FAN RELATIONSHIP MANAGEMENT
Te Aspire Group prides itself on Fan Relationship Management–forming a relationship with the fan. Te trick, says Mullin, is to keep people satisfied. Tat means getting casual customers to attend more games, new customers to try out a game, and loyal customers to continue to
enjoy the games they love. Te goal is to build a relationship with these fans rather than merely cranking out a ticket and disappearing – it’s about forming a lifetime relationship with fans.
With over 20 Fan Relationship Management Centers on college campuses across the country, Mullin and Te Aspire Group have tapped into a unique sales service.
YOU HAVE HAD A SUCCESSFUL TRANSITION FROM ACADEMIA TO THE REAL WORLD. ANY TIPS OR TRICKS TO SHARE WITH OUR READERS CONSIDERING TRANSITIONING? I had been a professor of Management and Sport Management at the University of Massachusetts- Amherst for almost 10 years, so it was quite a difficult transition. I had run a thriving consulting business prior to the transition to the Pittsburgh Pirates, as I had provided support in the implementation and execution of my recommendations. Tis really helped me tremendously in adapting to professional team sport. I have
pragmatic enough. My experience in academia was that we generally have a longer-term view and want to con- tinue to work to achieve consensus. In the “real world” I have found it to be more about get it done this week and this month becomes long-term thinking. However, what I have ob- served in the past few years with our university partners is a much greater emphasis on the bottom line: this fis- cal year, this season and in some cases even this next game
“At BCS schools we are generally able to generate three dollars in revenue for every one dollar in expense (including our management fee) in the first year of operation.”
found that when people come in from academia, the staff expect you to be esoteric, too academic, too idealistic, perhaps too big picture and long-term in your thinking and definitely not
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IS THERE A PROFILE OF A SCHOOL THAT’S AN IDEAL CLIENT? Yes, the ideal client for Te Aspire Group is any school whose actual attendance for ticketed sports such as football, basketball, hockey, soc- cer, baseball, gymnastics, wrestling or lacrosse, etc. falls between 60 percent and 95 percent of the facility capacity. If the school is currently
filling above 60 percent capacity, but not full, then there clearly is a strong base of support but it’s probably not being maximized. We can certainly help partners with capacities below
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that level, but the strategies for build- ing a brand and growing the fan base from less than 50 percent of capac- ity are much more involved, with a longer time frame to produce results. Within this 60 percent to 95 percent capacity range, we can generally get a 20 percent lift in revenue. We start by helping to achieve a much higher renewal percentage each year, so the non-renewal hole that needs to be re- filled each year continually declines, and this drives season ticket sales and revenue better than any other strat- egy. For colleges with high percent attendance to capacity we can also grow revenues by yield management analysis. We just concluded a study for Ohio State that looked at the top 20 football and men’s basketball programs to benchmark ticket pric- ing, donations and related benefits and internal constituent allocations (students, faculty and staff, marketing partners, young alumni, etc).
“FAN RELATIONSHIP MANAGEMENT” IS A UNIQUE PART OF THE ASPIRE GROUP’S PHILOSOPHY. WHAT IS IT? Our FRMC’s truly build a relation- ship with fans to make them life-long boosters. To that end our staff are called Sales Consultants. We train them how to build a rapport and relationship with fans in order to really understand who the fan is, who they come with to the events, why
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