Brian Grey Blog

This may be jumping the gun a bit – typically these annual prediction pieces come out in that slow week between Christmas and New Years – but I figure it’s good to get these out now so you can do more important things that week (like eat a lot of unhealthy food!).

So here goes, three predictions, actually more like “trends”, that will thematically connect the worlds of sports sponsorship with digital media – entertainment.

Pent-up Demand Unleashed in 2012

Let’s face it, 2011 has been a bit of a drag in the sports world.  Two lockouts, no great positive news stories to keep us enthralled (where’s Brett Favre when we really need him?), and enough global debt crisis black clouds to scare off even the most optimistic media buyer.

So just playing the law of averages means that 2012 will be a big year.  Labor peace pervades the NFL, NBA and even MLB.  Marketers can actually now build long-range marketing plans around the properties that they are investing.  In the case of the NFL the TV deals are going to run for the next 10 years – imagine how many ad impressions Tim Tebow might get over that span?

Layer on top of this the fact that 2012 is an Olympics year and that Tiger Woods won a tournament in late 2011 (imagine what happens to golf if he wins a Major next year?), and the macro outlook for sports sponsorship and advertising spend looks very positive in the coming year.

Leaping to Emerging Digital Platforms

On the digital front, marketers will turn their focus to where sports fans are going – and that means mobile and social platforms.  With another big holiday season of new smartphone and tablet purchases, more fans will be accessing sports content and entertainment through these smaller screens so sponsors will be smart to figure out how to embed their brands and messages into those experiences.

From a social media perspective, Facebook and Twitter will continue to explore ways to connect top tier content publishers with brand advertisers.  Part of this will take place on those dominate social platforms directly, but a big part of the experience will come through the smart integration of social elements within the publisher’s digital media experience.

Of course the perfect storm here for marketers will be the opportunity to partner with content publishers and properties around experiences that combine the social and mobile consumer experience.  Expect to see a major shift towards innovation around this theme in 2012.

Sports and Entertainment – Lines Continue to Blur

Ok, we’ve been talking about the confluence of the sports and entertainment worlds for years – how long ago did ESPN Hollywood launch – and sunset?  But we know how much entertainment stars love to hang out at sporting events and be around athletes, and in turn, athletes all want to be entertainment stars (e.g. case in point, Shaq’s latest ad promoting the NBA on Turner).

But 2012 truly feels like the year this sports-meets-entertainment theme really takes off.  Part of it will driven by the two trends above:  labor peace means athletes will have their public stages for a full year without distraction and no group has embraced social media more than the athlete cohort.  We should not overlook other data points that infer an inflection point here — thank you Kardashian sisters for helping to really define “NBA Entertainment” and thank you to the WWE for pushing for your own TV channel.

Why does the acceleration of this sports-meets-entertainment trend matter for sports sponsors?  Well, many advertisers have smartly caught on to the fact that by connecting with this theme they can keep a 24×7 narrative going with fans that doesn’t have to end when the game ends.  For example, it’s great for Visa to be associated with what happens on NFL fields, but it’s even better if they can figure out how to stay in front of fans through an association with athletes and teams when they’re off the field or court – which will increasingly take place in that arena we’ve traditionally considered an “entertainment” setting.  Consider the lines officially blurred in 2012.

So there you have it.  Three trends to wrap your head around if you’re sitting anywhere on the spectrum between sports sponsor and publisher/property.  Happy sports new year to everyone!

No sports business category seems to be in a state of change (some might say turmoil) than college sports — specifically at the Division I-A level.  Just this weekend Pittsburgh and Syracuse formally bolted from the Big East to join the ACC, and the rumors persist that the recently expanded Pac-12 may bulge further — this time by adding the powerful quartet of Texas, Oklahoma, Oklahoma State and Texas Tech.

And while big time schools continue the game of conference musical chairs, the activity swirling around periphery of college athletics continues to amaze.  On one hand mighty programs like the University of Miami and the University of Oregon are under investigation for dealings with a now imprisoned booster and a questionable recruiting service respectively.

Yikes!  Why would any sane marketer associate their brand with college sports right now?  Well, here are a few reasons to consider:

Capturing the Next Wave of Consumers

Brand marketers know that the next wave of consumers that they want to reach — that digital savvy, social media influencer type, is on campus right now — shuttling from an Econ 101 study group to the tailgate before the big game.  The tailgate party and in stadium experience delivers thousands of targeted impressions to 17-22 year olds in an environment that is more engaging than just about any other window of a student’s day.  Talk about being able to create some real brand affinity.

