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OT - UR Athletics Marketing

Spiders05

Spiders05

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May 12, 2003
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There was a post on the football board that got me thinking a bit. This was the post.

Hanca said:
Lastly, administration seems to lack commitment to sports and/or ability to market product.
Click to expand...

I bolded the part I want to focus on.

What does this mean? What specifically are we not doing that you (the reader) would like for us to do? What shortfalls do we have with marketing? I'm guilty of lobbing general criticisms without specific actionable remediations. I see our "inability to market" on here quite a bit. What specifically do we not do well, what are we not doing that we should, how does this "inability to market" manifest itself?

A couple of things I note to start the conversation...
  • I wish we would utilize digital billboards in town. Update them frequently to advertise events, put out more timely messaging, etc. VCU Welcomed Will Wade to town on one of theirs. Great work by their people.
  • Our merchandise selection and locations to purchase really lacks. I get that we're a small school, but I don't see our stuff around town and what I do see is pretty basic stuff. Our teams get some good stuff, and I know there are team only items, but would love to see more selection that is more widely available.
  • To build off this, our logo is awesome. How can we further leverage this?
  • I'm a bit ignorant as to how we approach corporations for relationships, but we really don't seem to have much corporate presence. Should be a point of emphasis that encompasses the athletics department, career services, high level professors and admin. Become a larger, unified, member of our community.
 
How about a real PepBand, like the Peppas or George Mason's Green Machine? We need a marching band for football too. I think having a band would make a big difference in game atmosphere for both football and basketball, and would help in "marketing the product." At the very least, it would bring a different group of students to games. I understand that music scholarships would be required. But Crutcher is a musician-- maybe this is an idea he'd buy into.
 
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Hard for me to offer much in the way of specific suggestions since I'm not in the Richmond area to see what is or isn't up on billboards and in stores, but hopefully the new deal with CLC can help with some of that exposure.
 
Spiders05 said:
Our merchandise selection and locations to purchase really lacks. I get that we're a small school, but I don't see our stuff around town and what I do see is pretty basic stuff. Our teams get some good stuff, and I know there are team only items, but would love to see more selection that is more widely available.
Click to expand...
So having run a specialty products company focused on collegiate licensed goods, I can tell you that merchandise selection is not something that UR has much control over. They don't go make stuff, there are dozens of manufacturers who have relationships with CLC and are authorized to make certain kinds of products. Candidly, this all boils down to volume, the big schools are much easier to service when you know you'll easily sell 5000 units of a product where you might struggle to sell 50 of the same product with UR branding.

Similarly, it's very hard to get display space in large regional or national retailers for small school products, so you have to emphasize placement in local retailers who know their market and are willing to carry inventory longer.

I think UR does a decent job given what the school size is on this.
 
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I like the billboard sign ideas, that's low hanging fruit in my mind, and frankly, we could be quite a bit more creative about what we put out there.
 
I think back to even small things like the amount of UR items at local businesses. Our radio show is held at Joe's Inn in Bon Air. They have a VCU Final 4 poster hanging with no UR items (or maybe I missed our UR items in there...).
 
MrTbone said:
So having run a specialty products company focused on collegiate licensed goods, I can tell you that merchandise selection is not something that UR has much control over. They don't go make stuff, there are dozens of manufacturers who have relationships with CLC and are authorized to make certain kinds of products. Candidly, this all boils down to volume, the big schools are much easier to service when you know you'll easily sell 5000 units of a product where you might struggle to sell 50 of the same product with UR branding.

Similarly, it's very hard to get display space in large regional or national retailers for small school products, so you have to emphasize placement in local retailers who know their market and are willing to carry inventory longer.

I think UR does a decent job given what the school size is on this.
Click to expand...

What about the school's deal with Nike? Does Nike have to go through the CLC? We have little to no Nike gear in the Bookstore.I think we're still sell DWill jerseys in the bookstore.
 
Billboards are seriously low-hanging fruit, and, as far as I am concerned, an absolute no-brainer. It's pretty frustrating to come into town and only see VCU stuff with all their "we are the city university" crap everywhere. I don't mind them being there, if we are there -- Let's build the rivalry. Hell, let's lease the billboard space right next to every billboard they have put up. Let's use their own marketing studies against them by letting them pay for it and having us simply show up next door to them. Rivalries are a TERRIFIC tool for promotion. VCU has certainly taken some major steps at building this rivalry to their own benefit. Have we? It looks pretty one-sided at this point.

