The summer 2019 edition of the Playbook is available now. Download your copy.
Inside this issue
Creating an Emergency Management Plan
Keep in Contact with Your New Contacts
NCAA Site Selection and Bid Process
In Hosting Events, Collaboration is Key in Virginia's Blue Ridge
2019 Hall of Fame Inductees
Member Award Winners
Empowerment through Accommodation
Fox Cities Takes Events in House
We encourage members to share information with your peers. Contact Meagan Grau, Director of Member Services and Engagement, at meagan@sportscommissions.org to learn more about how you can contribute to a future edition of The Playbook.
Have you written an article on an industry topic? Read an article that you think would be helpful to your industry peers? Share it with us, and we’ll post it.
One of the many benefits of being a Sports ETA member is being able to contribute to our blog. We post weekly about industry news, tips on the 4 S’s of sports events and tourism, and achievements made by our members. It’s really easy to contribute! All you have to do is email Meagan Grau at meagan@sportscommissions.org. Not only will we post it to our blog, but we’ll add it to our social media with an audience of more than 7,000 people.
While you are checking out our blog, make sure to subscribe to get the highlights from each month straight to your inbox.
Every new year comes with new goals for a business. You have been working hard at accomplishing those goals and have probably run into a few bumps along the way. So where do you stand with that goal? Don’t wait and evaluate your progress at the end of 2019. It is time to act now to make sure your business is as successful as possible.
DW&C CPAs and Business Advisors have created a list of steps to take to ensure that you are on the right track to meet your yearly goals:
Start with HR- The people who are on your team are your most valuable asset. Take time to evaluate your employee turnover rate. According to an article published by DW&C, “High employee turnover could be a sign of underlying problems, such as poor training, lax management or low employee morale.”
Evaluate Marketing- Are you reaching your monthly engagement goals? If you don’t know, be sure to increase your tracking of social media engagement.
Don’t have any ...
Billions of dollars are spent globally on sponsorships each year. According to IEG, global sponsorship spending topped $65 billion last year, with the majority of the money going toward sports partnerships, followed by entertainment, causes, festival events, and association organizations.
Sponsorships offer a targeted opportunity to reach current and prospective clients on the consumer or business to business (B2B) side (or both). If you are new to leveraging sponsorships as an engagement tool, here are a few tips on crafting a strategic plan that I learned over the course of 25 years in sponsorship sales and activation with sports and entertainment properties.
Know Your Audience
Think of a sponsorship as a marketing asset that will drive your business objectives. Do you want to sell more stock keeping units (SKUs), engage prospective clients with VIP entertainment or increase awareness through media? These are a few of the goals that can result from a successful spo...
Way back in April, I had the pleasure of attending an etiquette session led by Patricia Rossi at the NASC (now called SportsETA) Women's Summit in Tampa. This was the second annual Women's Summit held in conjunction with the NCAA Women's Final Four basketball tournament. I wrote about my takeaways last year as well.
Patricia was the last presenter in 48 hours chock-full of wisdom and knowledge bombs. All 70 attendees were exhausted, and perhaps more than a little sleep deprived, to say the least. You might say she had drawn the short straw. Not to mention, she was presenting to a bunch of awesome women who work in sports...let's just say (and I'm just surmising here), but this industry may be a bit more casual on the etiquette side of things than say, corporate finance.
In a nutshell, Patricia rocked the house! She was engaging, hilarious, and an absolute delight. She is a southern belle that (if I'm honest) at first impression, intimid...
It’s back to work for those of us who went to the NASC Symposium in Knoxville last week. As you are getting back to your projects and events, don’t forget about all those contacts you met last week.
In the sports events and tourism industry, networking is key and we hope you met a lot of great people at the Symposium to help in future projects. So don’t let those business cards go to waste. Follow-up is key to developing a new professional relationship. Forbes has a few great tips to master the art of the follow-up.
Start with a quick email this week. Don’t feel it has to be something long and profound. Simply say you enjoyed meeting them and if you can, reflect back on a point from your conversation, even if it wasn’t about work.
Link in on LinkedIn. This is another way to connect days after meeting. LinkedIn also offers many free tools to keep your contacts front-of-mind for both you and them. Plus, you can send them a quick note on their work...
Milwaukee hosted some very big sporting events in 2018, and the whole city is benefiting. According to Visit Milwaukee and the Milwaukee Business Journal, sports tourism brought in additional revenue of $28 million for the Milwaukee region in 2018.
When calculating the monetary impact of the events, Visit Milwaukee considered dollars spent on hotel rooms, restaurants, and additional goods and services provided to visitors. Milwaukee hosted a plethora of events throughout the year, but some of the most impactful were the USA Fencing 2018 North American Cup ($2.2 million) and the Junior Volleyball Association MKE Jamboree ($1.6 million).
2019 is shaping up to be just as exciting for the Brew City. USA Fencing will be returning for the 2019 November North American Cup, while the Milwaukee Mile Speedway will host the ARCA Midwest Tour.
If you’re a fan of hockey, you probably watched the Columbus Blue Jackets’ monumental upset of the Tampa Bay Lightning in round one of the NHL playoffs. But for the city of Columbus, the win wasn’t just felt by the hockey team. The Greater Columbus Sports Commission celebrated a huge win as the nationally televised game on CNBC allowed millions of viewers to experience the sports atmosphere of Columbus, Ohio.
Jen Cartmille, the director of Marketing for the Greater Columbus Sports Commission celebrated the spotlight, telling Columbus TV station WBNS that “when we have an NHL playoff game or host an NCAA basketball tournament and it’s shown across the country people get to see what kind of city we are... [sporting events] help sell the city.” Although Columbus is still an emerging hockey town, the excitement for the Blue Jacket’s recent success has already captivated the local community.
The Blue Jackets are now the closest they have ever ...
People tend to fall on three sides of the networking spectrum:
The people that love socializing and meet all kinds of people
The people that hate networking and skip these sessions or don’t participate
The people that are good at networking and leave with a valuable lead and/or resource
Depending on the day, each of us usually falls into one of these categories when we must attend networking events. Many factors contribute to how we react to networking including the hours worked that day, what’s happening outside of work, and energy levels in general. Please take a moment to learn some networking lessons that may provide positive results while networking at the 2019 NASC Symposium.
Look at this stack of business cards! These are on my desk right now. Can you imagine if your card is located near the bottom of that stack? I’m sure my card is at the bottom of stacks on hundreds of desks around the country. This is a constant reminder that I’...
The countdown is on for the 27th annual NASC Symposium! Before your bags are packed, check the conference website. Then, as you prepare to meet event rights holders, vendors and destination representatives from throughout the USA in Knoxville, Tennessee May 6- 9, you might want to check it again. This will help you ensure the most efficient and effective use of your time!
NASC staff and volunteer members have worked diligently to provide several great resources to assist you as you get organized to attend the NASC’s annual meeting (for the first time or the 27th)! Follow the links below to find answers to many of your questions:
Hotel & Travel
Schedule
Education
Marketplace
NASC FAQs
Blogs
Hotel & Travel:
Traveling to a destination by yourself (especially for the first-time) can seem a bit intimidating. A little advanced homework will reduce potential concerns and set you up for a fun, successful conference experience.
Review your...