Bowling Green State University

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Honors Projects Honors College

Spring 5-27-2017

BGSU Men's Soccer Business Plan

Joseph Sullivan
[email protected]

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 Bowling Green State University
Men’s Soccer Business Proposal

By: Joe Sullivan

Honors Project

Submitted to the Honors College

At Bowling Green State University in partial Fulfillment of the
requirements for graduation with

University Honors May 2017

________________, Advisor
Dr. Christopher Harben, College of Business

________________, Advisor
Mike Cihon, Assistant Director for Athletic Communications

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Executive Summary:
The purpose of this proposal is to closely examine the BGSU Men’s Soccer team and to offer
potential initiatives that the team can take in order to increase fan attendance, brand
awareness, student-athlete performance, and the overall profitability of the team. I have
played on the team for four seasons now and I believe that I have a strong knowledge of the
program as a whole. There are many different initiatives that I believe the team can pursue in
order to create a better program. Each of these initiatives focuses on a specific area that I
believe has room for growth inside of the BGSU Men’s Soccer Program. Furthermore, each
initiative is designed to offer potential solutions to opportunities that I have identified. The first
initiative is to create an online stream of home games that parents and fans can purchase in
order to watch the games that they can’t attend in person. The second initiative is to create an
Instagram and Facebook page for the team in order to increase our social media presence and
grow brand awareness. The third initiative is to post a nutritional guideline in the locker room
that details what players should be eating and drinking throughout the week. The fourth
initiative is to sell BGSU apparel online and at home games to fans in order to increase revenue
and grow awareness. The fifth initiative is to host a Brown and Orange Game that is available
for parents and future recruits on move in day during preseason. Overall, I believe that this
business plan will help to positively affect the BGSU Men’s Soccer Program and will increase the
overall profitability of the team.

Business Description:
The Bowling Green State University Men’s Soccer Team currently has 24 student-athletes on its
roster. Head Coach Eric Nichols and Assistant Coaches Eric Reed and Zach Mason are the
coaches for the BGSU Men’s Soccer Team. This past season, the team went 9-6-4. In the regular
season the team was able to go undefeated in the Mid-American Conference (2-0-3) and
finished second in the MAC regular season standings behind their rival Akron. Furthermore,
they went on to beat perennial powerhouse Ohio State in what was their largest non-
conference victory of the season. The team was also able to qualify for the Mid-American
Conference tournament where they fell to Buffalo in the semi-finals of the tournament in a very
close overtime game.
This team and its players rely heavily on their ability to prepare for a game. This includes mental
and physical preparation. On a regular week, the team will spend around 2 hours watching
game film and performing mental strength exercises in order to have the proper mindset
before the game. After taking care of the mental aspect of the game, the student-athletes must
now prepare their bodies properly. This includes stretching, lifting, hydrating, and eating
properly. If student-athletes on the men’s soccer team eat a well-balanced diet over a long
period of time, then they can expect to see their performance level increase. This is one of the

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largest areas of growth that Head Coach Eric Nichols and his team have been focusing on over
the past few seasons and I believe they can continue to get better at.
Currently, the team spends around 15-20 hours a week together training, lifting, watching film,
and in culture meetings. Student-athletes on the team are also required to complete 12 credit
hours in every semester and carry above a 2.5 GPA to be able to compete in the NCAA. In order
to be able to practice and complete the semester requirements, many student-athletes are
forced to schedule classes that finish right before practice begins. This schedule causes many
student-athletes to go directly from class to the locker room without properly fueling their
bodies. Currently, there are many players within the men’s soccer team that have come to
practice hungry or have not even eaten anything at all. It is essential that this issue be
addressed and solved in order for the team to be able to perform at its full potential. Overall, I
believe that this team operates in a very similar manner to a business and I believe that I can
help apply some business principles that I have learned through BGSU to help improve the
program as a whole.

