More than 173 million people consider themselves to be fansof college sports, the largest accumulative number among any sport in the U.S.Among that figure are nearly 80 million female fans, also the largest among anysport in America.
And here are other key figures that drive marketers intoactivation mode: More than 29 million fans of college sports earn $100,000 ormore annually, college sports fans are 35% more likely than the generalpopulation to own a small business and in 2011, consumers spent more than $4.6billion on college-related merchandise.
Those numbers are courtesy of IMG College, a division of IMGWorldwide. IMG College represents more than 200 college properties across thecountry, including theNCAA and its 89 championships. IMG College wasformed as a result of the acquisitions of Host Communications and TheCollegiate Licensing Co. in 2007, and then expanded when ISP Sports wasacquired in 2010.
Although IMG College works with college athletics across theboard, the big drivers are football and basketball-and for good reason. Throughthe first five weeks of the 2012 season, college football was No. 1 four timesamong all shows in Saturday night primetime ratings. And according to KantarMedia, companies spend more than $738 million on advertising during MarchMadness, second only toNFL postseason and the Super Bowl ($900million-plus) and nearly double the ad spend during the MLB and NBA postseasons.
Among Winston Salem, N.C.-based IMG College's majorpartnership opportunities are multimedia rights, licensing, events andhospitality, marketing, stadium and arena development, stadium seatingsolutions, ticketing, sales and consulting. IMG College produces nearly 30,000hours of radio programming via 800 radio affiliates (airing primarily footballand men's basketball games and weekly call-in coaches' shows) and overseesnearly 5,000 hours of local programming on more than 100 television stations.IMG College is also a leading publisher of college sports publications(including NCAA Final Four, university yearbooks and game-day programs) and thelargest manager of university athletic websites.
In addition, the organization has a stake in the LonghornNetwork along withESPN and the University of Texas at Austin.
George Pyne has been president of IMG College sports andentertainment since February 2006. Prior to that he spent 11 years with NASCAR,most recently as COO.
With the 2012 college football Bowl Championship Series nearingits conclusion and the 2012-13 college hoops season beginning, Pyne talked toNYSportsJournalism.com about the strong loyalty for college sports among fansand consumers and its growth in marketing, sponsorship, hospitality, stadiumand campus activations and media.
Would you compare anything in college sports to theSuper Bowl?
The Super Bowl is the Super Bowl. It is in its own category. But March Madnessand the Final Four is a major time for colleges, fans and marketers. The BCS ismajor for fans and activation. If you look at the numbers on TV and theamazing, passionate interest among fans, we consider these events to be theSuper Bowls of college sports. And, like the Super Bowl, they reach a lot ofpeople who are either casual fans of sports or not fans of college sports atall. Marketers love to see that type of growth.
Has the growing number of universities changingconference affiliation impacted your strategy?
We work with major programs nationwide, so we are not as concerned with whichconference or division they play in as fans or alumni or the media might be.The strength for us is in the university itself. If a university feels that itcan strengthen its position by changing conferences, we work with them and usethat to the advantage of the companies with which we work.
There have been some major recent TV deals involvingcollege sports, including the formation of the Longhorn Network, in which IMGCollege has a stake along with the University of Texas and ESPN. Do you seemore universities following that lead?
Texas is a unique school, and I think the Longhorn Network has a great deal ofvalue. But it's unique. It's one-of-a-kind.
Do you ever see a time when college athletes will getpaid for being in ad campaigns and activations among those companies alignedwith college sports?
That's a fair question. And I can speak as a former college athlete [captain ofthe Brown University football team]. We are a service provider, so we don'tmake policies for the industry. We work for the industry. That's an issue onwhich we don't take a position. I will say that college sports affords studentsand athletes the opportunity to go to school. Many college athletes don't endup playing professional sports, so they are getting the opportunity to get aneducation and plan for their future.
What insights and strategies are you using at IMGCollege that you developed with NASCAR?
First, I will say there are a lot of similarities betweenNASCAR and themarketing activations we are working on with colleges and college sportsprograms at IMG College. Both have a huge, loyal fan base. And both have a lotof potential, which marketers can use to reach consumers. Interestingly, wehave a group of key people now at IMG College who also came from NASCAR, amongthem Roger VanDerSnick [senior VP, chief sales and marketing officer], MarkDyer [senior VP,chief innovation officer] and Andrew Giangola [VP, strategiccommunications].
That said, there are big differences: NASCAR has more than30 companies that are integrated into the property. When I came here, therewere maybe five or six. NASCAR has 75 million fans. College sports has morethan 173 million fans, and almost 80 million of them are women. Also, ouroverall demographics are different from NASCAR demographics. There is strongloyalty among NASCAR fans, but when you look at colleges, the passion is basednot only on what teams you like, but also where you attended school. Thatpassion is who you are and what you are.
