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Introducing SBJ Football with Ben Fischer


Welcome to the first edition of SBJ Football! Glad to have you reading. It’s been a busy week for me: Launching this newsletter, narrowly beating my wife Mandy in a fantasy league matchup (because she has Antonio Brown), and today I’m apartment hunting in Brooklyn as we return to NYC. Thoughts and prayers, please.

 

NFL OFFERS MORE HELP TO CLUB MARKETING

  • A soup-to-nuts revamp of the NFL's marketing department continues, as CMO Tim Ellis, now in his second season, has brought on Taryn Hutt -- a former colleague from his days at Activision Blizzard -- as senior director of club marketing. It's noteworthy that Ellis is bringing in someone with a gaming-community mindset, and it also shows that the league wants to improve its collaboration with teams. Hutt will be a liaison between league-level marketers -- often focused on big brand initiatives -- and clubs, where the work is more about this weekend’s turnstile and tomorrow’s activations. Insiders say there’s a lot to be gained by making those conversations a regular thing.

  • The NFL’s club business development division has been aiding teams for years, but this is an interesting expansion of the concept. At HQ, Hutt will work with both Ellis' marketing team and club business development’s account managers, who are assigned directly to teams. One source speculated that others inside the league's Park Avenue offices are seeing how effective the division has been and want to have more of that back-and-forth with the teams in their own offices.

  • Along these lines, the NFL has bought a license to software that will be given to each team to help them recruit and hire local influencers. Social marketing experts say it probably will identify the most popular and demographically desirable social celebrities in each market. Clubs can use that data to hire influencers, ideally turning them into boosters. Look at what the Chargers have done with YouTube star Blake Wynn as an example.



DOLPHINS' REBUILDING PLANS NOT WITHOUT RISK

Most fans had left Hard Rock Stadium by the end of the Dolphins' 59-10 loss to the Ravens
  • In a Week 1 full of wild storylines, the Dolphins’ dilemma after losing 59-10 to the Ravens stood out. In December, owner Stephen Ross said the team would go into an extended rebuild -- meaning a new front office structure, new coach and revamped roster. Fans in South Florida welcomed it -- they don’t like perpetual mediocrity. Success stories like the Astros and 76ers in other sports have made “rebuilds” more palatable.

  • Will this rebuild strategy work in the NFL? A lot of smart people say "trusting the process'" is extra risky in a sport with just eight home games and so few chances to give fans a reason to get behind the team. Miami Herald columnist Armando Salguero: "The same fan base that was cheering the strategy to tank this season up until a few days ago was also booing the team after only two offensive series.”

  • What does a team market when there’s not much to sell? “Hope,” said former Eagles and Browns exec Joe Banner, who also referenced incentives and lower ticket prices. “The hook is, ‘We’re going to be really good, and by the time we get good, you may not be able to get in.'" Sunday’s game at Hard Rock Stadium was technically sold out, and the Dolphins have booked the overwhelming majority of premium seats and sponsorships. But no-shows are going to be a problem without some wins. “They’re generating parking revenue, concession revenue -- hopefully merchandise revenue -- so even if you’re sold out, there’s a series of revenues that are immediately going to be affected,” Banner said.

  • Insiders think the Dolphins are well insulated thanks to the efforts of CEO Tom Garfinkel. This is a business side that is known to be among the smartest in the league, from using advanced data to set prices to maximizing effectiveness in the sales department. The attendance decline will sting, but the Dolphins enter this rebuild from a position of strength.

  • Coping tactics will probably include delaying the season-ticket renewal cycle until after the 2020 NFL Draft. Hosting this season's Super Bowl will help. But there’s still risk, Banner said, because the Dolphins are cutting deeper than other rebuilding teams have. Disillusion and apathy don’t take long to set in if you’re totally noncompetitive, and the team will have to find ways to stay relevant in the Miami-area zeitgeist.

