There are a lot of excellent sports business resources available for free online – in fact, with all of these blogs, websites, digital journals, email newsletters, video streams, Facebook pages, Twitter hashtags, and LinkedIn groups, there is more quality sports business information available now than anyone could have possibly imagined just a few years ago. I feel really honored to be a part of these efforts, and hope that people view this site as an important and relevant industry resource.

In order to contribute to the industry in a meaningful way, I have five important rules that I operate with when publishing all content:

1. My site is about the business of sports, not the games themselves – all content needs to be business-focused.
2. If I don’t believe the content is informative, educational or thought-provoking, I will not publish it.
3. My goal is never to make money – no one can “purchase” a blog post.
4. I am happy to give credit to and promote a 3rd party as long as the focus of the post is to educate and inform, not to sell.
5. I will never sacrifice quality for quantity, even if that means fewer visitors – nothing is more important than my integrity and the reputation of this site.

I feel it is my obligation as someone who works in the sports industry and talks to students and young professionals on a regular basis to maintain a high level of integrity and only provide content that I believe in. If anyone ever feels like there is something shared on this website that does not meet this standard, please let me know. I value the feedback of my readers tremendously.

With that said, I don’t always have a much time to write as I would like, luckily due to very good personal and professional reasons. As such, I am looking for the following:

• Regular Contributors:  I am looking for a few sports business professionals that I can trust and rely on to share at least two posts per month to help keep a steady stream of quality content on the site.
• Guest Writers:  I am always open to running a one-off post for any sports business professional, as long as it meets my criteria for publishing content.
• Virtual Intern(s):  It would be nice to have a current student or two that can assist with social media outreach, research for blog posts and write an occasional post.

Unfortunately, both of these “positions” are completely unpaid. This website essentially generates $0 in revenue, so if your goal is to make money with your writing, this is not the right place for you. However, if you want an outlet to build your brand, connect with the sports business community and give back to the industry through informative content, then please email me at russell@thebusinessofsports.com and let me know how you’d like to contribute. Thanks!

The folks over at Silverpop (a multi-channel marketing services company) registered for clubs’ mailing lists, logged onto multiple social networks and monitored Foursquare check-in data for all 30 MLB teams. Then they crunched the numbers and created this infographic to take a deeper look at MLB fandom on opening day of 2013 (I know I’m a little late sharing this one, but I just discovered it).

It’s not surprising to see the Yankees leading teams in almost every category, but the degree to which they do in some categories is pretty astounding. However, they did not have the biggest opening day when it came to Foursquare check-ins – that honor belongs to the Rockies at Brewers game.

Earlier this week, I conducted an email interview with Andrea Pagnanelli, CEO of LeapSeats (and a former colleague of mine) to learn more about her company.

First off, tell us, what is LeapSeats?

LeapSeats is an in-venue seat upgrade application designed to enhance the in-venue fan experience, while also improving the effectiveness of teams’ ticketing departments. LeapSeats focuses on lead generation, retention touchpoints, and maximizing revenue from all attendees through upgrades and selling new game-day inventory. Spectators simply download the app (or a teams’ app), scan the barcode, choose an upgrade, enter payment, and enjoy new seats.

You have a deep background in ticket sales. What from that experience pointed you to the value that LeapSeats might offer?

Working in ticket sales, you are trained to continuously think of new ways to drive revenue and bring more value to fans. With the landscape of technology in-venue changing, it was the perfect time to develop a product that accomplishes both these goals. We are rethinking the way organizations monetize unused ticket inventory, the way attendees purchase tickets, and the way organizations interact with their fans.

Is there a risk that LeapSeats could cannibalize a team’s own ticket sales efforts?

No. LeapSeats only sells any unsold ticket inventory on game-day.

How does LeapSeats compete with secondary ticket options?

LeapSeats does not compete with secondary ticket options; we are not a ticket marketplace. It is simply a tool for fans to utilize come game-day to get closer to the action and purchase unique experiences.

Can LeapSeats be used for teams that are traditionally sold out?