Initiative Outline:
1.) Stream home games online and charge a season fee along with a single game fee in order to
watch the game, which will help increase revenue and awareness for the team
2.) Create and Instagram and Facebook page which offers inside information on the progress of
the team along with players themselves in order to increase awareness of the BGSU Men’s
Soccer program
3.) Create a nutritional guideline for student-athletes that live on campus and are using meal
plan during the season in order to increase performance levels
4.) Sell BGSU Men’s Soccer Apparel online and at games in order to increase revenue and
awareness for the team
5.) Host a Brown and Orange Game parent social at the beginning of the season in order to
increase the strength of the culture of the team along with creating relationships between the
parents of the student-athletes

Proposals:
1.) Stream home games online:
I believe that streaming home games online next season is one of the largest opportunities that
the team has the ability to capitalize on. When looking at the teams that we play during the
regular season, the majority of these teams, especially in the MAC, offer a stream to the game
on their website. For example, Akron, Western Michigan, and West Virginia all offer a stream to
their home games. It is clear to me that something must be working for these schools to feel

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the need to adopt and continue to use an online stream for their home games. So the questions
must be asked about what benefits can we expect to see from an online stream and how can
we make it work? Well let’s first examine the benefits that the BGSU Men’s Soccer Team can
expect to enjoy if they create an online stream. When looking at the current roster of the team,
it is clear that many players come from all around the world. Over the past few seasons, the
team has had players from countries such as New Zealand, France, Australia, Jamaica, Guam,
and Canada. Parents and friends of these players along with those from players in the United
States that are not within driving distance of BGSU struggle to watch home games due to
traveling issues. Many of these parents and friends have not and will not be able to ever see
one of these home games live. I believe that offering an online stream to home games can be
used as a recruiting tool for future players who come from these types of situations and will
help more parents be able to see their kids play. Not only will it act as another recruiting tool
but it will also drive the awareness of the program up because more people will have access to
watching games.
The second benefit is an increase in revenue from charging people to view the stream. The
large majority of people that will want to watch a men’s college soccer game online are parents
and close friends of the student-athletes competing in the games. Furthermore, many parents
and friends of the opposing team in each home competition will be inclined to want to watch
the stream as well. This is why I believe it is very feasible for people to have enough desire to
watch the game that they wouldn’t mind paying a fair price to view the stream. However, we
have to come up with some sort of pricing mechanism that allows for a season pass to all
games, which is catered for BGSU parents and fans, along with a single game viewing option
that is catered towards the opposing team viewers who only want to watch one game. That is
why I believe the best pricing method that we can offer is a $50 season-pass option along with
a $10 single-game pass option. As previously stated, I believe it to be very possible that a large
number of BGSU parents and fans will be inclined to purchase a season pass and many fans of
the opposing teams will purchase a single game pass. Overall, I expect stream-generated
revenue to be around $2,400 per season. The season pass total of 40 was based off of 10
current families, 10 BGSU soccer fans, and 20 alumni buying the season pass. The single game
pass was based off of an estimated 5 people buying the single game and there being 10 home
games next season. See Figure-1 in the appendix with a visual representation of the revenue
estimates.
Now I want to focus on the question of how to create and maintain an online stream. To
answer this question, I have come up with an interesting approach that I believe will take the
work out of the hands of the staff (who are focused on much more important things on game
days) and put it in the hands of three students at BGSU. What I mean by this is offering three
unpaid internships for current BGSU students. The first two internships would be offered to
computer science, computer/electronic engineering, and visual communications technology
students here at BGSU. The computer interns would be responsible for creating a platform that
allowed for the stream to be accessible and charge money along with making sure the camera,

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internet, and computer are all working appropriately for each game and for actually following
the game with the camera. This means that they will be in the press box each game in order to
make sure that things run smoothly and that the camera is following the play on the field. Not
only will they have a lot more knowledge on how to create a link to an online stream but they
will also be able to provide the equipment needed such as cameras and computers for free. The
third intern would come from the Sports Management Program here at BGSU and would be in
charge of being the announcer of the game and giving play-by-play calls to everyone tuning into
the stream. Overall, I think that this solution is the best because it puts utilizes students who
have more knowledge in these particular areas than those on the staff and it provides them
with the incentive of creating a stronger resume. Furthermore, it cuts the equipment costs of
creating a stream, of which can be extremely expensive, to zero.

