Sports loyalty cards turn fans into team players.
As millionaire athletes and billionaire owners squabble over astronomical contracts, sports fans often end up feeling like third-string quarterbacks, forced to dig ever deeper into their pockets to afford a family outing to the ballpark. What’s a conscientious sports team to do? Hand out fan cards.
With fan loyalty cards, teams can give season ticket holders and other fans product discounts, free merchandise, and other special offers that have them rooting for the home team even when they’re away from the arena. It’s a 21st century extension of the classic “Free fries with your ticket stub” promotion.
Cards also let a team’s marketing partners undertake promotional initiatives infinitely more targeted and interactive than logos on the scoreboard or sponsorship of a shooting contest could ever allow.
One of the biggest reasons for the recent success of fan-card programs, say its supporters, is that it gives fans a sense that their favorite clubs actually care. “Fans think it’s neat that teams are doing something for them,” says Bill Nielsen, director of marketing for fan-loyalty program pioneer AIM Technologies, Austin, TX. “They say, `Players are overpaid, and we spend so much to go to games, what are we really getting from this?'”
Based on the frequent-flyer miles model, the AIM program allows fans to sign up online or at the game for a free membership. At the game, they pick up an ATM-style card that can be swiped at kiosks in the stadium. Fans earn points each time they attend a game or team-related event, which entitles them to prizes and products such as free sodas, game tickets, team jerseys, memorabilia, and meetings with favorite players. The number of kiosks varies by market. (The San Antonio Spurs, for example, installed 20 kiosks around their arena.) Each arrangement differs, but AIM generally handles 75 percent of sponsorship recruitment in each market.
AIM first launched its Fan Card program for Minor League Baseball teams in 1996, and now services more than 65 teams in six professional sports leagues – baseball, football, hockey, basketball, women’s basketball, and soccer, as well as NCAA sports such as baseball and basketball. AIM’s first professional sports program was designed for the Oakland A’s in 1998, and along with the San Antonio Spurs program, that remains one of the company’s largest with more than 50,000 members.
“The enrollment questionnaires ask basic marketing questions, which the teams can use to enhance the fans’ experience,” says Nielsen. “The Spurs asked fans what their favorite part of the game was: the cheerleaders, the halftime show. The Coyote mascot won, which prompted them to use the mascot more and offer marketers [a chance] to incorporate the mascot into their own programs.”
Although it may seem high-tech from the outside, AIM fancies itself a grassroots connection to fans. “The program is geared more to your general sports fan. Corporate ticket holders (who spend big bucks to wine and dine clients in luxury boxes) “usually aren’t interested,” says Nielsen. And for those who think sports marketing equals males, “Our users are about 40 percent female across the board,” he adds.
Through the kiosks, sponsors can run full video spots or use billboard ads. “Different ads can target different users. The father can put in his card and see an ad for Coke; the mother sees Diet Coke, and the kids can see Surge,” Nielsen says.
“The biggest advantage of AIM is that sports marketing never had any hard data before,” he adds. “You can take clipboard surveys, but that never yields more than a few hundred responses at a time. With us, you can run polls across several different sports and get thousands of responses.”
Costs vary by team. Most deals are revenue splits, with AIM and teams divvying up the take from the sponsorships. For marketing partners, the cost can be as low as $2,500 for a single sponsorship of a minor league event, or as high as $1 million for a one-year sponsorship of Major League Baseball.
SLAM DUNKS
“One of the great concepts of this program is that you find out what fans like to do,” says San Antonio Spurs vp-marketing Bruce Guthry. “This is more of a rifle than a shotgun approach – you can get very targeted.” San Antonio began working with AIM in 1999. The team’s program, sponsored by telecommunications company Southwestern Bell, has three levels: an MVP club for season-ticket holders, a Spurs Rewards club for any attendee, and an All-Star club for children 15 and younger.
“Our first year, we were a little nervous about the [1998] player lock-out, and we were hoping for maybe 15,000 sign-ups,” says Guthry. “More than 30,000 signed up – although that was our championship season.” This past season, the program boasted more than 55,000 participants.
“It’s amazing how excited fans are about the experience,” says Guthry. “We get everyone from 10-year-olds to the ceo of a downtown San Antonio bank who can’t wait to get a Tim Duncan pin.”
The Spurs also use the program for specialty marketing. A promo for the Big Six – a late-season, six-game package against top teams – generated $40,000 worth of ticket sales. Using the database gained through that promotion, the Spurs launched a campaign for playoff tickets that generated $60,000 in sales. A separate direct-mail effort for a promotion featuring former World Wrestling Federation star Shawn Michaels (a Spurs season ticket holder) sold 500 tickets.
The biggest problem for the Spurs? “Every year, you have to be creative and keep it fresh for the fans,” says Guthry. “It’s also very labor intensive. You have to have people collecting the data and manning the concession booths to redeem.”
Frito-Lay brand Cracker Jack, Plano, TX, is a new AIM client, sponsoring fan cards with Minor League Baseball teams. “Cracker Jack has a very strong tradition in baseball, but we’ve gotten away from it,” says product manager Kevin Pate. “We’re using AIM to get retied to baseball.”
Cracker Jack sponsors the Catch The Baseball Bug Sweepstakes, which gives away a Volkswagen Beetle decked out as a baseball. “It seems like a perfect partnership,” says Pate. “Targeting the minor leagues is a good grassroots way to get back into baseball.”
Daily newspaper The Dallas Morning News has teamed with AIM and the Southwest Group, which owns baseball’s Texas Rangers, basketball’s Dallas Mavericks, and hockey’s Dallas Stars, on a card program that ties the three teams together.
“We’ve thought about doing loyalty-card programs on our own, but we realized there’s just no passion in it,” says vp-marketing Kate Rose Murphy. “With a sports tie-in, the consumers do get passionate, and the teams that perform well for us are the ones who market well.”
The newspaper was looking for a program that went beyond run-of-the-mill advertising. “In this market, we’re the 800-pound gorilla,” says Murphy. “Title sponsorships don’t do much for us. Fan cards work because everyone loves free stuff, and we get [to ask] a percentage of the questions asked to all participants. Once you sign up, we can tailor our offer to your interests.”
Of course, the success of a fan card program can often depend on the market and team in question. A self-described “baseball town” with a contending team will produce more enthusiasm than a city in which the sport isn’t as popular. And a winning team always brings out more supporters than an also-ran.
But such programs work overall because they return some power to the fan, who often feels like he’s coming in last place.
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