Hosting Big Sports Events: Expert Planning Strategies From Kickoff to Finish Line

Managing a huge Sports Event (tournament) requires a lot of planning, thorough evaluation and efficient execution. Here are the various activities involved in planning and managing a high profile sports tournament or event.

Event management involves organising a professional & focused event for a target audience. It involves visualising concepts & planning, budgeting, organising & executing events such as fashion shows, musical concerts, exhibitions, weddings, theme parties, product launches etc.

The Growing Event Industry

Events have always been a big business around the world, but in India the scale of events has increased manifold in recent years. As a result, the industry requires talented and well-educated youngsters who are professionally trained in every aspect of Event Management.

India has hosted several big sports competitions in the last few years; there are several sports leagues that are not operational in India, and all of them have spectacular events hosted at the start and the end of the competition.

Then there is the big showbiz industry in India – Bollywood, Southern film industries, and other regional industries. From time to time, they host spectacular events, be it award ceremonies or other events.

Then there is corporate events and luxury weddings, another area that is lucrative for Even Managers; the scale of luxury weddings has been growing over the years.

Event management involves managing all kinds of events, it can be Business-to-Consumer (B2C) events such as weddings, luxury parties, award shows or Business-to-Business (B2B) events such as conferences, exhibitions, and sports events.

Successful execution of an event requires accomplishing tasks such as establishing timelines and managing several tasks, requires choosing suppliers, requires excellent coordination skills, taking permissions from various departments.

All these require excellent event management skills, and other skills such as Excellent People skills, Flexibility, Excellent Communication, Problem-solving, Being Decisive, and Experience.

Event management companies are usually hired by clients to manage the execution of the event, from start to finish.

Planning a Sports Event

Here’s how Sports Events are usually planned.

Mission

Organizers of top sports events list their mission, which basically lists what they wish to achieve by hosting the sporting event.

For example: “It is our mission to provide young talents a unique opportunity to live their passion of becoming a professional player for which we want to be a foundation builder”.

Most of the top sports events are also focused on providing a development platform for young sports talents.

Organisers plan to create a platform for trainers, scout, sport agents/ managers, sponsor to identify future “stars”. For many players, such events also provide the opportunity to qualify for higher rank tournaments.

Management Team

The management team usually includes a team of experienced sport management professionals with broad and complimentary skills such as Event Organization & Management, Event Marketing & Communication as well as Event Financing and Sponsoring.

Here’s a typical Organization structure that is seen for most sporting Events.

• CEO
• COO: Marketing Manager; Communication Manager; Security & Risk Manager; Food, hospitality and player lounge manager.
• CFO: Finance & accounting manager, Legal and licensing manager, People/HR manager, Volunteer Manager.

The team foresees all required functions to foster a smooth and well-prepared event and event implementation. In addition, our team has a broad and complimentary skills to be an effective and efficient foundation for the tournament.

The Venue

The selected venue often represents a venue that is designed to host top class events, that also offers a convenient facility for players and spectators and a comfortable proximity to the International airport, Railway station and hotels.

The selected facility have sufficient parking, Restaurants, dressing rooms, huge shower/ fitness & wellness area, and more.

Business Canvas Analysis

• Key Partners: Sponsors; clubs; Local authorities; and Volunteers
• Key Activities: Tournament for young talents; Attractive event for interested spectators and families; and Great event for sponsors to present themselves.
• Key Resources: Top management team; Club and related course management team; Volunteers
• Value Propositions: Provide young talents with a unique opportunity to live their passion of becoming a professional player (or anything else that ma be relevant).
• Customer relationships: Direct contact with players; Establish customer relationship management for hospitality requests; and Pre-event sponsoring meetings.
• Customer Segments: Golf players; Spectators; Sponsors; and Golf Tour officials.
• Channels: Event website and social media; professional fairs; and Local and nation-wide media.
• Cost Structure: Facilities, Full-time employees (refer organizational structure), part time employees (e.g., professional photographer, officials), Service providers/subcontractors (e.g., catering service), Price money
• Revenue Streams: Spectators ticket sales, Sponsorships (title sponsor; presenter-ship sponsors, and venue and supplier sponsors)

Marketing Objectives

Marketing objectives enable the organizing team to approach the target customers in an aligned and well-thought through way to foster an efficient and effective implementation of the event. Further, it enables pre- and post-event monitoring and verification to continuously improve the strategy.

