Mark Cuban on attendance drivers

[jdennis82]

It's a pretty lengthy blog post after he attended an SMU hoops game a couple weeks ago but he makes some interesting points that can be applied to NT attendance concerns. Here's the link...

http://blogmaverick.com/2014/02/23/my-2-cents-on-sports-marketing-and-what-i-learned-from-smu-basketball-this-week/

If you've ever heard or read Cuban's thoughts on the topic, you already know that he's against trying to incorporate social media (specifically phone use) at a live event. His position is that people attend such events to have an experience and will gladly ignore their phone (maybe aside from taking pictures to document the experience) for several hours if they're in the process of creating memories.

He offers several guidelines:

1. Know where your team is in their “lifecycle”

There's a momentum at NT right now that must be capitalized on.

2. Know who your long time fans/customers are.

We all have varying opinions on how well NT does this, but I have always felt appreciated appropriately given my level financial commitment (not nearly as much as many on this board). I also think they're improving in this area simply by engaging more frequently with this forum.

3. Price to the market, not to maximize revenue.

I've always thought ticket prices were more than reasonable and think there are plenty of options available to accomodate various financial situations.

4. Fans buy tickets where they like to buy them

Probably my biggest frustration with the AD is the difficulty of completing the ticket purchase process online. It's not easy and I can only speak for myself but 2 yrs ago as we were all anticipating Tony Mitchell's run to position himself in the top 5 of the NBA draft, I was up watching Midnight Madness on ESPN and hopped online to make an impulse purchase of NT season tickets even though I hadn't really planned to since it's hard to make the trip to Denton for many mid-week games. After working through the website for at least 30 mins, I wasn't able to make the purchase and resorted to sending an email to the ticket office through the site. I still haven't received a reply from that email and never followed up with the impulse purchase. So, while this only represents 2 basketball tickets for one season, I can't help but wonder if the AD is similarly missing out with other casual (or even not so casual) fans.

5. Selling is the most important job at a team

Hearing the AD announce that there are 600 more "accounts" for season tickets is both encouraging and likely strategic on their part. I wonder if those "accounts" include those who purchased tickets through the office for the HOD bowl. Hopefully, they're attitude is that those are season ticket accounts just waiting to be sold.

6. Spend money on fun.

In general, his thought is to make sure fans leave having had a good time - win or lose. One of his ideas means catering to children in a way that allows their parents to leave having watched their kids experience too much fun to not return. That's why I've long hoped an alliance could be established between NT and the local youth sports leagues. As I've posted elsewhere, if pee-wee football players get to visit the lockeroom or get on the field of a 30k seat stadium, that's lasting. In fact, I'd love to see this worked into the Spring Game. Those youth football leagues would LOVE to have reason to maintain spring contact with their families. Why not let them experience NT football and then see if the kids can become free sales staff begging their parents to come back to Apogee in the fall?

Edited March 6, 2014 by jdennis82

[NorthTexan95]

Great info and definitely worth a read of the link.

[ragpicker]

It's a pretty lengthy blog post after he attended an SMU hoops game a couple weeks ago but he makes some interesting points that can be applied to NT attendance concerns. Here's the link...

http://blogmaverick.com/2014/02/23/my-2-cents-on-sports-marketing-and-what-i-learned-from-smu-basketball-this-week/

If you've ever heard or read Cuban's thoughts on the topic, you already know that he's against trying to incorporate social media (specifically phone use) at a live event. His position is that people attend such events to have an experience and will gladly ignore their phone (maybe aside from taking pictures to document the experience) for several hours if they're in the process of creating memories.

Very good points. I would also add (especially in our case) knowing how to direct your fans to games in the most efficient manner. For example, many Mav fans use TRE to come to games from Ft. Worth and stops in between. We have a location problem that has nothing to do with distance and everything to do with traffic congestion which makes coming to Denton from Dallas and back again very frustrating. I have said it before, but we need to utilize the A Train more efficiently. A good place to start would be the SMU game next year. That option needs to be aggressively promoted prior to that game for SMU and UNT fans alike. And for heavens sake, have the shuttle available when the train arrives.

He offers several guidelines:

1. Know where your team is in their “lifecycle”

There's a momentum at NT right now that must be capitalized on.

2. Know who your long time fans/customers are.

We all have varying opinions on how well NT does this, but I have always felt appreciated appropriately given my level financial commitment (not nearly as much as many on this board). I also think they're improving in this area simply by engaging more frequently with this forum.

3. Price to the market, not to maximize revenue.

I've always thought ticket prices were more than reasonable and think there are plenty of options available to accomodate various financial situations.

4. Fans buy tickets where they like to buy them

Probably my biggest frustration with the AD is the difficulty of completing the ticket purchase process online. It's not easy and I can only speak for myself but 2 yrs ago as we were all anticipating Tony Mitchell's run to position himself in the top 5 of the NBA draft, I was up watching Midnight Madness on ESPN and hopped online to make an impulse purchase of NT season tickets even though I hadn't really planned to since it's hard to make the trip to Denton for many mid-week games. After working through the website for at least 30 mins, I wasn't able to make the purchase and resorted to sending an email to the ticket office through the site. I still haven't received a reply from that email and never followed up with the impulse purchase. So, while this only represents 2 basketball tickets for one season, I can't help but wonder if the AD is similarly missing out with other casual (or even not so casual) fans.

5. Selling is the most important job at a team

Hearing the AD announce that there are 600 more "accounts" for season tickets is both encouraging and likely strategic on their part. I wonder if those "accounts" include those who purchased tickets through the office for the HOD bowl. Hopefully, they're attitude is that those are season ticket accounts just waiting to be sold.

6. Spend money on fun.

In general, his thought is to make sure fans leave having had a good time - win or lose. One of his ideas means catering to children in a way that allows their parents to leave having watched their kids experience too much fun to not return. That's why I've long hoped an alliance could be established between NT and the local youth sports leagues. As I've posted elsewhere, if pee-wee football players get to visit the lockeroom or get on the field of a 30k seat stadium, that's lasting. In fact, I'd love to see this worked into the Spring Game. Those youth football leagues would LOVE to have reason to maintain spring contact with their families. Why not let them experience NT football and then see if the kids can become free sales staff begging their parents to come back to Apogee in the fall?