Observations on Sports this Weekend

Today’s Redskins game vs. the St. Louis Rams scares me. It’s the type of game that teams who are learning to win overlook. You’re at home, heavily favored and the opponent is winless. Every pundit is picking you to win easily. It’s the kind of game where you can get caught looking ahead.

The NHL season kicked off this weekend. I am very excited about the Capitals after last season’s run. Alex Ovechkin and the core of young stars have added an energy and excitement to the team that has not existed in the past. It's somewhat surreal to think that the best player in the NHL plays for my team. They split their first two and do not appear to have trouble scoring goals. But giving up 7 to Atlanta is a bit worrisome, even this early in the season. I’d like to see Ovechkin defend his MVP, especially if Crosby is the competition. I can’t wait until they visit the Wild on November 23rd. It will be my only chance to see them this season.

The Wild had a solid outing in their opener, defeating Boston 4-3. There was a great article Saturday in the Star-Tribune about the core of the Wild team. It provided some great perspective on selecting the right talent, not just the best talent, for your team. I had a chance to meet Doug Risebrough a couple years ago and was impressed with how thoughtful he was on the subject. I think the trap that most fans get into is becoming dazzled by talent. It’s all too tempting to do the same as a GM, but in the end, it’s about putting together the best team you can, not about putting together a collection of individuals. Doug has that perspective and I think he’s assembled a core of players that will have the Wild winning for awhile, even if Marian Gaborik doesn’t stick around.

I am at a loss for words with Michigan.

I haven't seen much baseball this postseason. With the Yankees missing the playoffs, I haven't had much to root against. I'm pulling for the Rays.

The Pony Jets, Addie's soccer team, finished their season yesterday. While they didn't win a lot of games, the kids had a lot of fun. It was really rewarding to coach them. I think I learned as much as they did and I got to spend quality time with my daughter. I am really proud of her. Check out Polly's blog for a picture.

Finally, Polly is trying to convince me to run the Twin Cities marathon next year. I've never thought of myself as a runner in that way, but the challenge is intriguing.

Fast Food Delivered

I recently came across an interesting website for a company that is as unique for its business idea as it is for its approach to customers and employees.

Borders Food Companies, located in Golden Valley, MN, is a franchisee of multiple fast food concepts that target a similar audience. These restaurants are bound together by an online ordering system and loyalty club (the Extra Cravings Club). I love how they are leveraging across the properties to create a unique experience and drive loyalty for their locations vs. other franchisee locations. The approach is simple yet brilliant.

I also like their approach to their employees and consumers. I have not visited any of their restaurants, but based on the philosiphies espoused on their website, I can only imagine that the in-store experience is significantly different and better than most restaurants. It also sounds like a great place to work.

I will have to check out the customer experience sometime.

http://www.cravingstogo.com/

Tampa Bay Rays, Part II

Some of you have sent me e-mails about the Rays article making the case for why Tampa Bay is not a good baseball town. Many of the same arguements could be made about baseball in Minnesota. The summer is too short to sit inside and watch baseball games (although that is being fixed for the 2010 season). But somehow, the Twins are able to compete for division titles year after year. The reason is that they have gotten really good at identifying and developing talent. The entire Twins roster has turned over twice since I've lived here and they are still more competitive than most Major League franchises.

I agree whole heartedly that there are significant business challenges in the Tampa market for professional sports. That is exactly why the marketing approach is so brilliant. It is their response to the unique challenges facing their team. It is often said that necessity is the mother of invention. The Tampa Bay Ray problem requires different thinking. All too often we are tempted to apply an approach universally across many types of problems. Think about the US cable industry. It grew out of the West where it was difficult to reliably broadcast TV signals over the air over great distances. The answer to this problem came from smart thinkers and pioneers that lived in the market. Today, the entire cable industry is heavily shaped and influenced by those individuals. What would have happened if we asked someone from New York to solve that problem? I'm sure the result would have looked much different.

The same is true for professional sports franchises. No two markets are the same just as no two teams are the same. Personally, I'd like to see more of these innovative approaches because for every New York Yankees there are 10 Tampa Bay Rays.

Manage a Sports Team Like a Brand

I read a great Ad Age article yesterday about how the Tampa Bay Rays are being managed like a brand and are employing many principles that company's like P&G do when creating the right brand experience for their customers.

http://adage.com/article?article_id=131499

As a marketer, I love to see the ideas of my profession being applied in an area where you wouldn't expect to see them. It seems that most sports franchises these days, no matter the sport, are managed for financial outcomes and/or the personal gratification of the owner. Neither of these are bad approaches because I'm sure they yield a great deal of enrichment for those who have taken great risks. But, seldom do you see such an intense focus on the fan and providing that fan with a consistent experience across all touch points of the brand. And it makes sense to me because I can't think of many other products that have such intense emotional brand engagement. They don't call them fanatics for nothing.