Corporate Objectives

• Create interest in the target group (i.e., young talents in the country, local amateur players & families)
• Reach full utilization of spectator area; Make the event recognizable and thereby increase brand image and awareness of Sponsors
• Promote young players with the objective of providing them access to bigger tournaments.

Financial Target

• Sponsorship revenues to reach at least (target number)
• Reach (target number) ticket revenues (target number of spectators, price per ticket)
• Broadcasting revenue to reach (target number) via Media co-operations
• Merchandise sales via web to reach (target number) revenues before and (target number) after the event

Marketing Objectives (Price target (e.g. tickets, merchandise), Communication target, Place Target)

• One month prior to the event – ticket sales to reach (target number) people
• Reach the target group by newspapers, online, brochures, radio announcements – direct and indirect marketing
• Target – millennials and their parents, agents, former professional players, amateurs who play the sport as well as families

Communication target (PR objectives, Branding objectives, Social media objectives):

• Create a unique tournament brand with national/international reach;
• Social media profiles to reach (target number) followers before the event and (target number) followers after the event and gain engagement; and (target number) of followers to interact with our brand and thereby develop loyal fans after the event.

Marketing and Branding Strategy

A marketing strategy should be focused on specific markets. For example: concentrating the event on niche young talent market in a country and on the international young talent market.

Sport area

Foster the development of young national (and international) players and create an unique opportunity for them to become professional sportspersons.

Focus on relationship marketing – to be known as the best event for young professionals in the country.

Social area

Tournaments goal is to promote young professionals and to bring out the potential from them. Thereby, we want to be the ones who help to further popularize the sport in the country.

Marketing strategy on social area could refer to word-of-mouth marketing with the objective that people will talk about our event and encourage each other to take part in it.

Economic area

Be a profitable but affordable tournament for young talents and target spectators group (e.g., from the region and across the country).

Organize a well-rounded tournament for the tour, the players and the spectators.

Be an attractive platform for the sponsors from an image and awareness as well as direct sales perspective.

Marketing Mix

Product

The product for major sports events is usually the event itself. Intense sporting experience (sometimes for multiple day), best players fighting for top honours, and to promote themselves and draw attention from agents, managers and scouts.

The consumers of product are given the opportunity to see sportspersons who can become future stars.

The championship is made to attract spectators on various levels of entertainment (e.g., great games/action, hospitality and location).

Place

Great sporting venue with ample facilities such as parking lot, DJ music, Restaurants, lobby, shower/ fitness & wellness area, professional dressing rooms. All those facilities should maximize number of spectators during the championship.

Convenient location, close to the international airport, hotels and roads.

Convenient hospitality area, player lounge and food courts to supplement the great sports venue.

Price

Price should be adequate for level of the tournament (price for the game, price per day and for the the whole weekend pass).

This supplemented by sponsorships should cover the operating expenses (you can estimate by when break-even can be achieved).

Sponsorship deals are structured in a way to reflect expected increasing tournament awareness and hence higher sponsorship revenues to foster event profitability (refer financial plan).

Promotion

Joint activities with sponsors, i.e., sponsors promoting the event on their websites and social media, e.g., sponsor promoting the event at the airport.

Prior the event strong target customer marketing campaigns to draw attention – social media, radio, web, billboards and email marketing.

Public relations: Invite clients of sponsors to the event. Further, event management team can approach local and regional media to create publicity through this communication channel.

Multi-Channel-Communication & Marketing

Various communication channels can be used for communication and marketing. Communication and marketing must adopt on a multi-channel approach to achieve the greatest awareness for the tournament to reach targeted customer groups.