Yes, LeapSeats goes beyond offering seat upgrades. It can also offer unique and one of a kind experiences. We create new game-day inventory that doesn’t exist – think selling tours of an arena on game-day, pre-game field access, post-game photos, or any asset a group sales department does not move by game-day.

How do you see this space evolving over the next 3-5 years?

With the adaptation of Wi-Fi and DAS infrastructures in-venues, the smartphone is providing us with a new way to interact with our fans. I would anticipate more companies will develop technology and applications to capitalize on this market.

You can connect with Andrea via Twitter at @apagnanelli, on LinkedIn or by email at apagnanelli@rseventures.com.

CableTV.com just released an infographic to show how, in their opinion (and backed by some pretty good statistics) that LeBron James is the most underpaid athlete. Now, to truly say he is the MOST underpaid, we would need to see similar analysis for athletes in other sports, but the numbers here do paint a pretty good picture.

LeBron James Is Underpaid – An infographic by the team at CableTV.com

Today’s post is courtesy of guest blogger Christi Goza. Ticket data to support this article provided by Razorgator.

Did Russell Westbrook’s Knee Injury Impact the Price of Oklahoma City Thunder Playoff Tickets?

Just prior to the start of the NBA Playoffs, Thunder Playoff tickets vs. the Houston Rockets were averaging $300 a seat , with Game 5 (if nec) at Chesapeake Energy Arena averaging $270 and Game 7 (if nec) averaging $459. Thunder ticket prices were fifth most expensive of the sixteen NBA Teams. Many felt the Thunder were destined for an NBA Finals rematch with the Miami Heat.

The morning of Game 2, ticket prices for Game 5 were averaging $297 and Game 7 $492 – both games had increased in price since the start of the Playoffs. It was later that evening in Game 2 Russell Westbrook tore his lateral meniscus. Following the team’s announcement that Westbrook would undergo surgery and would not play for the remainder of the 2013 NBA Playoffs, Oklahoma City Thunder ticket prices for Game 5 and Game 7 dropped 3% and 10% respectively. The cheapest seat in the house for a possible Game 5 (Home Game 3) fell 21%, from $90 to $71. The long term impact of the injury is also telling as potential Conference Semifinals tickets in OKC saw an average of a 6% decrease. Rockets fans had a different outlook as tickets following the Thunder’s announcement of Westbrook’s injury rose 15% for Game 3 in Houston.

In comparison, following Derrick Rose’s torn ACL in Game 1 of the First Round last year – Bulls tickets fell 5% for Game 5, 2% for Game 7 and an average of 11% for the Eastern Conference Semifinals Games in Chicago. And, although the injury didn’t take place during the postseason – when Kobe Bryant went down April 12 with a torn Achilles tendon, Los Angeles Lakers tickets took a similar fall. The Lakers had not secured a playoff spot at the time; however tickets for a potential first round series and semifinals were down 18% and 15% (in that order) following the Black Mamba’s season ending injury.

In last year’s AL Championship Series opener, Derek Jeter broke his left ankle in the 12th inning and would not return for the rest of the postseason. Different from the NBA teams’ tickets, New York Yankees tickets for a possible ALCS Game 6 and 7 at Yankees Stadium following a key player’s injury increased on the secondary market, rising 27% and 37%. Yankees World Series tickets for home games 1, 2, and 3 however, fell 6%, 22%, and 18% respectively.

Losing a star player to injury during the postseason not only hurts the team’s aspirations of winning a title but directly affects the potential revenue a team can earn. The impact is immediate as demand is affected by the fact that players that fans want to see are out of the lineup. Tickets further into the playoffs are also significantly impacted as fans lose confidence that their team will actually advance without one of its stars. Basketball tickets are particularly affected in a star driven league where the best players drive a team’s popularity and play a huge role in the success of their franchise.

Christi Goza is the Community and Social Media Manager at Razorgator and an alumni of the Graduate Program in Sports Management at Long Beach State.

Today’s post is courtesy of guest blogger Emily Huddell, SVP of Sales & Service for Turnkey Intelligence.

