Running head: SPORTS MARKETING AT UTEP

Sports Marketing at UTEP

Sports Marketing
April Luther
The University of Texas at El Paso
W 7:30 a.m.
Prof. Vierra
October 14, 2015

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Abstract
Sports marketing is a type of marketing that promotes different sports and sporting
events. Not only do they market the sports but they also market the school and the sports that the
university offers. The following report will show examples of the different marketing tool and
techniques that various marketing experts use to effectively market a product or a team. With a
main focus on the University of Texas at El Paso and the athletic department, and sports teams.

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Introduction
Marketing is a very essential part of everyday life of a consumer whether they are aware
of it or not. Marketing is in everything that we see from billboards, television commercials, and
product promotion and its main purpose is to bring attention to a product or service. Sports
marketing is the same in the way that the marketing team is not promoting a good or service, but
an entertainment. Sports marketing is everything done behind the scenes, everything from
booking the venue to advertising and announcing for the game. At to because of the great
attendance at multiple UTEP sporting events).
In this report the following questions are going to be answered:

What types of marketing have been utilized in the past here at UTEP? Was it
effective? Why or why not?

How does UTEP Athletics Marketing department market the different sports
teams? How does the audience differ for each sport?

What are some effective ways to market college sports teams on campus and in
the community? Give examples.

What competitors does UTEP Athletics have to market against and how do they
compete?

In this report the questions above will be answered with a collection of works on the topic of
sports marketing. These works will give examples and research on the topic of Sports Marketing
at UTEP.
What types of marketing have been utilized in the past here at UTEP? Was it effective?
Why or why not?

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There are many different types of marketing strategies that have been utilized on college
campuses nationwide, this paragraph is going to give some examples of marketing techniques
that UTEP has used in the past. UTEP uses local radio stations and television to promote all the
sports teams that UTEP has and when they have games.
Marketing is most commonly known for promoting a product, but at UTEP along with
promoting the university also promotes the sports teams. In a city like El Paso, UTEP Athletics
are very popular so the sports marketing team has many different strategies to successfully
market UTEP sporting events. Sports marketing is done many different ways around the country
there are certain things that are done differently here in El Paso and a UTEP. In every college
town there is a different levels of support from the community and there are many factors that
come into play with that. One of the main reasons teams have a large fan base is because of their
record and how they are doing in the season. Losing teams do not have many fans, and if the
teams record has been bad for years the fans eventually stop coming to support. There is an
exception, if a team or school does not do good there is always what has happened in the past, if
there is a winning history for the school or team there can be some loyal fans. In El Paso we
have some very important sports history. Frank Deford writes about the 1966 Texas Western
(later changed to UTEP) miners, located in the El Paso Texas a small mining college won the
NCAA Basketball tournament. Not only did they go into the season unranked and
underappreciated, but they also had seven African American Americans on their team. There
was still some racial tension in the United States and they were persecuted and tormented. The
Coach of the 1996 Miners was a man named Don Haskins, he coached the miners to a 28-1
season and in the final game he made a bold statement that not only changed the face of college
athletics but it also had a national impact (Deford, 1966). Fitzpatrick adds in the final game

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against the number one ranked team in all of college basketball Kentucky he only played the
African American players. This not only changed the world of sports but it also brought
attention to El Paso (Fitzpatrick, 2003). Later Walt Disney Productions made a movie about the
underdog team and called it Glory Road. This movie was an homage to not only Don Haskins
but also to the town and fans of El Paso. This movie and event are an excellent marketing tool,
this event and movie is used constantly in advertising, and promotions. This year at UTEP is the
50th anniversary of the 1966 Miners NCAA title, and in a press release UTEP announced that
there are a number of events scheduled to pay tribute to the coaches and the players of the 1966
team. This is also given the athletic marketing a chance to begin to advertise for basketball
season, and in anticipation for the anniversary game against Western Kentucky University
(WKU).
How does UTEP Athletics Marketing department market the different sports teams? How
does the audience differ for each sport?
Throughout the sports world there are many fans but for all the different sports there is a
different audience to market too with every sport. Each sport has a different fan base and there
are many different ways to market to them, here at UTEP that is the same. All the sports here at
UTEP have different fans and so they need to be marketed and advertised differently. Like all
the different sports at UTEP they have different audiences and a different way to market each
sport, along with the different audiences to appeal too.
A survey done by a UTEP student athlete asked three questions to 31 other UTEP student
athletes. The questions asked if they knew who their marketing team was, if they knew anyone
on the marketing team and if they knew what one duty of their job was. The outcome of the
survey is pictured below. (Figure.1 pictured below)

