JMU coursework. Sports-marketing case studies and a service-learning project.
A selection of academic group projects from undergrad. The earliest, a WNBA Indiana Fever marketing case from April 2020. The systems-level sponsorship thinking starts here.
A full operational case study on the Indiana Fever. Six contributors covering community outreach, travel and lodging, mental healthcare, ticket sales, team quality, and (my section) marketing and advertising.
My objective covered three procedures:
- Targeted demographic advertising via designated marketing areas. Local TV (FSI, My-INDY-TV), newspapers (Indianapolis Star), radio (1075 The Fan), and paid social. Anchored to research on youth-basketball ecosystems (Indy Youth Basketball League, Indiana High School Athletic Association) and the WNBA's young-adult audience.
- Player-endorsement strategy. Building social-media presence as a precondition for endorsement opportunity, monitoring it, and matching individual players against potential athletic-apparel and sneaker partners (Adidas, Nike, Under Armour, Puma) using the same approach college programs use with Auburn / South Carolina / Miami / Louisville as parallels.
- Cross-team partnerships with the Pacers and the Colts (same arena, same state, complementary fan bases) plus paid promo activation at college basketball games (Indiana University Bloomington, Butler vs. Purdue, Notre Dame women's).
I was 19 when I wrote it. The framing (sponsorship as platform, audience as overlapping network, paid promo at adjacent properties) is what I'd later watch get built at scale at Wasserman.
Full-season marketing plan for the Villanova men's basketball program. SWOT, target markets, marketing goals, product pricing structure (including a Wells Fargo Center Triple Play ticket structure), collateral material, advertising overview, a game-by-game promotional schedule mapping sponsors to games (Coca-Cola, Pat's King of Steaks, Gatorade, Geno's Steaks, a Philadelphia 76ers tie-in), a $20K promotional-and-giveaway budget, and a season-timeline for the athletics marketing department. Our group also proposed an alternative theme to sit alongside the official "Attitude" slogan: Strong Together.
League-level analysis of the NHL. Overview, SWOT, marketing partnerships across global / U.S. / Canadian categories (Adidas, Apple, Amazon, EA Sports; Dunkin, Discover, Geico, FanDuel; Air Canada, Tim Hortons, Kelloggs, KitKat), target demographic, critical analysis of league commercial strategy (commissioner Gary Bettman, niche-sport positioning, post-pandemic ticket revenue impact), and a multimedia component on the league's virtual ad-tech response to lost in-arena revenue. League-strategy work, not team-strategy.
A four-prong consulting plan for First Tee Shenandoah Valley, a regional youth-golf nonprofit. Addressing visibility (social media), transportation, budget, and stigma. I had a hand in all four. The sponsorship-thinking on this one came in through the budget prong: local fundraising and regional-business sponsorships to move the chapter off reliance on national grant cycles.