This week will probably actually take the time where I do a series of posts about the sports/entertainment industry and where it is heading. I am not sure where it will go, but after so much entertainment, and then learning and mastering how you market, merchandise and brand something - I seem to be writing the articles based on the perspective of asking and trying to understand “why?”
Why do people still seem to spend more and more money and receive less for their entertainment dollar?
This weeks posts start out on the way to another football game, where after working NFL, NBA, & NCAA professional sports games. I am getting a small glimpse into European football (what soccer is called outside of the boundaries of the USA). Then i going back through the database notes from all the countries I worked shows in gain better understanding the cultural differences and ways each country works.
The bigger questions will be looking at the rather dramatic changes inside the USA with how life worked for most over the past 50 years and the breakdown of certain social elements that are still working in many other parts of the world. will the world follow the USA? or will the USA simply go back to being more of a two tiered country?
The posts will talk about the financials of sport and entertainment. How valuation of teams that can hemorrhage money and still gain net worth. It is a phenomenon that defies normal business valuation practices.
Another piece might be the stupidity of cities/politicians coddling to teams to build them new churches for sport. "lets just put a tax on any visitor coming to our city who rents a hotel room or a car at the airport! they can pay it!" of course, i should write about the best PT barnum in sports who came up with "seat licenses" which translates to "you can buy a license, that will allow you the right to buy tickets in the future." it was one of the more clever ways to get people to finance a stadium and think they were getting something special by paying more for it.
Should i go back and looking at the history of roman sport and the coliseum with how the politicians kept what a very large population amused by consistently increasing the level of blood and gore to keep the spectators interested. I studied the roman history to get glimpses of how american entertainment would go as the country progressed.
There probably be something on who is purchasing tickets, the “image” of a sports brand or license and what goes on behind the scenes because much like the financial crash in 2008 when the government said companies were too big to prosecute. The brand has so much power that they don’t want reality or truth to tarnish the “image” they are trying to sell.
There are the players themselves and what each is willing or required to do to perform better on the field. Lance Armstrong and the entire Nike/Livestrong story is probably a more common tale than anyone wants to admit. We all tell lies. in gods eyes it is a black and white issue. there are no big or small ones. just lies. With humans, well, we have lies that we rationalize in billions of colors. The brand allows a lot of lies to get dumped into the closet because the brand has to be bigger than the people.
Then there is the social norm of dress and etiquette that really has been lost in America, that I had my eyes opened up to yesterday with the referees walking into the building. Of course, you need to have some social structure for this to work, I always felt Steve jobs created a monster with “I” (tune/pod/pad) helping to speed up the decay of social to individualism and the unwritten mentality that “ you can do anything you want, whenever you want, however you want.” No need to save and work for anything – just get it now.
If anyone reading is a stand up comedian. i would be curious to hear what they felt with the seeming dumbing down of society with reality television and making people with minimal skills ant talent famous. I wonder what those who toiled and spent years working and studying the craft of standup feel about it all?
And yes, all this brings us to the first article, which is about the fan themselves and what has transpired with how being a fan has changed and the higher the ticket prices, the spectator somehow feels entitled to act a bigger idiot.
The more i ramble today. i realize the questions are a very broad topic that covers much. I forgot about naming rights and corporate sponsorships, the boredom of luxury boxes and the fun of getting paid to do something and be on the field and realize the person sitting behind you spent a lot of money to get a seat close to the action.
The irony is it is a limited talent pool that creates sport and entertainment. By having so few people that have such a skill set, they are able to unionize and actually have a tremendous bargaining power in a world where union inside America have for the most part, bitten the hand that fed them. Sports unions don’t have to worry about this phenomenon. I blame society itself for putting the people on pedestals.
Entertainment and sport are small business with the amount of people, but they really are pretty big with the economic impact and
I have 5 different ideas in front of me. Perhaps the key to keeping them distinct and sensible is to write about sport/entertainment stuff all week as a diversion for brainstorm breaks.
Here is an image I like as the train passed along one of the rare graffiti buildings I have saw the last time I took the trip. The sweet elderly woman happened to be sitting in the seat and I hope she doesn’t mind, but it makes for such a nice image.