Okay, here's something more for you all that completely supports the topic of "tournament promoters: best practices." The thread below is extracted from something I posted on the Foosball Board a couple months back (in response to a question from Matt Pettinato) that I believe is very thorough, informative and useful to promoters, tournament directors and even players. Note: Due to the length of the thread, I'll split this into two back-to-back posts here:
mattpet
Location: Watertown, MA
Posted: Wed Apr 22, 2009 3:28 am Post subject: Promotion Ideas
I am trying to think of ways to work with companies to get them to give away products/prizes (good products) at our local foosball tournaments. In return they can advertise and promote there product. Anyone know where I can start or have any ideas of what I can try?
thanks,
Matt Pettinato
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vswanson
Posted: Sat Apr 25, 2009 3:38 pm Post subject:
Energy drinks?
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qfoos
Location: Washington, DC
Posted: Tue Apr 28, 2009 12:30 am Post subject: Promotions
Matt,
I was hoping someone else would start up a good response thread on this, but I can’t stand it anymore. Vswanson at least replied, but the answer “energy drinks?” was pretty incomplete. So, I’ll expand on that and give you some of my best techniques, all of which I’ve tried and found successful in the past. Many who read this board will have read or heard me discuss these same ideas countless times over the years. But whether you’ve heard this before or not, perhaps reading it though here, and now, will help you to think things differently, in a whole new way…
First of all, whether you’re a player seeking individual sponsorship or a promoter seeking tournament sponsorship, you actually have to provide potential sponsors with something of value in return. The idea that businesses should just give away their cash or products solely as “advertisement” or “promotion” of their product at your tournament makes zero business sense, especially in the current economically constrained environment. They need to gain favorable, if not substantial return on investment. That means a whole lot more than “give me money and I’ll wear your logo on my shirt and by the way give me the shirt too” or “give me a car as grand prize and I’ll let you put up banners at my tournament and by the way, be sure to send about ten supermodels to stand around the car for three days too.” And the famous assumption that businesses can “write it all off as an advertising expense” is false. It’s only a deduction from gross income and as such it only reduces net taxes paid by a percentage of the total expense deducted (about 10 to 20%), not all of it. Besides, there are just too many sports and charities competing for advertising, promotion or donation dollars. So you need to begin with what you have to offer a business that may be of favorable value. There are a couple ways to approach this:
1. What most businesses want more than anything is a) publicity/exposure (read: press coverage), and/or b) increased favorable visibility in their communities (read: charity involvement and more press coverage). If either or both of the above are focused on the specific target audience for their product/service and/or can drive potential sales traffic towards their point-of-sale locations, that’s all the better.
In most cases, your local weeknight tournaments don’t fit the bill. Leagues usually do better in attracting sponsors in connection with sponsorship of teams that play weekly at various locations, much like darts leagues. But where most all of the above applies best is at State Championship and above type tournaments. Then it actually becomes so easy I still don’t know why a whole lot more promoters don’t do it. In fact, most of the work for tournaments of that size can be done for you for free – all you have to do is ask. Ask who? Ask your local Convention and Visitors Bureaus and/or Sports Authorities. It’s their job to help you find the ideal tournament venues at little or no cost (or even get potential venues to bid to have your event at their location). In some cases, the CVB/SAs will themselves bid to host your event in their towns (they have budgets specifically for that which are generated by hotel sales tax revenues). It’s their job to ensure your host hotel provides you with comp’d rooms, a share of concession revenues, and/or cash up front from travel agency booking fee rebates. And it’s their job to ensure your tournament gains maximum exposure in local media and to connect you with likely and/or interested potential sponsors and charities. And of course charitable involvement attracts media and more media exposure means more sponsors getting greater return on investment and more benefit to charities, and all the while you’re gaining more favorable publicity for your own event. It’s a symbiotic relationship that can ultimately trickle down to your weeknight events as well in terms of increasing public awareness of our sport and expanding your local player base.
