experience of playing outside in front of a large crowd, but also because they were just playing outside like many of us did when we were kids.  That’s what it’s all about, getting back to the child-like state of playing sports.

As a sports-crazed nation and species, we love watching highlight reals.  We love it because we get to witness world class athletes execute elite athletic achievements, like we envisioned we could when we were children. The next time you watch a sporting event, remember what it was like to play that game as a child, but with the knowledge as an adult that we are not them.  We can achieve what drives us, the way the sport drives the athletes.  Appreciate human achievement when Alex Ovechkin, Sidney Crosby, or any random minor-league call-up performs an incredible feat.  Appreciate it because it’s an art-form unto itself.  If you enjoy the art of the sport, the way hockey players change lines on the fly, the way the ball swooshes through the net from a perfect shot, striking out 20 players in a game, etc., appreciate it as you would a Broadway musical or a Van Gogh masterpiece.

Ultimately, you will learn to love the sport for the beauty of the game, won’t care who wins, won’t stress out when “your” team loses, and will be happy to pay your hard earned money to see the continuation of the art you loved as a child but weren’t qualified enough to continue.  Remember, the players you watch probably can’t do what you do, because they’re human, not superhuman.  At the end of the day, you’ll have more fun, and isn’t that what it’s all about?

Adam Sherlip is the Founder & Executive Director of The Hockey Foundation, a non-profit that uses ice hockey as a means to improve life in remote communities around the world.  The UN & US recognize sports as being a key component in international/cultural cooperation, and Adam’s philosophy is that the ideals of hockey stand above other team sports to achieve these goals.

The Hockey Foundation is about to embark on a journey to Ladakh, a predominantly Buddhist region, in a predominantly Muslim state, in a predominantly Hindu country.  It’s a high altitude desert that is heavily populated with the Indian military, as it’s located between Tibet & Pakistan.  The Hockey Foundation is going to Ladakh to help communicate a message of peace while on the ice.  For more information, please visit www.hockeyfoundation.org.

One of the great things about the sports industry is how much everyone embraces the community and supports so many wonderful, charitable organizations. I want to take a second to help promote one of them.

If you visit ESPN.com, you will see that it is Jimmy V Week. I’m sure most of you know the story of Jim Valvano, his fight against cancer and his emotional speech at the 1993 ESPYs – “Don’t give up…don’t ever give up.” When times are tough financially, charities tend to suffer, but every dollar can help.

If you have a chance, I’d encourage you to contribute by clicking here, even if its only a couple of dollars. It is a great organization with a great focus to support cancer research. If you need some motivation, take a few minutes and watch Jimmy’s speech. It is incredibly moving and inspirational. All of us have had friends or family touched by cancer, so let’s try to help do something about it together. Thanks.

I’m always on the look out for new, fun ways that teams can use social media to engage their fans and customers, so I was quite pleased to see this latest initiative from the Los Angeles Kings and the Colorado Avalanche (with a big assist to Digital Royalty, who worked with the Kings on this program).

On Saturday, October 23, the Los Angeles Kings and Colorado Avalanche “faced-off” in a the first-ever NHL Hashtag Battle, as part of Hockey Fights Cancer Awareness month. From the start of the game until the final buzzer, fans of each team could tweet with either the hashtag #GoKings or #GoAvs, and for every tagged tweet, $1 would be donated to the Childrens Hospital Los Angeles or local cancer organizations in Colorado involved with the Hockey Fights Cancer program.

This type of social media initiative has a wonderful combination of competition between rival teams, fan engagement and community outreach. The battle was actively promoted on the teams websites and via email. So what did the results look like?

Final score:

• #GoKings: 29,374 tweets
• #GoAvs: 13,876 tweets

Specifically looking at the Los Angeles Kings:

• $29,374 was raised for the Childrens Hospital of Los Angeles
• The Kings were also the #1 trending topic world wide during the game (better than UFC, which had two fights going on, and Kanye West, whose short film “Runaway” debuted at the same time)
• The team added close to 1,000 Twitter followers during the battle

Sounds like a pretty effective campaign from the folks at the Kings and Digital Royalty. You can read more about the Kings use of Twitter here.

Last week, Pro Football Talk reported that the Buffalo Bills were taking some heat from fans for a season ticket renewal flyer that featured their punter Brian Moorman kicking from his own endzone (you can see the picture here on Deadspin). Well since that story, I’ve seen two excellent marketing and community relations campaigns that the Bills have come out with, so let’s take a moment to highlight the good stuff.

First is the Jim Kelly Football Camp Scholarship Sweepstakes. I love to see items like this where organizations provide an opportunity for people to take part in unique experiences, especially for younger fans. This is one of the reasons I really love what the Arizona Diamondbacks do every year with their season ticket scholarship program. It doesn’t take much effort on the organization’s part to extend these types of offers, and the value they provide those who participate is immeasurable.

