Fan
Plans To Build Attendance,
Sustain Sell Outs, Increase Revenues
- Fan Plan components and approach
- Specific Components
- Additional Parts of an Anntendance and Gate Revenue
- Bottom Line Reminder
Fan Plan Components and Approach
We can help develop the components and approach of a successful Fan Plan:
- Increasing Attendance and Gate Revenue
- PR
- Generating Fan Excitement
- Attendance Building Strategies Goals
- Increase season ticket sales
- Increase regular season game attendance
- Generate Greater Recognition of the team as the Community’s Team
- Create “in” status to wear team caps, jackets, gear
- Create increase in Team clothing sales $250,000 to $500,000
- Enable wearing at least a Team cap as something “everyone” does
- Specific programs for increasing attendance
- Strategy of frequent presentations to civic organizations
- Strategy and plan to offer discount ticket prices in every back to school packet
- Include extensive Internet and Email strategies
- See Business Development PR Strategies
- See Internet Strategies
Successful Fan Plans Consider including:
- Rallying the citizenry across the City,
State and Region around the Team.
- Dispelling the false belief that any team
only belongs to the fans who attend games at stadiums. Many millions
watch nation wide and world wide on broadcast/cable/satellite
TV, listen on radio, and read about them in the newspapers and
in magazines, all of whom join together with the team around the
world, throughout the week, in front of the TV, at the water cooler,
at the lunch wagon, in the fields, on the docks, in the dorm rooms,
at breaks between school classes, around the breakfast table,
on any break, to talk about their favorite team, players, and
plays, and the upcoming games, and share the joy with each other
that the team brings.
- Recognizing that the stadium is the Team’s
stage beamed worldwide.
- Recognizing and building on the fact that
the team brings needed enjoyment and enchantment to fans.
- Doing more to bring women into the fan
base: home games provide opportunities for women to enjoy football,
as they move beyond the "soft side of Sears" to the
"tool" side, in terms of both enjoyment of the game
and camaraderie with fellow women fans, as well as provide them
with a greater understanding of an experience enjoyed by their
fathers, brothers, boy friends, husbands, and sons.
- Bonding team and community: home games
also provide all fans with one of the few places left where any
fan can engage in bonding with others, which takes place either
at the game, before the TV set, in reading the same newspaper
and magazine pieces, or in discussing it with others anywhere,
anytime, any how.
- Being enchanted at home games, fans gather
by the tens of thousands to sing, dance, sway, do the wave, and
get carried away with the enchantment of it all. When the Mets
won their last championship series game in NYC 2000, before moving
on to Atlanta and defeat, the fans stood for 15 minutes, singing
and celebrating and enjoying the moment. The Fan Plan is to build
on this kind of fan experience.
- Positioning the Team to serve as a great
collective choir director, as the citizens of the state and region
join in the chorus to sing and dance and feel, if only for that
moment and in the subsequent moments when the memory is recalled,
an enchantment of life, transcending the ordinary everydayness
of life.
- Positioning the Team to serve as a rallying
cry around which diverse people find a common point on which to
enjoy, and through which they find another point of meaning and
excitement in the shared community of fandom.
Other
Potential Components of Fan Plan Programs
Fan Plans and their components will be based on the needs and desires
to develop strong and lasting connections with the community, service
organizations, and schools in order to make it happen. Helpful will
be to do research into other team activities in their communities.
Interviews need to be held with owners, coaches, staff, and players,
to get their stories, take their pictures, and develop solid media
kits.
- And example of a Fan Plan is the "Hero
Days at the Stadium Program" of the Heroes and Dreams Foundation.
- Targeted give aways: bobble heads and/or
playing cards (1st 5,000 through turnstiles,
10,000, to be determined) - Recognition ceremony for everyday heroes selected for that game
- 2-4 home games (more if desired)
- Playing cards. Give away a unique
set that introduces the community to everyday heroes, 52 in
all, which would be changed each year as the community selects those to be honored - Bobblehead giveaway, along with other merchandize sales promotions.
- The program can be extended into "Hero
Days in the community."
- Targeted give aways: bobble heads and/or
playing cards (1st 5,000 through turnstiles,
- Outreach to families and adults through kids in school and youth football: tens of thousands of kids attend K-12, and many play in youth football leagues, such as Pop Warner and Boys and Girls Clubs. They can be reached through packets given them through their "Back to School" folders.
Additional parts to consider to develop an attendance building strategy
- Generating partnerships and alliances with
other businesses for the Hero Program.
- Make the web site a portal to a world of
fun, entertainment, and spending options
- Conduct, as needed, a “charm offensive”
to minimize negative perceptions
- Target 2 presentations/week for five months
prior to he season (40 presentations) to civic organizations
- Game day golf clinics
- Fishing tournaments.
Bottom
Line Reminder
Failure to aggressively engage in an a “win the hearts of
the fans” PR campaign canresult in the LOSS of opportunity
revenues, including not only ticket and merchandise revenues but
also the even greater loss of potential local revenues as seen in
40 Revenue Streams in 26 (mostly locall revenue) Categories. Credibility
and appearance are everything and a Fan Plan following the guidelines
of this site can result in huge revenue increases. Not following
them can result in stagnant revenue or revenue losses.
Using modest numbers (highest NFL ticket prices are $75 each), we can see from these numbers using $35 as the average ticket prices, what the gains and what the losses can be for a successful Fan Plan or unsuccessful one:
| Potential Revenue Gains [or losses] from these increases [or not] in attendance | ||||||||
| More Fans | 1,000 | 2,000 | 5,000 | 10,000 | 15,000 | 20,000 | 35,000 | 45,000 |
| Single home
game (Avg $35/ticket) |
$35,000 | $70,000 | $175,000 | $350,000 | $525,000 | $700,000 | $1,225,000 | $1,575,000 |
| Season of 10 home games | $350,000 | $700,000 | $1,750,000 | $3,500,000 | $5,250,000 | $7,000,000 | $12,250,000 | $15,750,000 |
| Potential Revenue Gains [or losses] based on Family of Four Spending $200/game | ||||||||
| Families | 9,000 | 12,000 | 15,000 | 18,000 | ||||
| Single home
game (Avg. $35/ticket) |
1,800,000 | 2,400,000 | 3,000,000 | 3,600,000 | ||||
| Season of 10 home games | 18,000,000 | 24,000,000 | 30,000,000 | 36,000,000 | ||||