Sports Marketing Plan

The Wollongong Wasps have developed a six week sports marketing plan to increase sales revenue through membership, sponsorship, attendance, and brand extension. The plan includes analysis of the external and internal environment, market intelligence, and SMART objectives.

Running Head: SPORTS MARKETING PLAN 0
Sports Marketing Plan
November 22
2018

SPORTS MARKETING PLAN 1
Executive Summary
The Wollongong wasps are a new entrant into the Women’s National Basketball League. The
new team has put efforts to increase in its sales revenue through providing beneficial plans of
membership, participation in club activities, brand extension with proper media coverage and the
sponsorship. To achieve its goal wasps have uses Porter’s five forces for encouraging its external
environment and SWOT analysis for its internal environment. Also, applied market intelligence
for relevant segmentations to target is mission objective.

SPORTS MARKETING PLAN 2
Contents
Introduction.................................................................................................................................................3
Analysis of the external environment......................................................................................................3
Analysis of the internal environment.......................................................................................................5
Market Intelligence for the related market segments...............................................................................6
Mission and the objective for the six week period...................................................................................7
Conclusion...................................................................................................................................................7
References...................................................................................................................................................8

SPORTS MARKETING PLAN 3
Introduction
Wollongong Wasps as a new entrant within the Women’s National Basketball League (WNBL)
will join the competition in the year 2018. A sports marketing plan has been developed to cover
six week period; first three weeks include season commencement and the first three weeks of the
match, in order to ensure its financial growth and to sustain its position in the WNBL as it a new
startup. The aim of this marketing plan is to establish the new team Wollongong Wasps as a
viable business and to increase its sales revenue from membership, Sponsorship, attendance, and
brand extensions (Masterman, 2014). The budget of this project is $20,000 that they can utilize
for achieving the objectives of marketing planned actions. These strategies include sponsorship,
pricing sales, promotional approaches, incentives, and extended game experience by evaluating
the internal and external resources.
Analysis of the external environment
To adapt the changes in the internal and the external environment the Wollongong Wasps has to
monitor the industry of WNBL.
And this can be examined by the Porter's five forces. Porter’s five forces include the analysis of
the competition’s level and the profitability of the overall business.
A. For the Wollongong Wasps, Force 1 determines the competition’s intensity. And the level
of throwaway income in the section affects the profitability of the industry. This directly includes
the impact on the levels of employment and unemployment. The employment’s level including
both the negative and the positive forces. Those players who are not in the term of employment

SPORTS MARKETING PLAN 4
can give more time to their practices and can take participate in promotional activities (Porter,
2008). But this could also result in the lower level of income for membership and get profit by
adding on the activities, because of a high number of new entrant in the local community. If the
industry looks like a highly profitable from the external bodies’ perspective that there could be a
higher probability of spreading the profitability in a larger market, and as a result, shares of a
small market for all the teams.
Force 2, this includes the buyer’s bargaining power. As there are already many sports clubs are
established in the town. Then Wollongong Wasps have to be mindful about buyer’s bargaining
power, and already be prepared for the pricing that can attract the community and sustainable
buyers for purchasing the tickets and the membership packages (Dobbs, 2014). For maintaining
the ticket price, comparability of ticket pricing from the direct competitor is required. And the
membership packages should include the benefits such as, contact with the player, using
facilities of the club, and the coaching access that are hard to determine the price.
Force 3 includes the products’ substitutability. There are many other leisure activities that offer
the mix variables for the service variable promotions. In a major consideration, if the supporters
of the Wollongong Wasps switched to the other substitutes teams such as football, speedway,
hockey etc. then the impact of this activity can go negative on the club revenue (Dobbs, 2014).
Force 4 includes the power of suppliers; Wollongong Wasps has to struggle with inflation in the
new business transaction that is with utility suppliers, security providers, caterers, police
services, transport, hospitality and etc. as the Wollongong Wasps are contracted players of
WNBL than there could be little hope to reduce the prices rather increasing in year by year
(Dobbs, 2012).