College Sports Spans a Broad Demographic

No matter what conference the University of Texas plays in next year, a good chunk of the state of Texas — plus thousands of displaced UT alums — will tune in to all their football and basket ball games, plus consume thousands of hours of media dedicated to the Longhorns, whether it be via national coverage on ESPN, local coverage from the Longhorn Network, or the hundreds of stories that will be written about the crew in burnt orange day in and day out.  Unlike the targeted student demo on campus, however, the beauty of college athletics is that it appeals to men and women, young and old.  Heck, even my wife (a Cal alum) pays attention to the Bears now and again, something that doesn’t happen with her with respect to local pro sports teams.

Brands Love Going Hyper Local

Sports in general is a hyper local phenomenon, but college sports holds an edge to pro sports when it comes to really connecting with fans at the local level.  When was the last time a college sports football program packed up in the middle of the night and moved to another town?  How frequently does a player get traded to another school?  (Ok, sometimes they do leave school early to go to the Pros, but there again it’s the Pro sport fans chide, not the poor old college team that lost their All-American).  In fact, one of the reasons MillerCoors invested in a 23-school “integrated marketing program” as reported by the Sports Business Journal earlier this month, is the opportunity for the beer company to enable their local distributors and retailers to create a deeper connection with local fans.

Media Rights Going Across All Platforms

Perhaps the most exciting aspect of the dynamic state of college athletics is the fact that media rights are being revalued and in turn enabling more and more college sports product to make it’s way to fans.  The Longhorn Network is an extreme, but good example.  Now those UT fans can get more than college football and baseball, they will get access to UT’s stellar swimming, baseball and track teams.  Likewise, the Pac-12 will eventually rollout several regional cable networks as well as their own digital platform which will collectively put hundreds of hours of live and on demand sports content on TVs, computer screens, iPads, and smartphones.

And who benefits big time from the broader reach of college sports media besides the fans and schools?  Brand marketers of course.  MillerCoors, State Farm, UPS, and the ever growing list of college sports sponsors all get more touch points to connect with the fan bases they value — whether they be students on campus, alums living out of state or local residents following the team’s every move.

So embrace the wild ride that is college sports right now and trust me, on the other side of today’s hectic pace will be a landscape that is good for fans and brands.  Now about that BCS set up?

Chalk up another reason why everyone — and I mean everyone — needs to coach a youth sports team or some related youth group endeavor (e.g. scouting, drama, whatever).  Coaching a youth team brings countless priceless moments that you can’t script and that bring you back time and time again to what really matters in life.

This weekend’s example came in the context of our team (the Twins) suffering through a lambasting by the White Sox.  After each inning on defense we group up the kids and get them in for a 1-2-3 cheer to get them amped up for our turn at the plate.  Well, after the 3rd inning we were down 12-0.  (Yes, you’re actually wondering how I am keeping my job as the head coach but that’s a separate topic.)

So during the lead up to our cheer I said to the players how lonely I was coaching 3rd base since none of our players had made it over there yet while we were batting.  You know, a little light humor in the context of getting our butts kicked around.  Later that evening, after the game had ended I was at home with my daughter who is on the team and she mentions how she and one of the other players were concerned that I was really lonely coaching 3rd base.  She said they thought I was really serious.  Then she says the other player looked over in my direction just as I was bending over in a light stretch.

Then my daughter says to me:  ”We saw you doing yoga and then we said that you were probably ok.”

Priceless.

Before we get too far in to the new decade, I want to circle back on a couple posts I boldly put out there in early 2009.

The first one touted the fact that I had decided to just pick One Resolution for 2009 and that was to lower my weight to 199 lbs by the end of 2009.  What I didn’t provide in that original post on December 31, 2008 was my starting weight for my quest.  So here are the final stats:

January 1, 2009:  240.0 lbs. (no kidding, it’s like I was a major shareholder in Krispe Kreme)

December 31, 2009:  197.8 lbs.

Net loss for 2009:  42.2 lbs. or 17.6%

And my related goal for 2010?  To keep it all off!

