Intern Symposium in Bristol, CT

                Being in the New York office of ESPN, we don’t get much of a taste of the day to day production of the shows that really help define ESPN as a brand. At Trinity one of my classmates and I film, edit, and broadcast our own version of SportsCenter on what we call the Trinity Sports Network so naturally I was incredibly interested to see the production aspect in Bristol, CT where ESPN first got its start back in 1979.

This past Tuesday, the entire summer intern class of 2012 converged on the Bristol campus bringing interns from California, New York, Chicago, and North Carolina together to see what went on behind the scenes. We began the day with an introduction speech by President John Skipper who was every bit a leader as I could have expected. Between his comedic anecdotes and subtle put downs of Duke (UNC is his alma mater) he was a relatable figure who storied rise to his current position was riveting to hear. I was also relaxed by the table I was sitting at which could have been easily supplanted in a 6 year olds sports themed birthday party, complete with sporty name cards and ESPN letter salt and pepper shakers.

 Skipper explained that as we dive headlong into today’s technology focused age we must anticipate the convergence of platforms as the difference of screens between computers, TVs, and smartphones will cease to be important. One of the things that has astounded me most as an intern is the ability for those in charge to captivate an audience. In all the seminars and meetings I’ve attended I have always been sucked in by the passion and the knowledge behind the words and John Skipper was no different in his ability to dominate a room. Later on in our panel discussion, the theme of passion emerged again and again as the driving force as to why ESPN was at the top of its market. Its employees and talent genuinely have a love for what they do and want to go out and put forth an effort unequaled by other companies in our field.

The next part of the day was the recreation of a show on ESPN called Stump the Schwab with Howie Schwab. I claim to know an exorbitant and seemingly endless amount of useless sports knowledge, but compared to Howie I knew about as much as… well, someone that doesn’t know much about sports. The questions ranged from naming the starting 11 on Chelsea FC to listing the first overall picks in the NBA draft for the last 23 years. Needless to say it was a slaughter out there, but I was impressed by how many right answers my fellow interns were able to get.

The last part of our visit to Bristol was a tour of the entire campus, 30 acres of pristine sports paradise. As we headed out the doors to make our way to the production studios, Stephen A. Smith of such critical acclaim with First Take and other ESPN analyst positions, walked past us sending up a series of gaps and inducing a few star struck jaw drops. Our tour guide, Jeff, assured us that this type of sighting was a common occurrence, but many of us were still incredulous that the man we saw argue on the TV with Skip Bayless everyday had passed not more than a few feet away from us. Although hard to top that experience, we were equally in awe under the bright lights of the familiar studios in which we’d seen countless broadcasts over the years. I’d just like to say that sitting behind that desk was a pretty great feeling. Unfortunately the day had to come to a close after the tour, but I hope one day I can sit back in one of those seats under the lights in Bristol, CT.

Just a few links to a few old Trinity Sports Network Videos

NBA Jersey Advertising: Flop or Not?

On June 20^th the National Basketball Association decided to accept advertisements on the uniforms of its players becoming the first of the four major sports leagues to allow this. Being an intern in the Consumer Marketing and Sales group, I felt that this was an interesting step in advertising, essentially creating a new medium for advertisers to get their brands out to the public.

Before the NBA sports like the WNBA and NASCAR had allowed advertisers to put their products on jerseys, driver’s suits, race cars, and whatever else they could slap a Wonder Bread sticker on. Advertising in NASCAR has always felt somewhat natural as brand names and advertisers often go hand in hand with a particular driver or car. Example being, every mother’s son at any of the big cup series throughout the NASCAR season knows that Tony Stewart is the Office Depot car and Jeff Gordon drives the Du Pont car. It’s just common knowledge and how the sport has developed. During the race there isn’t as much of a focus on the driver because all we see is the car and thus the advertisements, but to begin putting advertisements on athletes really doesn’t seem in line with what the NBA is.

You could argue that the WNBA has been doing this for years, but the Women’s National Basketball Association is an entirely different beast, a beast which is in fact starving for advertising dollars. The article reports that teams could expect to earn anywhere from $1.5 million to $7.5 million per year a relatively small amount in a market that grosses around $3.5-4 billion a year. The question then must be asked, is the revenue from these advertisements worth what could potentially be a hit to the NBA brand? The ESPN website could cover 90% of its websites in advertisements that move and vie for your attention while you are innocently trying to read about how your team did in last night’s game. It could have pop-ups and prestitials, all manner of distracting and annoying ads that although they would make ESPN more immediate dollars the detriment to ESPN’s brand is undeniable.