Personal sales (e.g., direct sales @club house @golf stores)

Email marketing (e.g., fan newsletters and eCommerce raffles)

Search engine marketing (e.g., google search engine optimization)

Social media presences (e.g., Facebook, Own App, Twitter, Instagram, Linkedin) and engagement

Online presences (e.g., tournament homepage and eShop with merchandise)

Internal marketing: Employees should be treated like “internal costumers”, they must be convinced of the company vision.

Database based marketing management: Establish spectators, volunteers & players database for enhancing knowledge around participation and buying behaviours

Print-media & Tournament TV: Online, social media and App based behind the scenes action through Media partner co-operations and local/regional documentaries.

Sponsorship

Title Sponsor: Enhance brand image and awareness as a locally responsible company.

Presenter-ship sponsor: Enhance brand image and awareness as a locally responsible company. Win customers as spectators representing an attractive customer segment.

Category Sponsor: Win customers as spectators representing an attractive customer segment.

Supplier Sponsors: Enhance brand image and awareness and thereby win local customers through high quality supplies.

Planning

The organizers must create Financial Plan, Operational Plan (Overall Project Plan), Ticketing plan, Volunteers plan.

• Financial Plan: How much you are expecting to earn from Title sponsor, Naming rights sponsor, Category sponsor, Supplier sponsor, Ticket sales,
• Merchandising, Broadcasting, Public funding, and by when.
• Overall Project Plan (Operational plan): Plan and schedule the various tasks with timelines.
• Ticketing plan (Operational plan): Develop a comprehensive ticketing package considering all types of spectators, from normal fans to ‘local businessman’ up to the special sponsor guest. This ensures a unique and acceptable experience from a pricing perspective. Example: VIP Tickets, Business Class, Categories, Weekender, EarlyBirdie. Selling points for each type of ticket may differ (stores, online, included in sponsorship package with options to buy extra tickets).

Volunteers plan (Operational plan): Organisers will need to attract volunteers for the tournament and manage them well.

• Types of Volunteers needed for most high-profile sporting events: Media Volunteer, Transportation volunteer, Scoring volunteer, Marshals
• Responsibilities, background, experience of Volunteers will need to be defined.
• Number of volunteers needed will need to be estimated.
• Prepare list of clubs members willing to work as volunteers.
• Prepare training plan (when, where, responsibilities, rewards, opportunities)
• Start recruiting process.

Risk and Security Analysis

Organisers must be sufficiently prepared to manage identified risks in an appropriate manner in order to ensure a smooth tournament staging.

The risk and security analysis must list all aspects of your event activities on the basis of the project plan.

You must identify on broad basis for each activity the associated risk.

Use a risk matrix to determine the level of risk associated with each activity on basis of the severity of the risk and the likelihood of occurrence.

For each identified risk, defined strategies to reduce the severity of the risk and the likelihood of occurrence.

Assign a responsible person/ (management) team to each risk mitigation measure.

Conclusion

From an overall viability perspective, you must develop an attractive and locally adapted sports tournament concept. Key success factors are commitments by the (i) clubs, (ii) sponsors, (iii) local authorities and volunteers as well as (iv) operational management team.

Event Management Colleges / Courses

The top colleges offering courses in Event Management offer best in class infrastructure, have experienced faculty from the industry, and lay special emphasis on Practical training, Internships that leads to quality placements for students in the lucrative Events & Entertainment industry.

Students can pursue diplomas and advanced diplomas and post-graduate diplomas in event management, along with Advertising.

Various courses in event management:

• BBA in event management
• MBA in event management
• Diploma in event management
• Post Graduate Diploma in event management and media studies

These courses allow students to get practical exposure to events and ensures rock solid foundation for an aspiring Event Manager of the future generation.

List of Top Sports Event Management Colleges

• Indian Institute of Management Rohtak – Executive Post Graduate Diploma in Sports Management
• National Academy of Sports Management, Mumbai – Master of Sports Management
• Symbiosis School of Sports Sciences, Pune – MBA Sports Management
• Hindustan Institute of Technology and Science, Chennai – MBA Sports Management
• K J Somaiya Institute of Management, Mumbai – MBA Sports Management
• Johan Cruyff College, Netherlands