As far as what those businesses contacted by the CVB/SAs can provide, it could be anything from grand prizes for your tournament prize fund (ex: ATVs from outdoor recreation stores, 3-5 day resort weekends/cruise packages from travel agencies, gift certificates, etc) or similar prizes to be raffled off at your tournament with all proceeds going to the charity you’ve involved. Good for the business, good for the charity, good for the media, good for your event and good for the sport. (Note that businesses get a different type of deduction – sometimes more advantageous – if their products/services are donated as charitable contributions…)
When approaching a CVB/SA, you’ll need to be prepared to talk business right away. They’ll need to know the square footage required, estimated number of attendees & staff, estimated number of room nights, any staging/technical requirements, media coverage requests and more. Essentially, they’ll ask you for a Request for Proposal (RFP) that details most all of that. Many can provide a format for RFPs, but there’s a good template on the USTSF website (
www.ustsf.org) that already lists the key information needed for state-level and above tournaments in the Regional and State Directors information section:
http://ustsf.foosball.com/Documents/Organization/RegionalAndStateDirectors/USTSF%20FOOS%.
There’s also a good USTSF “Foos Data Fact Sheet” on the same page of the USTSF website that can help to inform potential individual or event sponsors or media about our sport, and of course there’s plenty of press releases on the USTSF website that you can use as a format for the CVB to distribute to media.
2. What many businesses alternatively want in return is services in kind. It’s in this area the players seeking individual or team league and tour sponsorships can succeed the easiest, but it may be used to provide a few smaller giveaways for local tournaments as well. And it’s how most players – novice and pro alike – found sponsorships during the 1970s T.S. Million Dollar Tour. So what do I mean by services in kind? Well this is where you want to work with the types of businesses that might have some connection to table soccer – coin-op distributors, coin-op route operators or sports bars, home-model retailers; indoor soccer arenas, pro soccer teams, soccer specialty stores, sporting goods distributors, sporting goods stores (anyone from Sportmart to Sears), etc, etc. What can you offer them? Mostly its about two things, a) sales-promo demos, and b) product maintenance/repairs/reconditioning. If you’re a fairly friendly, sociable kind of person, you can conduct sales demos and “beat the pro” demos everywhere from coin-op distributors’ semi-annual open houses to operators’ locations (which could vary from sports bars & billiard halls to bowling alleys, student unions, video arcades and family recreation centers) and from soccer team challenge matches to Sears sporting goods department Christmas clearance sales. (While you’re at it, be sure to teach their staffs how to assemble tables correctly in the first place – nothing worse than walking into Dick’s Sporting Goods during a Christmas rush and all their display tables are set up facing the wrong way and there’s no silicone on the rods.) Or you can, on behalf of distributors, teach their operators how to better maintain their tables on location to maximize revenues and/or teach them how to run leagues in their locations. Or you can run leagues for them, or teach them to recondition their tables for longer life (or do it for them). Or do any of these for sports bars where tournaments are run.
In all cases, such businesses can donate tour sponsorships/package deals, promo items (hats, shirts, stickers, keychains, misc), gift certificates, bar tabs and much more to you or your local tournament. And I should say that here is where vswanson’s suggestion of “energy drinks?” might fit in. That is, if you’re running your tournament at a sports bar and say, Red Bull is sold there, you wouldn’t go to Red Bull corporate marketing but rather, to the local distributor that’s supplying your sports bar. Much as noted above, you can provide them with pro demos at any or all of their area locations that have foosball (or perhaps at area soccer or tradeshow events) and like the Red Bull Girls (or maybe together with them .) you would simply give out t-shirts, hats, key chains, stickers, and Red Bull samples to all challengers in exchange for sponsorships or at least like items to give away at your local DYPs. The distributor gets a unique promotional value in return (in addition to their banners at your tournament, logos on fliers, and/or the press exposure you and/or the CVB can provide in connection with your larger tournaments), while through participation in their events you get additional exposure for the sport thanks to the sponsor's public relations people -- and added value/giveaways for your local tournaments.
(Continued in next immediately following post -- please read on...)
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