2.) Create an Instagram and Facebook Page for the BGSU team
I believe that this is one of the easiest initiatives in this plan but it could also be one of the most
rewarding ones as well. Currently, the BGSU men’s soccer team has a twitter page that has over
2,300 followers and this number continues to grow on a daily basis. So why do so many people
follow our page? I think that the answer is simply that people want to know what is going on
with the team on a regular basis and that they enjoy any updates that are provided. This is a
very exciting number for the team and Coach Nichols continues to promote this page. However,
I think that there is a large opportunity for the program to transition and create a larger social
media presence. It is true without question that social media plays a large role in the modern
day American culture. Students, fans, and parents are very active with social media and this
offers a large opportunity for the program. It is because of this that I believe we need to have a
larger social media presence. In order to create a larger presence, I suggest creating an
Instagram and Facebook page for the team.
On the Instagram page you can post pictures and videos of the team on a regular basis. Fans of
the team are dying to see more of what our team does on a regular basis and Instagram is the
perfect platform for it. For example, there are many times after training sessions that the team
performs some challenging soccer task that would be extremely impressive to show our fans
and followers on Instagram with a video. Another use of Instagram would be posting pictures of
the team at culture meetings, bus rides, inside the locker room, and warming up before games.
These are all valuable opportunities for the BGSU Men’s Soccer team to take advantage of and
increase the overall awareness of the team.
Creating a Facebook page on the other hand will offer what I believe to be a completely
different but also just as valuable opportunity for people who follow BGSU soccer via social
media. The first benefit that I can see comes from utilizing the feature of Facebook Live. When
someone activates Facebook Live they are basically turning their camera phone into a live
stream to anybody online that follows BGSU soccer. This is an amazing feature that Facebook
offers and would allow fans to see a live video of what the team is doing. I could see this

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featuring being used when the team is doing stuff on the road such as going go karting,
warming up before games, or doing other team related activities. The other main benefit that I
see of using Facebook would be the large amount of adults that have Facebook and not an
Instagram or Twitter page. One of the biggest demographics of fans at BGSU Men’s Soccer
home games is the families of the kids that the team helps coach at summer camps. I think it is
quite possible that creating a Facebook page and encouraging the parents whose kids come to
the camps to follow the page could actually increase the amount of fans we get at games from
the camps.
Overall, I believe that creating a Facebook and Instagram page would be extremely beneficial in
growing the social media presence of the team. I also believe that by growing this online
presence we can expect to increase the overall awareness and support of BGSU Men’s Soccer
which will lead to more fans and a larger following of the team. Figure -2 and Figure-3 show the
types of pictures that would be ideal to post online to Instagram and Facebook.

3.) Create a nutritional guideline for players on meal plan to follow

In order to understand this initiative, I think it is first important to talk about the idea of “Iron
Sharpening Iron” or ISI. ISI means that if the person below you and above you on the depth
chart isn’t playing at their absolute best, then the team will never be able to succeed. In a
handout given to the team during a meeting, ISI is discussed when saying, “Team members
must buy in and be a part of the ISI ethos. They must seek out and appreciate the opportunities
to be sharpened by those around them as well the opportunities to sharpen others. Knowing
that the sharper they become, the sharper they will make others, who in turn will make them
sharper.” The BGSU soccer team lives by this idea of ISI and the players and coaching staff have
truly bought into it. They apply the ISI ethos in everything and anything. This ranges from
training, weight lifting, running, and studying. Overall, it is an absolutely critical piece of the
team and I believe there is an opportunity to improve it.
It is no secret that in order to train the best athletes need to fuel their bodies with the essential
amount of vitamins and nutrients. By fueling your body appropriately, you can expect to get
better performances in training and games. On the other side of the spectrum, if you don’t fuel
yourself properly your performances will begin to worsen and your body can deteriorate over
time. I conducted a quick survey of the team and I found that an overwhelming majority of the
team has come to a practice hungry at some point during this year. It is this lack of proper
fueling at times that scares me. How can we fully buy into the iron sharpening iron mentality if
players aren’t fully prepared to train? I think the answer is that we can’t. It is because of this
issue along with the overwhelming amount of data that supports a direct correlation between
what you put in your body and how that affects your performance that I believe we should
create a meal plan that people on campus can follow on a daily basis.
I think that a perfect example of how to fuel soccer players can be found when looking at the
United States Men’s Soccer Team’s guidelines. Their guidelines are to eat 4-6 times a day. These