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(Figure.1)
With the information listed above in Figure.1 the student athlete population at UTEP for
the most part is aware of who their marketing staff is. About half of the participants knew what
the marketing team dose for their sport and could name one thing that they do for their job. Out
of the 31 student athletes that filled out the survey half or about seventy five percent knew there
marketing team, what they do for their sport, and one thing that a sports marketer does. At UTEP
the marketing team makes themselves known to the athletes and coaches, to help keep them
involved and to help them do their job.
With all the different sports that UTEP offers, there are thousands and thousands of fans
collectively, but not all those fans watch the same sports. There are different ways to market
both womens and mens sports and each individual sport. For example a sport like track or
cross country are very hard to gain a large fan base just because the sport is slow and not very
entertaining to watch. There are many different other sports that are more fast paced and
entertaining to watch. The two larger sports are basketball and football, although the football
team is not very good in the past years, the basketball team is always entertaining to watch.

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Football is one of Americas favorite sports and it is watched nationwide and this makes it easy
to market, especially in Texas. Along with the football team, the basketball team at UTEP with
their rich history and great coaching staff they continue to have winning seasons and produce
National Basketball Association players and numerous professional international players. Both
of these mens sports teams are easy to market because the sports world is male dominated and
most of the attendees are men. The womens sports at UTEP include basketball, volleyball,
soccer, track and field, and rifle. These sports get nowhere as packed as the mens teams, but the
womens basketball, womens volleyball and womens soccer have a large fan base. All of these
sports are easy to market too because in El Paso there are only two professional sports teams and
both of which are not sports that UTEP offers.
Sports Marketers have their own language and when someone endorses a facility, or a
product, sports marketers speak differently than they do in their everyday life. This article
provides an example of a golf course and how the owner wants someone to promote it and
athletes and owners used to think that sports marketers were not as important as we see them
today. Recently, this view has changed as this article suggested that athletes and owners need a
sports marketing team to help promote products, facilities, and events (Marketing Materials and
Intentional Misrepresentation: A Word of Warning for Marketers and Celebrity Athlete Promoters
1992).
Limerick suggests that along with advertising games and events sports marketers first
job is getting people to games. Attracting people to games and making the team well known is a
hard job and some teams have a large group of people working to promote the team and events.
To make this happen, it is necessary to embrace the seminal myth of the West as a place of new
beginnings and of innovation (Limerick 2014, 86).

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What are some effective ways to market college sports teams on campus and in the
community? Give examples.
The effective ways to market sports teams on campus and in the community is to advertise
games and events in accordance with each sports season. Another effective way to market UTEP
sports teams is through word of mouth and team sprit displayed by members of the community.
Social media is a huge contributor to marketing sports teams and events on campus and in the
community. Although the main goal of Athlete Outreach is not to advertise the sport team, it is
another effective tool in marketing sporting events in the community.
Adler mentions how marketing can help the community and those who live in it. Due to
the revenue that the product of the actual purchase can bring to the community
The sports world is expanding to not only professional sports but also to college
campuses. Schools all around the country are turning a profit on University/College sports, and
some of these sports receive more praise than professional sports teams. These findings that
have showed that college sports are becoming more popular in the nation challenged the work of
earlier researchers, who tended to assume that college sports were only for the enjoyment of
college and university students (Athletics and Their Costs: Excerpts from a Revealing New
Report 26. 1993). Also known as sports marketing, sports sponsorship is something that is a very
broad subject, but a summary is that sports sponsorship is all of the behind the scene of the
sports world. Everything from advertising to announcing is done by the sports marketing team.
Marketing in sports is different from marketing or selling products because the enjoyment of
sports is not a tangible object, therefore the marketing strategies are different. In sports you have
to learn to market to a specific audience and age range that watches a certain sport (Institute of
Sports Sponsorship 1999).