Merchandising has changed so much these days. As many of you know, I live abroad. I also like the Washington Redskins. Somehow, something on Facebook, based on my posts/computer cookies, promotes things like "Buy a 'I am the #1 Washington Redskins fan in X, Y' coffee mug." You don't need to make 10000 T-shirts to get scale anymore. Manufacturing costs have gone down dramatically. So many schools offer their shirts/hats/etc. through different distributors now because costs are low. Shirts can now be printed one off with a decent markup, still. No reason for this not to happen, either. This certainly ties toward the use of the logo.

We need to tie to wider-spread networks. I would love for Bob Black to have a greater role at 950, and tie his two jobs further. I am not convinced that he is "unshackled" enough to be able to get our name out there on a more national level. I just turned on his show now, and he is talking NFL/UVA mens hoops now, too. As I type, he is just talking about the Georgetown coaching situation. So, even our own insider on that show talks about everything that is not UR -- He just mentioned how happy he was to talk about local basketball yesterday -- VCU!!!!! MAN!

Corporations want big products. IMG College, which appears to promote our products (also helped me see where former UR Womens Basketball center Carolyn Center has gone), is charge of all the things you are asking about, '05. Funny to say that I am fairly unaware of them, though that could have to do with my distance, but from what they do with all the other universities that they represent, I feel like they could do more for finding national sponsors.

Ultimately, if we want to be on the national stage, and not local/regional, we have to create nationally relevant products. One way of doing that is having sports programs with national aspirations. Beef up our alumni clubs, too. More outreach. This goes across ALL university outreach, not just athletics.

My other alma mater uses their clubs to get people to sporting events. Granted, its football tickets are generally an extremely hot ticket. And, they have competitions with their clubs around the country in which club activity is rewarded with tickets to return to campus for football games. Do we have a desirable product, or activity, to get people back to campus? These are the "clients" who have most interest in seeing a quality product, and there just isn't enough to get them back to campus. Hell, people want to come back to UR and work and they don't hire them.

It bothers me to no end to see that in the last 5 years (http://careerservices.richmond.edu/post-graduation-data/) a field in which the highest percentage of our graduates is working in is marketing/sales, and it seems like our own university struggles mightily at this exact thing.
 
What exactly are we trying to accomplish with marketing? That will drive what it is the school/AD does tactically to support the end goal.

If its ticket sales/distribution, we are doing a pretty good job with that. The larger question is why do we have empty seats at football and basketball?

Merchandise - I think a school like us would be better served with a company like Under armour than we are with Nike. Someone who would embrace our unique identity as opposed to getting the standard template uniform for the year.

Billboards - we actually do buy space on digital billboards around town. I saw individual game promotions on billboards from my drive from the West End into downtown for work. We also have 2 standard billboards on that same route, VCU has at least 1.

One of the best things we've done from a marketing community standpoint in recent years is the Kids Club - you can tell that has driven a lot of young families to games.
 
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ur2K said:
One of the best things we've done from a marketing community standpoint in recent years is the Kids Club - you can tell that has driven a lot of young families to games.
Click to expand...

I think this is a real bright spot for the department. Completely agree. My question was how do we keep in touch with kids once they "outgrow" the kids club? They become fans of UR as kids. How do we build off that childhood fandom?
 
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SpiderHoops32 said:
What about the school's deal with Nike? Does Nike have to go through the CLC? We have little to no Nike gear in the Bookstore.I think we're still sell DWill jerseys in the bookstore.
Click to expand...
Typically, a university agrees to have a licensing specialist represent their licensing interests, CLC being the overwhelming force in this space. On one hand, they represent the licensing interests of each university, managing minimum dollar commitments per merchandise segment and royalty percentages, among other things. On the other end, they are the approving body for who gets to acquire the license for various product categories. So if UR wants Nike brand apparel, Nike would have to be approved for the product categories that UR wants, and then Nike would actually have to be interested in producing those goods. Some of the premiere licensors like Notre Dame, UT, OSU can reasonably negotiate that certain products get made by manufacturers, but by and large, retailers buy what is offered to them. Most of the bookstores are buying from catalogs, and I would expect that any deal we have with Nike is related to actual team sponsorship/equipment/uniforms, not necessarily about licensed apparel for fans.
 
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ur2K said:
I think a school like us would be better served with a company like Under armour than we are with Nike. Someone who would embrace our unique identity as opposed to getting the standard template uniform for the year
Click to expand...

All the major apparel companies do this. Under Armour would do the same.
 
At the end of the day, our lack of size/scale and the relatively small size of our local market hurts us. As someone mentioned, the larger schools sell a lot more stuff than we do because of scale. Add scale to a first-tier population center like DC, NY, Atlanta, and you have a winning formula, and you have companies like Nike, IMG, and CLC wanting to do business with you.