As for my Fearless Predictions for 2009, let’s see how I did:

1. The Dow closed above my prediction of 10,092.  Not bad considering after my prediction the Dow fell in early March 2009 to mid-6000.  I feel that my stock picking prowess may have been used up in 2009, but since the Dow is still down like 25% from it’s October 2007 all-time high, I am going to call the Dow at 11,276 (pretty random I know) for a 2010 close.

2. I was half right on this one, kind of.  Microsoft didn’t really “buy” Yahoo! Search, but they did a massive commercial deal that all but puts Yahoo! Search in Redmond’s hands.  But my second call about Yahoo! buying AOL didn’t quite materialize, but maybe I’ll roll this one forward and make it a 2010 prediction?

3. Twitter easily blew through the 10 million uniques I predicted for November 2009 (which was by the way a prediction 5 times the 2 million unique visitors Twitter had in November 2008).  And my little add on about a whole ecosystem sprouting up to plug in to the Twittersphere seems to have also been on the money.  Though I may be a little early on that prediction about a clear revenue model emerging, though at their most recent post-money valuation not sure they are racing to showcase their money printing machine just yet.

4. My call around digital media M&A activity picking up in Q2 as a bit early.  Though it really didn’t pick up a ton after that either (my second order prediction).  That said, the M&A patient did show some life in the second half of 2009 (thanks Google, Intuit, Adobe, etc.), so I can’t say I totally whiffed on this one.

5. And, as for my all important sports picks for 2009, well let’s just say I kind of got side swiped by the Tiger Woods affair(s).  Of the 10 picks I made (not counting the 11th which was my smarty pick for the Kentucky Derby:  “a horse), I only got 3 correct:  Florida winning the BCS, UNC winning the NCAA Hoops Tourney, and the Lakers winning the NBA title.  I came close with the Red Wings in the Stanley Cup (losing to the Penguins) and my Phillies repeating in the World Series (at least they got there again).  But I picked Tiger to win 2 Majors and be SI’s Sportsman of the Year.  He won zero Majors and it turned out was far from Sportsman of the Year — or Dad/Husband of the Year for that matter.

So for 2010, I feel compelled to make a few more sports picks since I have much to prove based on my 2009 performance.  Take these with you next time you go to Vegas:

BCS Champion:  Texas (upset over Alabama)

Super Bowl Winner:  New Orleans

Daytona 500 Winner:  Jimmie Johnson

NCAA Men’s Tourney Winner:  Kansas

NCAA Women’s Tourney Winner:  Connecticut

Stanley Cup Champion:  San Jose Sharks (picking with my heart)

NBA Champion:  Lakers repeat

World Series:  Red Sox over the Dodgers in 6 games

And how about this one:

Roger Federer and Tiger Woods will combine to win 3 Major tournaments out of the combined 8 that will be played in 2010.

Peace to all in the new decade.

…Toby Gerhart.

Not because I’m a Pac-10 apologist (whatever that means?).  Not because I’m flexing some “the teams in the West get no love” muscles.  Not because my wife went to Cal so I’m trying to stir up some marital non-bliss during the Holidays.

Here are my reasons:

1) Stats

The guy has more yards rushing and more touchdowns than the guy from Alabama, the supposed favorite.  Further, the big stat I heard this morning that he averaged 200 yards per game against ranked teams was pretty darn impressive.  Did Alabama play any ranked teams this year besides Florida (well, ok, they beat Va Tech who finished second in the Coastal division of the ACC and LSU who isn’t the LSU of a couple years ago)?

And my favorite stat about Gerhart:  the guy carried a class load of 21 credits this fall during the football season.

2) Baseball

Now I know it doesn’t have any bearing on how the voters will vote, but this is my pick and therefore my criteria.  I love the fact that the guy is also a stud on the Stanford baseball team.  Sure he plays left field (what, he has a weak throwing arm?!), but he mashes fastballs like he mashes linebackers and defensive backs.

But think about it, rather than going through spring football drills, he’s out playing another sport — yet he still put up bigger numbers than Mr. Ingram.

3) Personal Interaction

Again, this last reason doesn’t carry weight with the “real” voters, but it’s my favorite.  Last spring I was a guest in a Stanford Graduate School of Business class that I go to every spring to talk about the confluence of digital media and the sports business.  The class is typically for second year MBA students, but this year the instructor (George Foster) opened the class up to upper class undergrads.