Last week, sports business executives converged in Brooklyn to attend Sports Business Journal’s Sports Facilities & Franchises Conference and Ticketing Symposium. For the third consecutive year, SBJ held the two events back-to-back, focusing on facility and franchise content during the first half of the event and then honing in on ticketing topics for the remaining sessions.

I attended the ticketing portion of the event, which kicked off with a “state of the industry” panel that set the tone for the next 24 hours. During that session, Legends COO Mike Ondrejko called ticketing “the accumulation of data”. To me, this perfectly sums up the current state of the ticketing space. Thanks to technologies like digital ticketing, mobile, and robust customer tracking via CRM, the sports industry has evolved to a point where data is incredibly easy to obtain. We are not at a loss for data. The key for properties, though, is to figure out how to analyze and interpret that data to better understand and relate to their customers, and ensure that the value of their inventory is being appropriately assessed and maximized.

Admittedly, there are still individuals in sports business who don’t recognize the merits of devoting resources to the implementation, collection and (most importantly) analysis of such data. In the conference’s “Big Data Conversation”, moderated by SBJ’s Abe Madkour, Frank Wheeler (SAP) observed that “non-believers” often don’t understand the potential ROI of data-related spends. However, when data resulting from such efforts can be presented cleanly and simply, obtaining that universal buy-in becomes a much easier process, as data recipients become “addicted” to the information they’re receiving.

Another commonly mentioned topic was the concept of real-time precision marketing, and teams’ desires to establish a true 365-day relationship with their customers. These concepts relate back to both the effective use of consumer data and smart brand management. Ticketmaster CEO Nathan Hubbard pointed out the music industry, and Kid Rock in particular, as examples sports business ticket sellers should look to (and learn from) when looking for guidance on how to build fans’ lifetime value. “As we all talk about dynamic pricing and getting that price right, in the back of our heads, we need to think about not how do we extract the most value tonight, but how do we extract the most value over the next month, over the next 25 years,” said Hubbard.

Though technology and data-related themes occupied center stage for the majority of this event, Friday featured a more classic ticket sales discussion. Participants on the lively “Developing Sales Talent” panel, moderated by Bill Sutton, bantered about what they look for when interviewing potential sales candidates (passion, initiative, and the ability to self-start), the importance of “consultative selling”, and the increased role of technology in sales, with Lightning EVP Jamie Spencer identifying a robust CRM system as a crucial tool for reps to use to build strong relationships. All emphasized the importance of ongoing recognition for meeting incremental goals, whether in the form of a WWE-style championship belt, extra time off, or the title of “Sales Captain”.

Other fun facts and takeaways:

• The rapid emergence of digital delivery of tickets, and success of the large-scale digital ticketing distribution implemented at this year’s Final Four.
• The continued threat of the secondary market and how different teams/leagues are fighting back.
• The opportunity for musicians to improve ticketing practices by considering the variable pricing models in place in sports business.
• The quandary of identifying how fans are using their mobile phones “from purchase to event attendance”, and breaking in/adding value to that lifecycle.
• The importance of creating “value markets” in the sports business ticketing space.
• The ability for teams to successfully position dynamic pricing as a selling point to season ticket holders to increase timely renewals by guaranteeing that they’ve receive the lowest-offered price by renewing by a given deadline.

Overall, the Symposium was a fun, power-packed day of networking and education. Thinking about future iterations of this event, it’s likely that the collection and use of data will continue to be the major topic of conversation, especially as each property and team fights to find the key to becoming an everyday presence (and asset) in the lives of its consumers.

At Turnkey, Emily Huddell is responsible for overseeing all sales and service efforts for the company’s primary products, Surveyor and Prospector. She’s a proud graduate of Boston University and the UMass Amherst Sport Management MS Program. 

In direct response to the tragedies in Boston, leaders in the running community have united to help launch Run Now - the hub of information on volunteering, participating and sharing all of the activities that demonstrate the solidarity of the running community.

On the website, a special blue and yellow Run Now tribute wrist band will be sold for $2.00 with 100% of the proceeds going to One Fund Boston.