For example, VCU has the scale to do this better than we do. Plus they don't have football, so they can allocate a lot of marketing and merchandising dollars to their basketball program.

I'm encouraged by the relationship with CLC, but I would imagine we are still going to be second-class citizens because of our small size/scale.
 
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I could be wrong but richmond td and richmond.com articles appear ro be slanted to vcu. Further, vcu seems to gwt better coverage on both 950 and 910 even though bob and our games are on 910....thats my issue.
 
agree with the under armor comment. to nike, we are nothing, they throw us the same "new unis" that every school gets, other maybe than big timers. why don't we try and see if a different company can work with us a little more. now, maybe CM sees that nike helps our recruiting but think under armor is really hot now and there may not be as big a deal as it once was when kids were being sent to certain nike schools.
 
We don't attract the "walk up" fan to basketball or football. Maybe it's a location thing that has been sold by media and our rivals.......For example,UR campus is way out in a rural neighborhood and parking is horrible.
We have also let VCU trap us into competing for "sold out" games. Proudly bragging that games are a sell out when in reality there are plenty of seats. If you have nothing to do on a game day and maybe think about taking in a UR game but have been reading for days it's a sell out, guess what, in your mind you say why bother.
I would like to see us do a better job of managing corporate and season tickets that aren't being used.
 
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If I could think of one other thing that we could improve at in marketing, is to place signs and billboards in all sections of the city (I have only seem them in the West End and off 64 in Western Henrico. We need to be seen as a team of the entire city!!! This is what VCU has capitalized on.
 
MerrySpider said:
How about a real PepBand, like the Peppas or George Mason's Green Machine? We need a marching band for football too. I think having a band would make a big difference in game atmosphere for both football and basketball, and would help in "marketing the product." At the very least, it would bring a different group of students to games. I understand that music scholarships would be required. But Crutcher is a musician-- maybe this is an idea he'd buy into.
Click to expand...
Merry, I disagree. Our pep band, Sticky Situation, includes several professional musicians who are members of the No BS Brass Band. They tour nationally. I have no problem with them.

As to a marching band, this is just personal taste and probably a minority one, but if I never saw another one other than a traditional black school who raise the art to a new level, I would be a happy man.
 
Lest we gravitate towards focusing solely on those things that are missing, I'll say that I've been very impressed with a number of things UR has done to promote basketball. Better concessions, vastly improved in game experience, promotional sales to fill the seats, to name a few.

If anything, I'd appreciate more promotion, whether it's publicity/PR, advertising, or similar. I just want our presence to be felt so we don't act like a second class citizen in town, even if we ostensibly are until more success returns to the program.
 
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I think we've made some great strides with the social media and graphic stuff on the website, I like the Facebook Live sessions with Will Bryan and Bob Black, but I think we need to promote the hell out of Buck and Sherod as hometown guys. Hire the best video production agency in town and let them run wild with some slick, fun, creative video spots for online and social media promotion. Start a true TV advertising campaign to hype season ticket sales next summer and fall, centering around these two guys.

We have more (and better) Richmond-area players than that other team in town. Brand ourselves as the true local team and tap into that. Buck and Sherod are going to be stars. Get people excited about that!

Make Richmond basketball cool, basically. We have the players to do that, and they should appeal to the greater Richmond market because they are from here. Their connections, friends, HS teammates, etc. will take an interest in UR basketball because of these guys. Play this for all it's worth as often as you can.
 
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bullfrog91 said:
I could be wrong but richmond td and richmond.com articles appear ro be slanted to vcu. Further, vcu seems to gwt better coverage on both 950 and 910 even though bob and our games are on 910....thats my issue.
Click to expand...


actually our games are on 950 -- much weaker signal, as soon as it powers down in the evening the coverage is very poor -- we double up on 107.3, not much better on the north side of town
 
urfan1 said:
actually our games are on 950 -- much weaker signal, as soon as it powers down in the evening the coverage is very poor -- we double up on 107.3, not much better on the north side of town
Click to expand...
Almost no 950 signal in Midlothian area after dark. "No question about that"
 
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When VCU introduced Rhoades as their new coach, they opened it to the public at the Siegel Center. There were a ton of people there if you looked at the TV news. There might not have been that many people there, but it looked like it on TV. It's all about optics with VCU. They created a situation that told the public "everything is fine...the fan base is behind this guy...buy tickets and gear". Whoever Mooney's replacement is going to be, I guarantee you it'll be introduced in the Alumni Center in front of a crowd of about 50 + the media. That's our comfort zone - no embarrassments, but no buzz, either.

KE Spider said:
Merry, I disagree. Our pep band, Sticky Situation, includes several professional musicians who are members of the No BS Brass Band. They tour nationally. I have no problem with them.

