Your Basketball Team Helps You Find a Job
The New Jersey Nets are waiting for Lebron James' contract with the Cleveland Cavs to expire in 2010. They plan to acquire the game skills of the brightest star in the NBA at the moment. If the deal goes through, it will be worth tens of millions of dollars. Such huge deals are not infrequent in the League. But there's more than dollars and dunks in the NBA, for instance a very interesting social marketing initiative using professional basketball as a vehicle. The New Jersey Nets, a franchise based in East Rutherford, not far from New York City, have not only put 300 free tickets for home games at the disposal of people made jobless by the current economic crisis, but have promised to circulate their résumés among 130 partner companies (among which corporate giants as Coca-Cola) as well as among their subscribers who might be interested in doing hirings. It's a sign that also professional sport is affected by the recession, but it is also an investment in the fans, as the Nets' CEO candidly admits: "We have invested in our fans in the hope they will also invest in us one day".
"There are various remarkable aspects in this initiative," says Paolo Guenzi, professor of corporate management and expert of sports marketing, "but the main one is the impact it has on the brand. A sports franchise effectively acts as a mediator between the public and the sponsors, and if it gains fans through social initiatives going beyond good sports results, it tends to attract sponsors interested into associating themselves with the team's positive image." The brand, i.e. the team's franchise, asks the fans to buy tickets, merchandising etc, and in exchange it must give something that goes beyond a winning score. The value of the brand thus lies in a 'relation'. Another interesting aspect to investigate is the relationship between team and sponsor. "It tends to beyond mere sponsorship, to become a partnership, since also companies stand to benefit from a closer relationship for developing their communication activities," adds the Bocconi professor.
But there's more, such as the territorial reach of such initiatives. "The New Jersey Nets represent a whole state," Guenzi explains, "and have chosen to commit themselves to their home territory. In, especially in high-level professional soccer, such territorial rootedness is non-existent. It's different in minor sports and leagues, where sponsors are usually expression of the region where the team's based."
"This is a classic example of'social marketing'", adds Giorgio Fiorentini, professor of public management at Bocconi University, "and it's also relevant for social capital the fact that sports can creatively develop social opportunities from the relations linking team, fans and sponsors." Practical results will be assessed in due course, but the initiative will enhance its usefulness if it is linked to others that have the objective of augmenting social capital. "In, such initiatives wouldn't even cross the minds of the owners of professional clubs," says Fiorentini. "What the Nets are doing is an investment in their fans, which are then considered more than just a cheering crowd, but according to a holistic perspective."
Candido Cannavò, editor of the Gazzetta dello Sport daily newspaper from 1983 to 2002, is also very positive about the idea that teams should invest in their publics: "Investing to nurture future customers is not only a prodigy of organization and planning," comments, "but also a way of making people understand that sport is 'inside' society, and not outside its issues and problems. This admirable initiative is also the demonstration thatstill is the country where everything is possible."