 

RAIDERS FANS BRING IN FINAL SEASON IN OAKLAND

Manuel Villa Sr. (l), Mike Nino (c), and an unidentified friend pose before the Raiders’ "MNF" win
  • I spent Monday afternoon in the parking lot of RingCentral Coliseum, chatting with Raiders fans tailgating ahead of what was likely the final "Monday Night Football" game at the Oakland venue. Over and over again, I was struck by two things: 1) How much they’re taking the relocation to Las Vegas in stride; 2) How few hard feelings there are.

  • “Business is business,” said 23-year-old Juan Chavez of Salinas. Rob Gonzales, 35, of Sacramento, matter-of-factly noted owner Mark Davis’ relative lack of wealth compared to other NFL owners. “He probably needs [the new Vegas stadium],” he said. If they blamed anyone, they blame Oakland politicians, not the team or the NFL, and every fan said they’d at least try to get to Vegas for Raiders games.

  • Manuel Villa Sr., a season-ticket holder from Riverside, said he’ll also go to Vegas, where they know what awaits: A shiny new stadium where the bathrooms don’t overflow, the concourses are wide and there’s WiFi. But the venue just won’t be the same as the Coliseum. “We go to road games, and we see the other stadiums and say, ‘oh wow, this is nice,’” Villa said. “At the same time, you love this place. You love everything that comes with it, the tailgating, the costumes, the camaraderie.” 

 

 

A LOOK AT NFL 100: SHIFTING THE LEAGUE MAP

  • Each week in this space, we'll take a look a piece of history around NFL 100, the celebratory effort going on all year as the league hits its 100th season. My experience tailgating this week with Raiders' fans got me thinking about a piece by Erik Spanberg in SBJ about franchise relocation and expansion. The relocation game began in the 1920s, when the Decatur Staleys moved from central Illinois to Chicago and became the Bears. Since that time, Spanberg noted, some relocations have worked out better than others.

 

SPEED READS

  • Never underestimate the power of a great moustache. Jaguars QB Nick Foles got injured early in Week 1, and in stepped rookie Gardner Minshew II. After an impressive showing in relief, the Jags quickly sold out of men’s jerseys for Minshew, forcing Fanatics to hustle and get more in stock for Jacksonville fans.

  • 5% TV viewership increase for the NFL after Week 1 was a great way to kick off the season. The high-profile windows saw gains, despite some blowouts. All of this is music to the ears of NFL execs, with league media rights coming to market soon. Looking at Week 2, Fox gets an NFC Championship rematch in the Sunday national window (Saints-Rams). The New Orleans market showed it was ready for football in Week 1, drawing a 56.2 local rating for "Monday Night Football." The Browns also get their first primetime test of the season on Monday night -- albeit against a Jets team without QB Sam Darnold. Still, the Browns' blowout loss in Week 1, part of CBS' singleheader, drew a 35.4 rating in Cleveland-Akron, so the enthusiasm is clearly high in northeast Ohio. 
     
  • This piece on the Chargers' plans for suite owners by Forbes' Michael LoRé is worth a click. The team, set to move into the new Inglewood stadium next year, will offer a premium membership program called Chargers LUX, which "connects suite owners to the Los Angeles lifestyle through exclusive access to high-end hospitality, business and entertainment benefits year round."

  • Facebook renewed with the NFL for two more years on Thursday, and that got me thinking about a Q&A I did with Commissioner Roger Goodell, when he told me he sees media as a co-equal leg of the league's international strategy, alongside games and partnerships. Facebook exec Rob Shaw also has said the NFL sees a lot of traction with groups on the platform in the U.K. and Germany. Makes me think: Do we pay too much attention to four games in the U.K. every season, and not nearly enough to how often Germans take to Facebook to debate American football?
Goodell emphasized the media angle for international growth during a chat at NFL HQ

 

 

Enjoying this newsletter? We've got more! Check out SBJ College with Michael Smith on Tuesdays and Thursdays, and SBJ Media with John Ourand on Mondays and Wednesdays.

Something on the football beat catch your eye? Tell us about it. Reach out to either me (bfischer@sportsbusinessjournal.com) or Austin Karp (akarp@sportsbusinessjournal.com) and we'll share the best of it. Also contributing to this newsletter is Thomas Leary (tleary@sportsbusinessdaily.com).