In the class sat Toby and one of his teammates from the football team.  I could tell he and his pal were a little intimidated being in a class with a bunch of twenty-somethings who were using big time business lingo — you know, “leverage” this and “synergy” that kind of stuff.  But near the end of the class Professor Foster called on Toby and his buddy to give their prepared answer to one of the pre-assigned questions.  Now I can’t say that I vividly recall how the two Stanford footballers answered the question, but I do recall them being pretty darned buttoned up in what they had prepared.  And I was impressed by the follow up questions they asked after I gave them some feedback on their slides.

Listen, as I write this a few hours before the Heisman winner is announced, I am supposing that voters will be swayed by the body of career work put up by Colt McCoy or by the team ranking of Alabama’s Mark Ingram, and that one of those guys will get the hardware.  But my vote is with #7 from Stanford.

Oh, and did I mention that I grew up near Portland, Oregon, the home of Ndamukong Suh, another Heisman finalist?  I guess that’s enough to make him my second favorite pick this year!

The kick-off to the college football season, or should we say the “punch off”, was a dark evening for college sports. As a native Oregonian and Pac-10 apologist, I was saddened by the sucker punch Oregon’s starting running back leveled on a taunting Boise State player in the midst of the post-game handshake.

Clearly the Oregon player snapped, lost it, whatever you want to call it — and maybe that’s indicitive of what Division-I college football can do to a student-athlete after a frustrating loss. Who knows?

But the decision Oregon’s program made with regard to dealing with the player actually made me proud to be a Pac-10 guy. Not only did the school and football program make a tough call in suspending their star player for the rest of the season, they also said he’d stay with the team through the rest of the season and practice with the program.

The last part is key — to me it’s akin to reprimanding your kid, but telling him “you’re still a part of this family and we still want to help you grow up”.

Now I can’t say for sure what Florida or Oklahoma would do if their stars punched an opposing player after a game, but I have a guess it wouldn’t be as extreme as the punishment metered by the Ducks. But going forward, how does any program make any other decision? Oregon’s call in this situation should set a precedent for all similar violence that takes place on a college sports field or court.

What would be real positives coming out of this incident would be not only seeing Blount rebound and become a success in the NFL — and in life — but also seeing the major BCS conferences and the NCAA come out in support of Oregon’s decision and essentially setting the bar for punishment in future incidents like this.

Larry Scott from the Pac-10 has done this, now we just need to hear from the SEC, Big 10, Big 12, ACC and the Big East. Oh, and having the head honchos in Indianapolis and North Bend chime in to the affirmative would be a good thing too.

A rather depressing story in today’s NY Times about cuts spreading rapidly across the college sports landscape.  Seems that the recession’s squeeze is finally making its way to the athletic departments.  As expected the sports getting the knife at schools are what you’d consider “tier 2″ sports – fencing, pistol, swimming…but also fairly popular sports like soccer and volleyball are getting nuked.

Some may look at this as an inevitable outcome given the economic pressures facing universities.  Yet given soundbites like the fact that the University of California system is apparently considering a 10 percent tuition increase and the fact that the BCS got a huge rights increase in their new deal with ESPN, this seems like the wrong time to be ending the careers of student athletes once their high school careers end.

The Times piece states that in the 2007-08 academic year there were 412,768 NCAA student athletes.  I would suggest that there should actually be many, many more than that.  As someone who played a sport in college, I feel lucky to have had access to a physically demanding outlet almost daily, and to have had the opportunity to compete in a team setting.

Given what we are learning today about the connection between physical exercise and brain development, not to mention what we’ve known for years about how competition and teamwork in sports maps to “the real world”, colleges should be doing whatever they can to not only keep their current teams in tact, but they should be coming up with ways to open up competitive sports programs to as many students as possible.

Seems like there’s an opportunity here for corporate sponsors who gladly sponsor the elite levels of college sports to invest in their future workforces today on the soccer fields, volleyball courts and swimming pools across campuses nationwide.

Yikes!  I haven’t posted on this blog in over two weeks.  What gives?

No, I haven’t been on an extended vacation, though it is fair to assume that the Grey Family trip to Mexico has been postponed for Summer 2009.  Looks like that trip to the water park in Santa Rosa is back on the docket!

