Horst M.Schellhaass
Introduction
The semi-final match Germany Italy of the Football World Championship 2006 attracted the highest number of viewers since the introduction of TV in Germany.Formula 1 car racing also holds very large audiences.There are some further sports with a regular TV presence,but they are far less popular.Most sports are not presented in TV at all.This observation is not specific to Germany but it applies—with different sports—all over the world.It is the purpose of this contribution to analyse strategies to improve the TV presence of sports.
Marketing of TV sports
Assume you are watching the transmission of a sport you have never seen before or heard about—let's say“one hand cycling”.Even if it is the world championship,it will not be very satisfying.You might understand the most basic rules and remember some athletes'names after 90 minutes,but you will feel no involvement for any of the teams.In the described situation the utility of the match is very low to you as uninformed consumer,so next time you will choose a known programme with a higher expected utility.
TV programmes are experience goods,i.e.it is not possible to evaluate the quality of a programme before having watched it.Normally,the instrument to overcome information asymmetries about quality is reputation.For example,for most consumers the brand name of jeans is sufficient to differentiate between high and low quality.Of course,the buying decision would be more precise if the consumers knew more about the used materials.But even without this knowledge they decide to buy their jeans.
With sports programmes we have a different situation,the conventional reputation mechanism has to be adjusted.If many other people appreciating hockey as a very interesting and exciting sport,this is little motivation for a common consumer to also watch hockey competitions.Without basic knowledge about the rules,the players,the league and the history of famous matches,the viewer will achieve only a very low utility level.The problem is that the potential consumer himself has to invest in sport-specific consumption capital.This might not require a large amount of money but it requires a lot of time—a comparably scarce resource.
Let us take a closer look at the consumption decision.Only a few sports such as figure skating or sailing have an aesthetic value creating an immediate utility from following the athletes,behaviour in television.For the majority of sports the sportive excitement is the dominant motive for watching,though.But to reach a significant level of involvement,a certain amount of basic knowledge or sport-specific“consumption capital”is needed.Because consumption capital is the scarcest resource of any little known sport,strategies for marketing sports in TV should focus on this variable.
Our viewer has the choice of a large variety of TV programmes with more or less common contents.Many of these will definitely generate a higher utility for him than watching a hitherto unknown sport.An interest for the unknown sports programme can only arise if the consumer anticipates that his utility will grow over time making up for his initial utility loss.This is the most critical phase in marketing sports.How can the consumption of a low utility sports programme be assured while higher valued programmes are available?A successful marketing strategy by a TV station must meet several conditions:
Programme planning:
As we cannot expect the consumer to actively search for a new sport,the respective content must come as a surprise to the viewer in the initial phase.
New sports should be integrated into other programmes which already have consumer acceptance.In regional programmes or breakfast TV,e.g.,a new sport can be one of many different topics.
We must always consider that the consumer is not really interested in this sport.Therefore,she will only accept a short summary of the match without switching to an alternative programme.
Channel choice:
The main purpose of an efficient marketing strategy is to reach consumers who did not get in touch with the new content so far.Although a pure sports channel attracts consumers generally interested in sports,a special interest channel is not the efficient way to distribute a new content.It is more promising to use the general purpose stations as distributors:they have a large audience of passive consumers,which is an ideal basis for a successful distribution of new contents.