SPORTS MARKETING PLAN 5
Force 5 includes the competitive opposition, as there are many competitors in the region, as a
new entrant, Wollongong Wasps has to work hard to reach up to the level of other competitors.
B. Wollongong wasps need to be updated on social media posts for increasing public
awareness, benefits on membership, benefits to using club facilities, direct meeting with players,
team bonding, relations with the community, participation in social sports activities and a strong
image with a high number of sponsors and audience support (Dobbs, 2012).
Analysis of the internal environment
A. Being a part of WNBL, the Wollongong wasps are strong enough to gain the brand
loyalty and the likeability. And the brand image that will be communicated to the directed
viewers that will be based on the qualities of wasps such as, involvement in activities, team
development, teamwork, and the community (Masterman, 2014).
B. SWOT Analysis for Wollongong wasps
Helpful Harmful
Internal
Strengths
-Strong identification of club logo in
the community.
-Increasing club.
-Licensed Properties.
-Prime location within the community.
Weaknesses
-Low participation of performers in club
activities
-Limited earning streams.
-Lack of competitive advantages as the team
is a new entrant.

SPORTS MARKETING PLAN 6
External
Opportunities
-Volunteer opportunities in the
community.
-Better involvement in the community.
-Attract new members.
Threats
-Poor off-field player behavior.
-Lack of money.
-Lack of experience and expertise.
-Other competitor’s activities.
Market Intelligence for the related market segments
Marketing intelligence impacts on the advertising, branding, customer experience, and overall
team performance with the Wollongong Wasps (Wedel, & Kamakura, 2012). For targeting the
market segmentation, Wollongong includes strategies such as:
1. Connecting to the direct audience.
2. Attracting sponsors and high-quality leads.
3. Differentiating their team brand from other competitors.
4. Improving services and the product as a brand.
5. Stay focused to achieve the goal.
The aspects of the market segmentation are based on demographics, motivation, psychographics
and the behavioral (Smith, 2012). These segments are beneficial for the wasps and their
audiences in terms of cost reduction for membership, team building, and benefits for buyers and
suppliers and the team awareness via social media channels, through these segments wasps do
not need to give much attention to their updates on channels (Shank, & Lyberger, 2014). As it
helps the public to give a positive feeling about their selection as the club is more focused on the
public’s aspects and beneficial choices.

SPORTS MARKETING PLAN 7
Mission and the objective for the six week period
The mission is to achieve the increment in sales revenue through membership, sponsorship,
attendance and brand extension (Conzemius, & O'Neill, 2009). And for achieving this mission
the objectives will follow the SMART measures that include:
1. Increasing in the club membership.
2. Increasing awareness about the team Wollongong Wasps by the end of the first weeks.
3. Targeting the maximum ticket purchases for first weeks.
4. And target at least 5 or more sponsors before or at the end of the first three weeks.
Conclusion
In the conclusion of the above text, the analysis shows that wasps have used its six weeks
marketing strategy for increasing people’s interest by using porter five forces and SWOT
analysis. And Wollongong wasps have used marketing intelligence with relevant segments for
public benefits as well providing team benefits in the club.

SPORTS MARKETING PLAN 8
References
Conzemius, A & O'Neill, J 2009, The power of SMART goals: Using goals to improve student
learning, Solution Tree Press, United States of America.
Dobbs, M E 2012, ‘Porter's five forces in practice: Templates for firm and case analysis, In
Competition Forum’, American Society for Competitiveness, vol. 10, no. 1, p. 22.
Dobbs, M E 2014, ‘Guidelines for applying Porter's five forces framework: a set of industry
analysis templates’, Competitiveness Review, vol. 24, no. 1, pp. 32-45.
Masterman, G 2014, Strategic sports event management, Routledge, London.
Porter, M E 2008, On competition, Harvard Business Press, United States of America.
Shank, M D & Lyberger, M R 2014, Sports marketing: A strategic perspective, Routledge,
London.
Smith, A C 2012, Introduction to sport marketing, Routledge, London.
Wedel, M & Kamakura, W A 2012, Market segmentation: Conceptual and methodological
foundations 2nd edn, Springer Science & Business Media, New York.