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Event Marketing This Past Weekend

Submitted by Mitch Seigel on Tues, 6/23/2015

I haven’t golfed in more than thirty five years. I am an avid sports fan, and for some reason I have become attached to golf on television. Part of it is the sports in me, and the other part is the amazement I have at how well professional golfers are able to control emotions in relatively stressful situations.

This past weekend the US Open was in the Pacific Northwest for the first time in its 115 year history. And for this historic occurrence, the tournament was played on a course that some pro golfers described as having everything that a miniature golf course would have, minus the windmill hole.

In addition, the tournament, from start to finish was being broadcast by Fox TV, when in recent years, golf broadcasts have been owned by CBS, NBC and the Golf Channel.

This is where marketing comes in. A lot of risk happened during this event; one of the Grand Slam tournaments, a more than challenging golf course, and a relatively new network to the game of golf.

Somehow, Fox was able to make it happen from a marketing perspective. Despite new anchors and color men to the analyst desk, they were still able to garner big dollars from big advertisers because of the extreme value of event/sports marketing. By the way, to cap it off on Sunday night, twenty one year old Jordan Spieth won his second straight grand slam event, and by a whisker over Dustin Johnson, who three putted on the last hole to go down in defeat.

Event Marketing is not for every business to include in its marketing plans. It is, however, an avenue that should be considered. People were tuning in this weekend not just for the tourney itself, but to watch the agony of the golfers, when their drives would seemingly stop on the fairway, and then start rolling backwards, as much as fifty yards from where they landed! Good TV all around!

What are your challenges when it comes to event marketing? I look forward to hearing your comments. Until next time…