As to a marching band, this is just personal taste and probably a minority one, but if I never saw another one other than a traditional black school who raise the art to a new level, I would be a happy man.
Click to expand...

I'm sorry, but I totally disagree, and this is one thing where we miss the mark tremendously. They may be professional musicians, but they have no passion for the school. They're just there for the paycheck. They totally butchered the National Anthem at the Oakland game. I'm sick and tired of this. Let's get a student oriented band that we can have pride in. It doesn't have to be a marching band for football, but schools like Georgetown, GW and others can have awesome bands while at the same time ours looks like crap. Get it together, Crutcher! You're a musician for crying out loud!!!
 
Yes, expect the Lambs to market the crap out of the Mike Rhoades appointment, "Prodigal Son" and all that crap. I like the idea of promoting the local kids on our squad, "The REAL 804 Homeboys".

Rhoades presser at Costco the other day was an optical illusion, like the yuge crowds for the inaugural.
 
"Richmond basketball never bad but always forgotten"

Quote from a WSU fan on the Reddit boards and it was probably the most accurate description I've seen about our program unfortunately. For the most part we are an after thought when it comes to basketball sadly.

First off I wana say for a school our size we have good attendance figures. I love that our avg attendance has been up but I don't think it's translated into more people following the program. For example, each vcu game at home we have I normally buy the 12 strips of tickets. If I'm lucky I may be able to get 4-6 "pro Spider" fans but they mostly consist of causial fans and the rest are switzerland when it comes to support during the game.

I do like the hire of Scott Day and we have made incremental improvements each year.

The pep band is awful. Yes they are musicians and good ones but most are vcu grads anyway and most couldn't care less about the outcome of the game. They often alternate several musicians between games so there's no consistency from one game to the next. I say this is something President Cruthcher should get involved with. Not sure about his schedule but would be neat to have his input on the band.

Work on engaging the students more. I don't have the answer for this though. Remember rowdies making road trips and now can barely fill the gym for some games.

All in all atmosphere is better then prior to the new arena, but many things could be worked on. I'd say best ways besides winning to improve the culture is working on student attendance and pep band.
 
Spiders05 said:
I think this is a real bright spot for the department. Completely agree. My question was how do we keep in touch with kids once they "outgrow" the kids club? They become fans of UR as kids. How do we build off that childhood fandom?
Click to expand...
It'd be really cool to see the University do something like offer financial aid to high school kids who were once part of the Kids Club and continued going to games as teenagers. I have absolutely no idea about if this is "legal" per college admissions rules, but I would think families around Richmond would bring their kids to games if they could get some sort of aid for their kid to go to the school if they got in. I realize this is a radical idea but it would be great for growing a local fan base that actually stays involved with the university as they get older.
 
VCU has a very high profile band, and they are always on tv or out in public playing at various functions and entertaining people. I would love to have a band like theirs (except they would be clean and have some class).

Marketing? We have a unique nickname and logo, the are so many things a good advertising agency could do with "Spider"
 
I agree regarding 950, 107.3 being poor signals. Someone should investigate whether a change is possible. It is annoying.

I agree that the band is sub-par; but we can never get enough students involved to make up a decent pep band. Our students have to study and write papers. We will NEVER be able to have a pep band we can be proud of that is made up of students. Forget it. Same thing with a marching band - not gonna happen in the modern era.

If we learn to rebound better, block out better, and recruit better year in and year out, our problems are solved. "If you build it, he will come" in the case of Richmond means to build the team - then people will not want to miss the action.
 
Our bookstore and apparel are the worst. Other schools who are just as small blow us away. Bucknell has always had a much better selection because they partnered with Barnes and Noble, but they always had a much better selection than us even before their latest store opened. More selection and more brand names. We need new people in charge of that stuff.
 
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Stork3 said:
I agree regarding 950, 107.3 being poor signals. Someone should investigate whether a change is possible. It is annoying.

I agree that the band is sub-par; but we can never get enough students involved to make up a decent pep band. Our students have to study and write papers. We will NEVER be able to have a pep band we can be proud of that is made up of students. Forget it. Same thing with a marching band - not gonna happen in the modern era.

If we learn to rebound better, block out better, and recruit better year in and year out, our problems are solved. "If you build it, he will come" in the case of Richmond means to build the team - then people will not want to miss the action.
Click to expand...
I don't mind using the local high school marching bands at the football games. It's a big deal to them and they are usually very good. Granted not as good as Norfolk State's band. For Basketball, maybe we could team up with a good high school pep band from a local school or combination of schools. Just for extra credit and look good on a resume for college. Maybe do a smaller version of GMU's band. Agree with above, forget our students.
 
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