What do you see as your key strategic goals?
When I started here, [IMG CEO Ted Forstmann] wanted me to look for growthsegments. There are not many universities that generate a profit from theirsports programs, less than 20 in the nation. So business and marketing, inparticular with the football and basketball programs, is essential to generatea revenue stream that supports not only the athletic department but can also beused by universities in other areas. Key among our goals is to generatebusiness and to help the universities with which we work turn a profit. Whenyou look at the demographics, it is easy to see why we are so bullish onreaching these fans and why we see there is so much upside.
What are the advantages for companies that work withIMG College to reach students, alumni and other fans?
Instead of trying to make deals with individual schools, we have the ability toalign companies with more than 200 of the top universities across the country.We create integrated platforms that we then bring to companies such asUPS,Lowe's, Hyundai and others. With one buy we can give them 49 of the top50 markets. And we also reach the largest 18-24-year-old fan base in sports.That's quite a platform.
How important is it to these companies to reachstudents, fans and consumers on a local basis as well as a national platform?
That is one of our strongest aspects. We can sign companies to a deal underwhich they can work with all of the top universities nationwide, in theirregion or locally. That is a major advantage for companies who want to marketto a strong college fan base without having to make separate deals along theway. We give companies such as Aaron's, Lowe's, Hyundai, Hershey's andUPSthe ability to reach more than 172 million fans. We then work with them todevelop the best strategies in each area. And it goes well beyond marketing, ofwhich a strong part is the 800 radio affiliates and more than 100 televisionnetworks with which we work. We also deal [with] such categories as licensing,hospitality, on-campus events, ticketing and seating. And we can do this on alocal, regional and national basis in 49 of the top 50 markets.
What are some good examples of the programs activatedby IMG College?
We believe that all of our partnerships are strong and that they each bringsomething unique into the alliances. Social media is changing the way companiesdo business and is certainly driving the way that students interact with eachother. In August, we signed a deal with Lowe's that we believed was the firsttime a company became the presenting sponsor of mobile applications fromuniversities nationwide and social media platforms including Facebook andTwitter. They also became the official home improvement retailer of schoolsacross the nation and can activate to reach college students and fansnationwide in other areas at these schools. Among other major recent deals, [inAugust 2011] UPS signed the biggest non-network TV deal ever, which included 68schools at which they also have exclusive category rights in shipping, freightand logistics. And Hershey's built on its corporate partnership with the NCAAwith a deal for its Reese's brand to activate in local markets.
One of the major companies with which you work isMillerCoors. How do you create platforms for them considering that you can'tjust go out and tell college students and athletes to drink beer?
They have a very strong 'drink responsibly' platform. But our goal in workingwith companies is to reach not only college students but the millions of fansof college sports. Consumers spent more than $4.6 billion on college-relatedmerchandise last year and more than 29 million fans of college sports earn$100,000 or more annually. So the size of the audience goes well beyond collegestudents. With MillerCoors, we work with them in off-campus destinations wherepeople of legal drinking age are, and also target alumni via hospitality eventsand other platforms. So, for them, being aligned with college sports reallyallows them to reach a huge consumer base by combining a 'drink responsibly'message with product marketing.
Given the growth of college sports on ESPN, howimportant is primetime network TV to the future of college sports?
If you go back five or six years ago, college sports on Saturday nighttypically were on ESPN. And they still are on ESPN. But now they are also onABC, Fox, NBC, CBS. So it's not uncommon to find two networks with a game eachSaturday night during primetime. So there can be three broadcasts with Saturdaynight primetime games and games on ESPN. I once tried to aggregate the ratingsof all the games on a Saturday night, and we do a lot of research. It'simpossible.
Where is the college sports network growth comingfrom?
Mostly conferences. The Big Ten has a network. The Pac-12 has a network. Ibelieve that the SEC will soon have a network. And that will only increase thevalue of the universities in those conferences because the exposure of collegesports today has never been higher. And it's increasing.
Why is that?
There are 600 college football games broadcast every weekend. College footballwas the No. 1 rated primetime program among all shows in four of the first fiveweekends this season. And the strength of that statistic is that just four ofthe 600 games were on national TV during each of those weekends. Who knows howmany millions of people are watching? The number is incredible when you thinkabout how many people are actually tuning in. There are more than 33 millionpeople watching on a Saturday primetime. And that's really a small slice ofconsumption on Saturday night. You can't even accumulate a total figure. It'simpossible. If there were only three college football games played on aSaturday, you could measure it. But there are hundreds. The size of thisaudience is massive, and that's what we bring to marketers, and why marketerswant to activate.
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