Fans have been clamoring since this announcement about how the “uniqueness” of jerseys will essentially be ruined by advertisements. Jersey sales go up with great athletes that change the face of the game and reconstruct how we perceived certain organizations. The way Jeremy Lin came bursting onto the scene for the Knicks this year was a revolutionary period for the NBA. Never had one player so shocked the basketball world in 25 games like he managed to. I honestly wonder if the same amount of Lin jerseys would have been sold if the Knickerbockers had uniforms sponsored by T-Mobile, one of their larger advertisers. I mean, how many Boston Celtics fans would happily trade in the KG or Ray Allen jersey they have now for one that has a big Sprite logo sewn on? How many Spurs fans want to see Tim Duncan sporting a jersey sponsoring something you blow your nose with? Let’s be real. The two organizations and their fan followings couldn’t be more different (something I cringe about as a Knicks fan), but it’s safe to say neither set of fans is going to be greatly appreciative of this change.

It’s at this point that the NBA must see that the advertising dollars it’s getting from these companies are worth the cheapening of the brand. Personally, I hope David Stern Armani Exchange’s this policy before he Lacostes the league its rep. Paul Frankly I’m sorry for making these jokes.

YP and the VP

The other day I had the opportunity to attend a meeting sponsored by the ESPN Young Professionals, which is a group of driven young men and women working within the ESPN community who are truly the industry’s best and brightest. The guest speaker for this meeting was none other than the Executive Vice President for Sales and Marketing, Sean Bratches. I’d just like to say right off the bat that Mr. Bratches was one of the best public speakers I’ve ever had the privilege to listen to and it was really enlightening to hear him speak on so many diverse topics I didn’t have a large amount of knowledge about.  I don’t usually gush like a pre-teen girl who’s just seen Justin Bieber, but I can confidently say that every person around that table was enthralled with what Mr. Bratches had to say.

                In an increasingly changing market characterized by the rise and fall of competitors and new technological innovations that radically redefine business plans, ESPN must continually be willing and capable of change if it is to remain at the top of the industry. One of the most striking things about Mr. Bratches was that he knew an astounding amount about the business and how it has been evolving, while many of his peers at companies like Comcast or NBC frequently ask themselves how advertising dollars translate to Tweeter. The mobile and digital mediums of advertising and marketing are on the up and up as people today have so many portable options to carry with them throughout the day. Whether it’s an iPad, iPhone, or simply a laptop we consume more now than ever on the go and working at ESPN we are more conscious than most about the fact that people need access to information anytime, anywhere.

               Developments like WatchESPN and the Scorecenter mobile app are tailored specifically for a generation of people constantly on the move so that sports fans around the world never miss a single moment of their sports teams. In my last post I mentioned the Euro Cup which was a major event that WatchESPN covered among its 24/7 programming of live events, and in the month of June during the tournament 5.3 million viewers tuned in, racking up 862.2 million minutes of viewing while ESPN apps hit 1,555,906,950 minutes. According to NCTA Cable studies, in 1977 only about 6.5 million people had cable television. So in one single month WatchESPN achieved almost as many viewers which really just goes to show how these industries can evolve quickly. One of the things Sean Bratches mentioned was that in this day and age, in order to achieve the desired 10% annual growth ESPN would have to have to expand its market by over $1 billion. In order to hit those numbers every year, new radical innovations need to be implemented and ideas like WatchESPN and mobile apps are exactly what this era calls for. As an intern who focuses on largely digital sales and marketing, I was informed in my first week that at ESPN the television side of sales and marketing makes over $4 billion each year whereas digital and mobile only take in about $300 million. The main difference here is that television has been in households worldwide for over half a century, while the internet and its application to mobile devices is relatively new technology and so digital and mobile markets are growing significantly faster because there is the most room for innovation and change. Ten years ago the way people used the internet was radically different from how people use it today and men like Mr. Bratches see that this growth in the market is where ESPN needs to be.

               Mr. Bratches left us with one last point, encouraging us to all go out with the same attitude as Steve Jobs in his creation of Pixar and Apple. Nothing can be off the limits and nothing is guaranteed, we need to all go out there and constantly be looking to change instead of accepting what is around as an inevitable truth because as Steve Jobs proved, we can improve, innovate, and succeed even when others are so sure we'll fail.

Here is a link to WatchESPN http://espn.go.com/watchespn/index