The evolving Run Now website will be a place to:

• Securely donate funds to One Fund Boston
• Share stories with the running community through social media channels – the site will aggregate stories using the proper hashtags and handles (@_runnow, #RunNow, and facebook.com/RunNowMovement)
• Pledge to volunteer or participate in upcoming races

Run  Now  is also committed to:

• Pledging free race entries (for partner races) to 4,500 Boston Marathon participants diverted prior to the finish
• Raising $1 million for The One Fund Boston by National Running Day on June 5, 2013
• Offering more than 100,000 ‘Run Now – Boston 04.15.2013’ tribute wristbands to runners at upcoming marathons and at specialty running retailers across the country

The Run Now initial launch partners include Competitor Group, U.S. Road Sports & Entertainment Group, Brooks Running Company, MapMyFitness, Transamerica Life Insurance Company, Running Specialty Group and the Independent Running Retailers Association (IRRA).

“As runners ourselves, we share in a community that is resilient, passionate, strong, united and energized, even at a time of such unimaginable tragedy. The overwhelming outcry at the tragedy among runners inspired the industry to form this coalition.,” said Scott Dickey, CEO of CGI. “This week, terrorists attacked runners and in doing so attacked our running community. Run Now shows that our community and the running spirit is stronger than any terrorists’ evil intentions. We are determined to maintain the enduring and celebratory achievement of participating in running events. If there was ever a time to run, Run Now.”

For more information, visit www.runnow.com. 

When it comes to photo sharing, Instagram has definitely become the place for great content, and teams are looking to it more and more as a vehicle to drive their own campaigns and microsites. Here are a few excellent examples!

KnicksNow.com/knickstagram – Team microsite created by MVMT Strategy that gathers all Instagram photos with the hashtag #knickstape and shows them by geography (five boroughs of NY or the rest of the world):

Nike PHOTOiD – Nike created a way for people to use their Instagram photos to design Nike ID shoes that they can share and even purchase.

#RipCityPix Instagram Night – On March 27, the Portland Trailblazers had an Instagram Night where fans’ Instagram photos were shared in the arena, on TV and on the team website, complete with a contest to win free tickets.

#MLBSpringBreak Challenge – Baseball fans could respond to “assignments” with their tagged Instagram photos for the chance to win prizes, with the photos aggregated on their Spring Break Challenge page.

RomaGram – A microsite by AS Roma (Italy) that encourages fans to tag Instagram photos to help construct a photographic archive of the club’s history (according to my Google translation)

Miami Heat #WhiteHotHeatFan – Similar to the Knicks example above, the Heat are running a hashtag-driven microsite around their 2013 playoff run.

Today’s post is courtesy of guest blogger David Simmons.

As the season begins and fans everywhere are buying tickets I thought it would be a good time to take a look at the secondary market for all 30 MLB teams to see what it means for you the fan.

I requested data from SeatGeek showing all 30 teams total inventories listings. From there to get a better idea I used a 2.6 ticket per listing multiplier as SeatGeek recommends using 2.5 tickets per listing and Ticketmaster sells 2.7 tickets per sale. I then took the total tickets available on the secondary market and put them into FSE (Full Season Equivalent) counts to get the average tickets available per game to get better idea of what was on the market compared to last year’s average sales by team.

The goal of all teams is to maximize its season sales while protecting it fans from what can sometimes be a predatory secondary market. “Why buy season tickets?” is question asked throughout the industry and the growth of the secondary market helps fuel the discussion. It’s important to note that naked short selling is now common practice in MLB secondary markets and therefore data might be skewed higher due to this practice and due to double-posting of tickets as well.

Teams face a predicament when it comes to selling to bulk buyers, speculators, and brokers. Depending upon the market, there are two schools of thought. Sell anything and everything you can to boost your season ticket totals which protects you from poor team play but can come back to bite you if the market is flooded leaving a minimal individual primary market. Or team’s can cut off these buyers like the Angels to focus their efforts on the protecting the individual sales by curtailing efforts on the season side to produce a higher yield on week of and day of game sales. Selling season tickets can sometimes just be “robbing Peter to pay Paul” as you are just moving revenue from individual to season due to the growth of the secondary market. This is why pricing your tickets initially and using dynamic pricing is so important to MLB teams.