The brilliance of what the Tampa Bay Rays are doing is that it shows up on the field and in the financials. It's not just for the sake of marketing or brand building. Players are quoted as saying they have a significant home field advantage due to the fan engagement, even when the Boston Red Sox and New York Yankees visit. This is a result that many teams could only hope for. I know that growing up in Washington that even Redskins games have large contingencies of fans from the opposing teams. It's even worse at Capital and Wizard games where the front office actually courts fans of the opposing teams in order to fill the seats.

I also like the focus that the Rays are putting on their "best customers", those fans that invest in them year after year. It rewards the fans for their loyalty with access to unique experiences. At the same time, they are reinforcing the fanaticism by making those fans feel like they're part of the team. Essentially, this activity creates an extension of their brand with the people in the seats. It's easy to see why the Rays are harder to beat at home.

Redskins 23 Eagles 17

Another great win for the Skins today to go to 4-1 on the season. A lot of the talk this week centered on how this was a must-win for the Eagles and that the Skins were heavy underdogs. Somehow, I just didn’t see it that way, but nobody pays me for my opinion. I think we can say that the Skins are a legitimate playoff contender now. Some things I liked about the game this week:

Resilience. The Redskins took the best that the Eagles had to offer and stood strong. Not only that, they punched the Eagles in the nose a couple of times.

Versatility. The Eagles totally shut down Santana Moss today. I know because I started him on my fantasy team. The Redskins responded with a healthy dose of Clinton Portis and Chris Cooley, which will make them much harder to defend in the future. Campbell, Portis, Moss, Cooley – gives the Skins at least 4 dependable weapons every week.

Commitment to the Run. The Redskins ran for over 200 yards on the league’s best rushing defense. Take that, George Washington! (Thank you Robot Chicken Star Wars).

Ball Control. The Redskins again controlled the clock, holding the ball for almost 35 minutes. They generated 5 scoring chances, converting them all. And, they held the ball for the last 7 minutes of the game, thwarting any hope of an Eagles comeback. I remember that this was a staple of the Emmitt Smith Cowboys and how demoralizing it was. I like being on the other side of the equation now.

No Turnovers. I really liked the way Jason Campbell avoided the costly mistake. Several times during the game, he threw the ball away or took a knee when the Redskins had a broken play.

Next opponent: vs. St. Louis Rams. The Redskins must avoid a let-down at home against a team they should beat.

Twitter

A bunch of us here in the office have started using Twitter as means of rapidly sharing and responding to ideas. Twitter is a social networking site where you post what you’re working on in 140 characters or less. The trend was started by our CMO as a means to create dialogue around our brand directly with our employees and customers. It breaks through a lot of the barriers that traditionally surround a C-level executive while creating a high degree of transparency and authenticity around our brand. There are ongoing arguments for and against this, as it challenges a lot of the traditional orthodoxies of business from both a competitive and legal sense. I think that it is rather visionary and is consistent with the role that we might expect an executive in a forward looking company to play.

Well, the trend started slowly, but recently hit a critical mass of users within my circle at work. This has led to unexpected experiences where my virtual world collides with my real world. In a recent incident, I posted on Twitter that I was naming a project after my favorite beer – the Surly Furious (http://www.surlybrewing.com/). Later that day, I was involved in a hallway conversation, where a colleague commented that he liked my new naming convention. Since I hadn’t discussed the project with him, I was a bit confused. Thankfully, he went on to say that he could think of a dozen beers after which he’d name projects. I recognized what he was talking about and immediately knew how he had gained that information.

At that moment, I had a bit of an epiphany. I realized that in the new world of social networks, you are completely naked. You are vulnerable in a way that I’m not sure we could have imagined even just a few years ago. I’m not entirely sure of all the implications of this just yet. However, it does seem to me that in these forums you are subject to the ultimate market – the opinions and views of your peers and customers. I think this is where the transparency comes from. You just can’t hide anything, so you have to be completely honest and humble. By embracing this, it allows you to participate in the dialogue in a way that you cannot if you hide. I know that bearing yourself in this way, either as an individual or corporation, is not easy. It requires great courage and I applaud those who have it.

You can follow me on Twitter at http://twitter.com/mcperez54.

Napster Redux

So a few of you have been asking me about what to do about Napster. I recently read a great article in the Economist about the future of music (thanks Ken). It talks about how handset manufacturers – Nokia in particular – are bundling music services with their handset. Consumers get “free” music for one year and Nokia passes a royalty through to the Record Labels (cost of the subscription is included in the handset). It’s a win-win for consumers and the Labels. I’m not sure how Metallica fares, but let’s be honest. Anyone who is blaming the iPod for the sound quality of their music is just a little bit out of touch with reality - particularly with how people are consuming their product.

Now, what if Best Buy were able to do what Nokia did? They have a pretty robust private label capability, scale distribution in the US and Europe (Best Buy Mobile and Car Phone Warehouse), relationships with the carriers and a newly acquired music service. Combine that with the ability to collect and incorporate employee and consumer feedback for product development and I think they’ve got a decent shot grabbing some market share. All the pieces are there and it represents the type of forward looking point of view that I talked about before. What do you think?