Consider the last two weeks as a combination of being pretty busy meeting with interesting companies and people in the digital media space — all of which I can’t really be blogging about now can I?  Well, I guess according to the new Twittersphere world we live in, maybe I’m supposed to be life streaming everything I do in real-time?  Sorry, I have to draw the line somewhere — some stuff has to stay behind the firewall brother.

Ok, so what is on my radar these days?

Healthcare. I ran across another article today that pegs healthcare related spending in the U.S. at more than 17% of GDP and the expectation is that eventually it will account for the biggest slice of the economy.  Everywhere you look you can’t help but notice how overweight on average people are in this country and how much TV advertising bombards us with visual images of some of the most unhealthy and outright disgusting food options.  This is a topic that everyone should put on their short list of priorities to help address — starting with their own health.  Exercise more, eat less — starting now!

Sports. April was a great month.  Baseball starts — and the visuals strike me that the economy may be impacting attendance.  The pictures of all those empty seats at Yankee Stadium behind the hitter is a stark reminder that not everyone can afford literally hundreds (or thousands) of dollars to watch a ballgame.  On the flip side, the NFL Draft reminds us that in some instances sports continues to be immune to the macro economy.  Seems a bit incongruous that in a city where an entire industry is dying a slow death their team commits almost $42 million to an unproven quarterback.  Nice message Detroit.

Digital Media Business. I’m loving the never-ending game of musical chairs in the digital media space.  AOL makes the latest move as new CEO Tim Armstrong exits Greg Coleman (one of my former bosses when I was at Yahoo!) from his job running Platform-A after basically 3 months.  Then there’s News Corp. — bringing in Jon Miller as Chief Digital Officer and a new management team at MySpace.com, starting with a new CEO, COO and CPO.  Yahoo! and MSN have been active as well — even swapping some players so to speak.  Eventually all of the moves will be a net positive for the digital business.  Once all the new management teams get settled in they will be anxious to make a mark — and the fastest way to do that is through acquisition.  So if you are running a start up, keep your head down, build your audience and get profitable if you can.  A big media company may come knocking later this year.

That’s right, the title of this post isn’t a typo. Everyone is jumping on the “no Hall of Fame” bandwagon now that ARod has come out of the steroids closet. I think that seven years after he retires MLB’s HOF voters should vote him in to Cooperstown.

My first impression of ARod was an in-peraon one on a flight to Japan in the Fall of 1996. I was part of the contingent that traveled for the bi-annual US-Japan series. I sat behind Rodriguez and his brother on the flight and during the 10-day trip watched as a very young kid in a Mariners uniform followed Cal Ripken around like a puppy.

Ever since the Tom Hicks trophy contact in Texas and later the trade to the Yankees, Rodriguez has became somewhat unlikeable. A sterile, robot-like pro. Nothing seemed real about him when interviewed – he didn’t seem like he was ever really connected to his Yankee teammates.

This past summer the zenith of this impression I had developed was reached when I happened to see a fully dressed ARod sneaking out of Yankee Stadium at the All-Star game – mind you it was the 5th inning!

If you had asked me last week if ARod should make the HOF I would have given a flat out “no way!” as my response. That image of him leaving the All-Star game stuck in my head – and in my craw.

But then came his admission this week that he was juiced up during the 2001-2003 timeframe. Yah, who knows if he wasn’t really juiced up before and after that time period as well? That’s not the point.

He’s the first legit player to come out and acknowledge that he was on steroids (sorry Jose Canseco, I said legit player).

My take now is that ARod gets in to the HOF on the fact he did something Bud Selig, Don Fehr, Barry Bonds, Mark McGuire, Sammy Sosa, Roger Clemens and the hundreds of other people associated with Major League Baseball were unable (or unwilling) to do. ARod stepping forward ends the “alleged”, speculative and lawyerly nature of this era from baseball. It allows us to define the era for what is – a span of 10 or more years when a lot of players (both position players and pitchers) enhanced themselves physically by using drugs.

ARod’s stats shouldvbe viewed in the context of this era. His numbers will roll up to impressive quantities, some done with artificial muscles and bat speed, but accomplished against pitchers with artificial arm strength.

In the end my guess is the writers won’t vote him in, rather they will cast him off to the pile of other misfits like Barry, Mark, Sammy, Pete Rose and Joe Jackson. Oh well, I can at least submit my own vote by rooting for the guy when I watch him play for at least having the nerve to admit to his mistakes.