The other campaign currently running is their “Bills All-Time Draft Picks and Draft Day Challenge” contest and micro-site. You can check out the site at http://www.channel1media.com/billsdraft/. This is a great way to build excitement about the team in the month leading up to the  NFL draft. There is a nice montage video of past draft picks that does a good job building on the nostalgia of past Bills superstars, and the site lets fans rank the team’s 10 best draft picks. This look back then transitions nicely to the question of what future Bills star they will select with their first pick this year, which fans are encouraged to try and predict. Both elements of the site offer prizes tied to the team’s past and future draft picks. In addition the site also offers valuable sponsorship inventory, with the All-Time Picks presented by Bud Light and the Draft Day Challenge presented by M&T Bank.

Nice work by the Buffalo Bills on both campaigns.

It’s one of the most frustrating things about sports… highly-paid players who don’t get the job done. Who hasn’t thought after a loss ‘I think our team could have played harder’ or ‘if only that player hadn’t given up in the 4th quarter.’ Well, a group of fans in England are going to be reimbursed after having that experience.

Last weekend, Wigan Athletic suffered a horrifying 9 – 1 loss at the hands of Tottenham Hotspur. Hundreds of Wigan fans had made the trip to see their team play, only to watch them concede eight second-half goals. In an almost unprecedented move, the Wigan players have offered to reimburse any Wigan fans who purchased a ticket at the stadium that day.

With player salaries in the English Premier League being well above those in Major League Soccer, no one should worry about the Wigan players going hungry. The gesture, however, is one to take note of. These are professional players who realize that they did not do their job, and that their ‘bad day at the office’ cost hard-working people money that in this recession, isn’t easily parted with. It is refreshing to see a group of professional athlete take their responsibility seriously.

Their captain Mario Melchiot was quoted as saying “We feel that as a group of players we badly let down our supporters yesterday (Sunday), and this is a gesture we have to make and pay them back for their tremendous loyalty.” Now, no one gets to choose whether they see Kobe’s 81-point game or Kevin Garnett’s 14-point one (I personally attended the latter), but the recognition by these players that the fans loyalty should not be taken lightly is a lesson that should be learned by all sports business professionals, especially in this economic climate.

We saw a whiff of this last month when wide receiver Chad Ochocinco of the Cincinnati Bengals teamed up with Motorola to purchase the remaining 1,200 tickets to his teams’ home game against the Houston Texans. If those tickets hadn’t been sold, the game would have been blacked out in the Cincinnati area  and many die-hard Bengals fans wouldn’t have been able to see their team play. In these especially hard times, it seems especially important to find a way to make sure fans stay connected to their favorite teams, even if they can’t afford to go to the games. Black-outs are just about the exact opposite of that philosophy, as it removes an important touch-point between fans and their team.

So, what can teams do? Well, here’s an example of what NOT to do. Don’t sue your season ticket holders who have legitimate hardships. The Washington Redskins opened up a huge flap by suing season ticket holders who asked to get out of their contracts. Instead of working out a payment plan, offering to try to re-sell the tickets, or just excusing the fans from their contracts, the Redskins filed lawsuits. Lifelong fans not only lost their coveted tickets, but lost faith in their team.

In these tough times, teams need to continually be on the lookout as to how they can provide better service to their fans. Refunding them after a particularly brutal loss might not be the way to go, but there are certainly opportunities for teams to make their fans feel appreciated. Preventing black-outs, making affordable tickets available, and offering free access to select team events are just a few ways to keep fans connected and ultimately generate greater lifetime value and fan loyalty.

One of the things I love most about sports is how athletes, teams and leagues can use the power of their fan affinity for a good cause. This weekend, the NFL did a tremendous job with their “A Crucial Catch” campaign.

If you watched even two minutes of football this weekend, you saw pink everywhere on the screen: jersey patches, helmet stickers, cleats, towels, gloves, wristbands, cheerleader uniforms and more (check out this photo gallery for some great pictures). The announcers constantly mentioned the league’s pink initiative and the link to www.nfl.com/pink was shown regularly throughout every game. In fact, right now the entire NFL.com website has a pink background. I like this integrated, multi-channel approach to maximize the impact of this campaign.

The pure value of the media exposure generated by this campaign has to be tremendous, in the hundreds of thousands if not more. All of this exposure goes a long way towards generating breast cancer awareness and encouraging annual screenings.

Major League Baseball also deserves a lot of credit for their own breast cancer awareness programs, which is highlighted every year by the use of pink bats by many high-profile players on Mothers Day. I would love to see similar league-wide campaigns from the NBA and NHL this year.

Update: If you are interested in supporting the NFL’s breast cancer awareness program, you can contribute by bidding on any of the authentic pink items from Sunday’s games that are being auctioned here. All profits will go to benefit the American Cancer Society.