6
portions are small but spreading them out throughout the day allows for optimal performance.
Furthermore, they say to “eat the rainbow” at each meal. What this means is to eat a wide
variety of fruits and vegetables throughout your meals in order to get all of the proper nutrients
that your body needs. I believe that current players should follow these guidelines along with
drinking an entire gallon of water on a daily basis. However, the actual food that is offered by
BGSU dining services can sometimes hinder this goal.
Keeping these guidelines in mind, I think that it is a good idea to create a list of possible items
that you can get at BGSU’s dining locations in order to increase performance. The main goal of
this list is to offer players an idea of some options that they can buy on campus that are healthy
for them because many players might not fully know what is on all of the menus. The following
is a list of the places that players go the most with options that they can select in order to
properly follow the guidelines mentioned previously.
1.) Chickendipity: Grilled Chicken Wrap that is customizable with what vegetables you can
put inside the wrap coupled with a salad and or fruit
2.) Panda Express: Brown rice bowl with grilled chicken or steak coupled with a salad and or
fruit
3.) Dunkin’ Donuts: Veggie Grande Burrito (tortilla, eggs, rice, beans and vegetables)
coupled with an egg white snack wrap
4.) Steak Escape: Grilled chicken sandwich that is customizable with a large selection of
vegetables coupled with a salad and or fruit
5.) Smokin’ Jalapenos: Grilled chicken bowl coupled with whatever fresh vegetables and
salsas that the player would like
6.) Mondo’s: Grilled chicken or tuna salad sandwich/wrap that is customizable with
vegetable coupled with a salad and or fruit
7.) Salad Bar in the Union: Large grilled chicken salad with vegetables coupled with fruit
Overall, I believe that this list would be really useful for players to have in order to figure out
what meals are the most beneficial for them on campus. It could be a good idea to just pass a
similar list out to the team with whatever other guidelines you want to include. As you can tell,
there is not a very wide selection of healthy options that can be purchased using meal plan so
giving players an idea of what is available could be very beneficial (especially for the new
freshman coming in each year who don’t know what is offered).

4.) Sell BGSU Soccer Gear Online

I believe that there is a large market of BGSU soccer fans. In my opinion the largest market of
these fans resides in the Bowling Green community. These are students who go to games, local
fans, and parents of current players on the roster. However, not only do we have this large
market of fans in the local community, but we also have many fans across the United States.