For the time being, the data presented below is the best overall snapshot we can find on the secondary market. What does the SeatGeek data tell us? The Dodgers, Giants, Tigers, Angels and Yankees are top 5 in volume all with over 600,000 tickets on the secondary market led by the Dodgers with 1,027,676 tickets for the 2013 season.  How high is that? If you add up all tickets on the secondary market in Oakland, Arizona, Houston, San Diego, Cleveland, Miami, Seattle, and Toronto it’s still less than the Dodgers. Worth reminding everybody that the Dodgers have the highest season ticket base in all of MLB at 31,000 per Team President Stan Kasten and the largest stadium of 56,000 so the volume should not come as a surprise. The Dodgers sales team has outsold 17 MLB teams 2012 overall attendance teams in just season tickets this year. They also have the highest percentage of tickets on the secondary market in relation to their overall sales.

Other teams that will be challenged to sell individual tickets besides the Dodgers (31%) this season due to high levels of secondary market activity and season tickets in years to come are Giants (26%), Tigers (26%), and Nationals (25%). It’s important to note the Dodgers and Tigers use variable pricing, but the Nationals and Giants use dynamic pricing to better protect their primary markets. This helps them when prices fluctuate to keep the dollars flowing into the team rather than the secondary market. The teams with the least amount of tickets on secondary in comparison to their overall sales volume are the Cubs (12%), Twins (9%), Phillies (11%), Brewers (9%), and Cardinals(12%). These teams all sell 34,000 tickets plus a game but find that only a handful windup on the secondary market. The Athletics, Diamondbacks, Astros, Padres and Indians have the lowest volume on the secondary market.

So what does this mean to you as a fan? If you live in a market that does not use dynamic pricing and has large quantities of tickets on the secondary market you might be better off buying off the secondary market to save a few bucks. On the other hand buying a season ticket can offer you plenty of amenities you won’t get if you just buy your games off the secondary market including guaranteed postseason tickets and a large discount. To see where your team falls check out the full data below. It’s worth noting that I used 2012 sales AVG for my analysis. Teams like the Blue Jays, Dodgers, and Nationals have had huge strides sales and therefore their secondary market percentages will be overstated until we have 2013 data to benchmark it against. All data is via SeatGeek from March 21, 2013.

I don’t really want to write much about what happened today, so I’ll keep it really short. First and foremost, my thoughts and prayers are with everyone affected by what happened today. Condolences to those that lost loved ones and a speedy recovery to those that were injured.

It’s really a sad thing that there are people in the world that would want to inflict harm like this on others, and maybe one day, this will change. The unfortunate thing about sporting events is that they can unfortunately present a target to these people, with lots of individuals gathered together in one place on a global stage. This is why security at all sporting events is so important and taken so seriously, from a local minor league game up to the Olympics and World Cup. JW Cannon on Twitter has already brought this up in two tweets:

You don’t know it yet, but your major event experience is about to change DRAMATICALLY from a security standpoint. #sportsbiz

— J.W. Cannon (@cannonjw) April 15, 2013

Always been amazing to me the amount of major events that happen w/ limited incidents like this. But now? Get ready for lockdown. #sportsbiz

— J.W. Cannon (@cannonjw) April 15, 2013

He’s right – in a time where most venues already go to incredible lengths in their security procedures, it’s going to get even stricter and more detailed. So I have messages for two audiences:

1.  To those of you who work in security and facility operations – thank you. I know your job is going to get that much tougher, but these events cannot succeed is a safe manner without all that you do. Take every precaution and tell us what we need to do to keep things safe. We are listening and we need your expertise more than ever.

2.  To fans that attend games – be patient and understanding. Yes, pat downs, metal detector wands and bag checks can slow things down, and if you show up at the last minute, you might not get in on time. But the staff at these venues do what they do to protect everyone. Be calm, wait in line and listen to what they ask of you. And if you remember to think of it, thank them for protecting you.

Again, my thoughts and prayers to those affected by today’s events, and here’s to hoping it’s the last time we see something like this at a sporting event (or any event) ever again.