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What competitors does UTEP Athletics have to market against and how do they compete?
New Mexico State University (NMSU) is a main competitor because of the close proximity of
the two campuses and can cause conflict for fans. Although UTEP does not have a baseball
team, the Chihuahuas are local competition and can produce scheduling conflicts for baseball
games and UTEP athletic events. The Rhinos compete with the newly added UTEP hockey club
team because they share facilities and fans. The professional football team of preference in Texas
are the Dallas Cowboys, and due to the professional status of the team, they overshadow other
collegiate teams in terms of attention. In El Paso the sports teams at UTEP are looked at as the
professional teams and the athletes are treated like they are professional athletes (in accordance
with all the NCAA rules). Along with being treated like a professional player in a town like El
Paso if anything that athletes do that can have a negative impact on the schools image and the
sport. For example Martinez writes about an incident that happened in 2014 a UTEP volleyball
player accidently killed a foreign exchange student. Although it was an accident it was still a
problem for the school and the volleyball team, media had to control all the press the event was
getting and minimize the exposure to help preserve the life of the student who sadly died and
also protect the volleyball player (Martinez, 2014).
According to the Global Sport Marketing: Contemporary Issues and Practice Journal the
world of sports marketing is only going to expand in the coming years and the position of a
marketing director in the sports world is an in demand job. As sports become bigger all over the
world so does this job so this source is going to help show what to do and what not to do in the
business world. While it was true that sports are becoming more widely loved not only in the
nation but also on college campuses, college sports marketers do not necessarily follow the same
marketing tools and ideas, since the start of sports and sports marketing(Global Sport Marketing:
Contemporary Issues and Practice). In an article in Sports Marketing Quarterly in sports is

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different from marketing or selling products because the enjoyment of sports is not a tangible
object, therefore the marketing strategies are different. In sports you have to learn to market to a
specific audience and age range that watches a certain sport (Sport Marketing Quarterly, 1992).
.
Conclusion
This report has shown examples of the different Marketing techniques that UTEP uses along with
some examples that are giving by various authors utilized. Marketing is something that is all
around you from the billboards you see to the flyers you see around town. Marketing is
something that is done for a good or service that needs to be advertised and shown to a large
number of people. Sports marketing is very similar because it does the same thig it promotes
something, but instead of it being a good or service it is entertainment. There are various
different sports to market and along with those are the different audiences. Each group is
different and requires a different type of attention.

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References
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Baysinger Tim. (2015). Here's what the WNBA is doing to get you to watch its games New
campaign features players on and off court. Retrieved from
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Desbordes, M., Richelieu, A., & Ebooks Corporation. (2012). Global sport marketing. Milton
Park, Abingdon, Oxon; New York: Routledge. Retrieved from
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http://libraryweb.utep.edu/ ereader.php?id=b2588085
Frank Deford. (1966). Go-go with bobby joe. Retrieved from
http://www.utepathletics.com/sports/m-baskbl/archive/041607aad.html
Frank Fitzpatrick. (2003). Texas western's 1966 title left lasting legacy. Retrieved from
http://espn.go.com/classic/s/013101_texas_western_fitzpatrick.html
Leonard Martinez. (2014). UTEP police report states volleyball player was driving distracted
when she struck, killed student in november. Retrieved from
http://www.kvia.com/news/utep-volleyball-player-distracted-while-driving-struck-killedexchange-student-in-midnovember-according-to-report/23294978
Roy Young, Allen Weiss, David Stewart. (2006). Marketing champions. Hoboken, NJ: John
Wifey and Sons.
Sport marketing quarterly. (1992). Retrieved from http://0search.ebscohost.com.lib.utep.edu/direct.asp?db=bth& jid=6VE&scope=site

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UTEP Athletics Press release. (2015). UTEP to celebrate 50th anniversary of NCAA men's
basketball championship
historic 1965-66 miners to be honored at western kentucky game on feb. 6. Retrieved
from http://gloryroad.utep.edu/50th/default.aspx