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These fans range from alumni of the program to parents who live too far away to attend games.
Regardless of where these fans live geographically, I firmly believe that they have a high level of
demand for BGSU soccer gear. This high level of demand leads into two very important
questions. What products do we offer to these fans? And are we doing enough to satisfy the
demand? I believe that there is a large opportunity to improve on both of these questions.
Let’s first look at the current situation of how we are tackling this problem. Currently, the
majority of our gear sales happen at sales tables set up at kid’s soccer camps and home games
during the fall. Parents and fans of the team can go up to these tables and buy BGSU soccer
gear for pretty cheap. Although I believe that this is a great idea and something that we should
continue, I think that there are two problems with it. The first problem with this is that there
are people who want to buy our gear but don’t go to either of these two events. It is very hard
for these types of fans to get their hands on BGSU gear. The second problem that I see is the
actual gear we sell at games. The majority of the gear we offer is cotton t-shirts that have the
BGSU soccer logo on them. The reason that I see this as a problem is that I believe we have an
opportunity to offer more exciting products to our fans. Cotton t-shirts can be our lower end
items still, but I believe we can offer some higher end items as well. Some of these items
include Nike dry-fit shirts, polos, long sleeves, rain jackets, and sweatshirts. So how do we
implement a change like this to our spirit wear sales?
Based on my previous experiences and research, I believe that BSN Sports offers the perfect
solution to this problem. BSN Sports online offers a great selection of gear that can be
customized for any team in a very easy way. Their website can be found at www.bsnsports.com
Under the “My Team Shop” tab on their website, you can easily customize any type of gear that
you want. What this means is putting your own logo, words, and designs on Nike gear. I have
used this website in High School to help develop our own gear and it worked great. They let us
do a lot of the design work ourselves and we were very hands on in the development of the
gear. For our particular gear, we created short sleeve shirts, long sleeve shirts, hats, and
sweatshirts that anybody can buy. Furthermore, the actual purchasing of the gear is easy. All
you have to do is send out a link to the store that you created with your gear and people can
choose what they want and where they want it to be shipped. This solution allows people who
have limited access to BGSU soccer gear to have the ability to get whatever they would like
simply by logging on to a computer. Overall, I believe that this initiative will do two things. The
first is to improve the BGSU soccer brand and image by allowing people to go online to
purchase whatever they would like. The second is that this initiative will increase team revenue.
Due to these two benefits I firmly believe that this is a great option in order to help improve our
program.

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5.) Brown and Orange Game Family Social on Move-In Day
Every year the BGSU soccer team plays in what is known as the Brown and Orange Game during
the preseason. The Brown and Orange Game features everyone on the roster in a game
between the starting players and the reserve team. The Brown and Orange Game is also played
on Cochrane Stadium. This is the first game of the year on the game field and the field always
looks extremely well taken care of at this time of the year. However, in the past this game has
been closed to just the coaching staff and the players. I believe that we have a great
opportunity here to strengthen team culture and the overall experience for both the players
and their families.
I believe that there is a great opportunity to put the Brown and Orange Game on the same date
that the freshman and sophomores move into their dorm rooms. On this day, most of the
underclassmen’s parents are on campus already to help move their sons into their dorm rooms.
I think that this is a perfect day to play the game on because we could open it up to any of the
families that want to come watch the game. Then after the game we can have some sort of
team meal where the players get to interact with the parents of the team and vice versa. This
change could offer several benefits to the players, the parents, and the team as a whole.
The first benefit that I see is in terms of the parents and more specifically the parents of the
new freshman players that have just joined the team. For many of these parents, they have
never seen what a BGSU training session looks like nor have they met any of the other players
on the team along with any of the other parents of the team. By inviting them to watch the
Brown and Orange Game along with a team meal after the game, we are creating relationships
that we haven’t been in the past. This allows for parents and players to get to know each other
in a lot more natural process then running into one another after games throughout the
season. By building these relationships between the coaching staff, players, and parents I
believe we can expect to see an even stronger team culture.
Another large benefit that I see from creating a stronger culture in the method we are is that it
can be used as a recruiting tool. I firmly believe that the parent’s opinion of a school plays a
large role in determining where a recruit decides to commit. As previously stated, I believe that
this event will help to strengthen the culture of the team which is a huge advantage in getting
parents on board with the BGSU Men’s Soccer Program. Furthermore, if we tell prospective
recruits and their families that we have this awesome event at the beginning of each season
then I think this also helps to nudge them in the direction of committing to BGSU. If we tell
people that the BGSU soccer functions like a family, then I think this allows us to practice what
we preach.
Lastly, this remodeled Brown and Orange Game allows the BGSU Men’s Soccer Team to
showcase their amazing facilities. At the beginning of the season, Cochrane Stadium is in
absolutely pristine condition. This presents a great opportunity to really show off how well the
program treats its players and I think would be an ideal situation to invite recruits and their

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families to as well. This could be used as another recruiting tool to help showcase how the
program operates on a regular basis. Overall, I believe this remodeled Brown and Orange Game
offers many benefits to the BGSU Soccer Program as a whole and would be fairly easy to
coordinate.

Appendix:
Figure-1

Figure-2 Figure-3

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