Unlimited Minutes? No,Unlimited Sports Marketing via Cell Phones and PDA's
Sarah Talalay
Issue date: 11/11/05 Section: Sports
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Black phones with the red ESPN logo will allow fans to customize ESPN content to their favorite teams and columnists. The top-of-the-line version is expected to cost $399, with subscriptions varying depending on the content and minutes supply, said Manish Jha, ESPN Mobile senior vice president and general manager.
In addition to its new three-year $100 million sponsorship deal with T- Mobile, the NBA is working on other partnerships for video highlights and other services for cell phones.
Brenda Spoonemore, NBA senior vice president interactive services, said fans will be able to set their phones to alert them of certain action _ when a player is about to break a record or each time the Heat is up by four points in the fourth quarter, for example.
"Mobile devices are especially well-suited to the NBA," Spoonemoore said. "We have a lot of games, a relatively long season and our fan base is tech savvy. This is better than on-demand content because you don't have to ask for it, it's essentially coming to you on your hip pocket."
SOX STOCK?
The World Series was a ratings bust, and it didn't offer much marketing potential.
"It speaks volumes about this World Series that its most compelling personality isn't a player, it's a manager," Pickett Advertising's Bob Dorfman wrote in his 2005 World Series Sports Marketers Scouting Report. "(White Sox manager Ozzie) Guillen's high energy, irreverence, outrageous mouth and `Venezuela!' shout-outs have endeared him to fans and the media, and will make him the darling of the post-Series talk show circuit."
Dorfman predicts Hispanic marketers will seek out Guillen, and he suggests: "His big mouth could work stateside selling toothpaste or mouthwash."
(c) 2005 South Florida Sun-Sentinel
Distributed by Knight Ridder/Tribune Information Services.
In addition to its new three-year $100 million sponsorship deal with T- Mobile, the NBA is working on other partnerships for video highlights and other services for cell phones.
Brenda Spoonemore, NBA senior vice president interactive services, said fans will be able to set their phones to alert them of certain action _ when a player is about to break a record or each time the Heat is up by four points in the fourth quarter, for example.
"Mobile devices are especially well-suited to the NBA," Spoonemoore said. "We have a lot of games, a relatively long season and our fan base is tech savvy. This is better than on-demand content because you don't have to ask for it, it's essentially coming to you on your hip pocket."
SOX STOCK?
The World Series was a ratings bust, and it didn't offer much marketing potential.
"It speaks volumes about this World Series that its most compelling personality isn't a player, it's a manager," Pickett Advertising's Bob Dorfman wrote in his 2005 World Series Sports Marketers Scouting Report. "(White Sox manager Ozzie) Guillen's high energy, irreverence, outrageous mouth and `Venezuela!' shout-outs have endeared him to fans and the media, and will make him the darling of the post-Series talk show circuit."
Dorfman predicts Hispanic marketers will seek out Guillen, and he suggests: "His big mouth could work stateside selling toothpaste or mouthwash."
(c) 2005 South Florida Sun-Sentinel
Distributed by Knight Ridder/Tribune Information Services.