I decided to do my Disciplinary Expert Tour with Steve Evans who is the Athletics Director at University High School in Normal, IL. I teach Sports and Entertainment Marketing and I was hoping that this tour could afford my class more opportunities to assist in the business marketing side of our Athletic Department that could be tied to our curriculum. At the conclusion of this blog I will post the ideas that we developed with how our SEM class can be more involved in the marketing of University High School Athletics.
The Athletics Director at our school is responsible for creating schedules, scheduling officials, hiring coaches, scheduling the transportation for each team at all levels among a host of other responsibilities, including selling advertisements at our home games.
Technology Used:
Every sport at U-High has their schedule for all levels (Varsity, JV and Freshmen) posted on a website. 8 to 18 is the website that is used by most schools in Illinois to post schedules and on this site the Athletic Director is able to easily communicate with parents, players and coaches about the most up to date schedule. Mr. Evans thought that this tool was an important part of his job so that he can upload schedules as they become complete and then communicate that out to all stakeholders in one easy to find space online.
Since this past athletic season was extremely different due to COVID guidelines and fans were not allowed and if they were allowed it was in a very limited capacity he had a camera installed in our gymnasium that would broadcast all athletic events that took place in U-High's gymnasium on the NFHS network. The NFHS network had a monthly subscription model that allowed for a consumer to pay $10/month and they could watch all games that are streamed on the NFHS site. He mentioned that while some other schools had always streamed games before COVID, that this new technology is something that he is going to consider keeping in place even after COVID guidelines have loosened to help serve family members or fans that are not able to attend our events in person.
He also made note that he is constantly on his desktop computer as well as his school issued laptop for e-mails and checking on the status of weather (for outdoor events, and travel) in addition to normal every day office duties. He described himself as someone who does not view himself as a "high-tech" person, but did say that basic uses of technology, including using his cell phone is an important part of his job and that an Athletic Director has to be comfortable posting online and using basic technologies in today's world.
Teaching Implications:
Do: An Athletic Director will post online schedules in order to communicate with a large amount of people in an efficient manner. The online schedules are always accessible and stakeholders can access the schedules in an easy manner and as often as they need to.
Mean/Relate: I saw this through our conversation about Twitter (which I will expand on later) where he plans to create a U-High Athletics Twitter Account so that he can post scores, schedule changes and successes of teams and individuals to a wide range of people who could choose to follow that account.
Think: Another part of our conversation that I will expand on later is that he wants to re-think how we advertise and raise money for the athletic department, this relates directly to our curriculum in SEM and he has recently purchased new scoreboards that have live stats on the scoreboard and is attempting to sell advertisements on the board.
You can see that we have 1 advertisement currently sold on the board and there are still 4 open spots.
Be: He is constantly on his cell phone exchanging text messages, phone calls and checking e-mails with other coaches, other schools and securing officials for all of the events at U-High.
How can I apply this information to our Sports and Entertainment Marketing Curriculum?
After the tour Mr. Evans and I sat and discussed this question to see how we can develop meaningful activities and opportunities for our students. We talked about how our students can help set-up and run a Twitter Account and Instagram page for U-High Athletics which will help our schools presence and image on social media. We discussed ways that our SEM students can develop a "pitch" and then present their pitches to local businesses trying to secure the open advertising spots on our scoreboard. We even mentioned how the SEM students can potentially broadcast the games that are on the NFHS network so that the viewers can also have some audio as well as the visual representation of the game that they are watching. The result of this brainstorming session will give the students in our SEM class real-world applications to the curriculum that is being taught. What is even better, is that they can apply that real-world application in their own school!
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