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Furthermore, the challenge is made harder by the fact that players regularly come and go, meaning that clubs need to ensure that whatever tactics they do, that it happens constantly.With this in mind, we look at the options open to football clubs in dealing with the issue of problematic players on Social Media:1. Ban Social MediaPerhaps not as popular as it was several years ago, banning Social Media is undoubtedly the boldest of options available to clubs and usually stems from the manager’s reluctance to understand the value in Social.Whilst simply banning players from Social Media sounds like a logical solution for stopping players saying stupid tweets (or anything at all), it’s turned out to be unenforceable and present the club in bad light with their fans. The temptation to ban Social Media might solve the problem in the short term but it never works in the long.2. 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This year, 108 million people watched the Super Bowl, while 3.2 billion watched the last World Cup, 715 million for the finals alone. It attracts a fully engaged, globally diverse audience for a month of action both preceded and followed by four years of anticipation.In short, it’s a marketer’s dream—and potential nightmare as well.Let’s start with the challenges. First, soccer is played in 45-minute continuous halves with the only commercial breaks coming at halftime, so broadcast opportunities are limited. Second, the space available for purchase is hyper-inflated, with eight-figure commercial partnerships and global sponsorship packages sold out years in advance. Third, brands are competing for share of voice against each other and the personalities of the most idolized athletes in the world. Marketing cost and competition have never been so high.And Brazil’s World Cup will be the most cluttered social conversation ever. According to Twitter, three separate soccer matches have already achieved higher tweets-per-second peaks than the 2012 London Olympics. The 2012 Euro Cup final alone generated 16.5 million total tweets from a viewing audience of just under 300 million. The last World Cup final drew more than twice as many viewers, and that’s just one game. There will be 64 matches next summer generating hundreds of millions of social mentions. 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Of course, not all mar­kets are large, times aren't always good and rev­enue streams are often fick­le.<p>Fan atten­dance is actu­al­ly most crit­i­cal when times are tough, finan­cial­ly aban­don­ing a team usu­al­ly isn't the best way to get them over the hump. But you can't real­ly blame peo­ple for not want­i­ng to pony up the cash to watch a sub­par team lose.<p>Which is where mar­ket­ing comes into play. Fan pro­mo­tions and changes aimed at mak­ing the live expe­ri­ence more appeal­ing are two ways in which own­er­ship attempt to over­com­pen­sate for their poor prod­uct. Some are clever and inven­tive, while oth­ers are just plain des­per­ate.<p>Here are some of the lat­ter.<p>Despite being more or less a fix­ture in post­sea­son play, the Tampa Bay Rays have been strug­gling with the worst—or damn near the worst—atten­dance in MLB for years.<p>They've been dead last the last two sea­sons, but even when they were ninth from the bot­tom in 2010 they were still des­per­ate to put asses in the seats.<p>In late Sep­tem­ber of that sea­son, sev­er­al Rays play­ers pres­sured team pres­i­dent Matt Sil­ver­man to give away tick­ets, so they wouldn't be play­ing to clinch a play­off berth in a pathet­i­cal­ly empty sta­di­um.<p>The team made the deci­sion to give away 20,000 free tick­ets to a sin­gle game, in order to cre­ate a \"full-house atmosphere.\"<p>Try­ing to lure in a star play­er from the NFL or NBA is one way for a very obscure team to attract nation­al—and some­times <i>inter­na­tion­al</i>—atten­tion. It doesn't even mat­ter if he or she is recep­tive to their over­tures, just mak­ing the over­ture is usu­al­ly enough to cre­ate a tem­po­rary media fren­zy, the likes of which they've never seen. It's truly a win-win sit­u­a­tion for them.<p>In Feb­ru­ary 2012 the Indoor Foot­ball League's Allen Wran­glers signed infa­mous­ly trou­ble­some wide receiv­er Ter­rell Owens to a six-figure con­tract, which report­ed­ly includ­ed an own­er­ship stake in the team. Before land­ing T.O. most peo­ple didn't even know the IFL exist­ed. After his debut was wide­ly cov­ered by the nation­al sports media—includ­ing being fea­tured on <i>Sports­Cen­ter</i>—its exis­tence was rec­og­nized by sub­stan­tial­ly more peo­ple.<p>But still not a who …","sourceURL":"http://bleacherreport.com/articles/1797825-the-most-desperate-ways-teams-have-tried-to-get-fans-through-door","allowFullscreenImage":true,"inlineImage":{"mediumURL":"http://cdn.flipboard.com/bleacherreport.net/08a40e75ec239aee75883148c82f3d93a7a3d392/original.jpg","smallURL":"http://cdn.flipboard.com/bleacherreport.net/08a40e75ec239aee75883148c82f3d93a7a3d392/thumbnail.jpg","original_width":450,"original_height":300,"original_hints":"color,light,photo,rgb-241-126-90,still"},"readButtonCaption":"Read Article","sourceMagazineURL":"http://cdn.flipboard.com/flipmag?url=http%3A%2F%2Fcdn.flipboard.com%2Fbleacherreport.com%2Fe1c7a3ca0834da2a64a858356b036b183d3bd189%2F8add466d87e605b822d668697ec49ef05c2af99f%2Farticle.html&partner=bleacher&tml§ion=flipboard%2Fcurator%252Fmagazine%252Fv4cP-0RZQpmg4ja7xg_vNQ%253Am%253A9627614&fallbackTml","language":"en","article":{"sectionID":"flipboard/curator%2Fmagazine%2Fv4cP-0RZQpmg4ja7xg_vNQ%3Am%3A9627614","partnerID":"bleacher","url":"http://cdn.flipboard.com/bleacherreport.com/e1c7a3ca0834da2a64a858356b036b183d3bd189/8add466d87e605b822d668697ec49ef05c2af99f/article.html"},"referredByItems":[{"type":"status","authorDisplayName":"Shane Harmon","authorUsername":"shane_harmon","userid":"9627614","authorDescription":"#Sportsbiz & Major Events professional. 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Here is a sam­pling of the email cre­ative being used to help d …","sourceURL":"http://www.thebusinessofsports.com/2013/10/07/nba-ticket-presales/","hideOnCover":true,"inlineImage":{"mediumURL":"http://image.tmclient.ticketmaster.com/lib/fe9615707d67067f7c/m/1/Spurs_PreSale_Onsale44.jpg","smallURL":"http://cdn.flipboard.com/ticketmaster.com/193953c6d8542016e2413b7c670408445051a5b8/thumbnail.jpg","original_width":600,"original_height":800,"original_hints":"color,dark,face-510-283-41,focus-510-283,photo,rgb-15-15-15,still"},"language":"en","authorDisplayName":"Posted by Russell Scibetti","referredByItems":[{"type":"status","authorDisplayName":"Shane Harmon","authorUsername":"shane_harmon","userid":"9627614","authorDescription":"#Sportsbiz & Major Events professional. Lover of all sports, master of none. Interested in digital, social, marketing, fan engagement. 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My father’s company had season tickets, and if a prospective client had a kid who wanted to go, I got to tag along. Whether the Bengals won or lost, I always had a great time at those games because I was there with my dad. I just remember the smile on his face. If I ever had a son, I knew I would want to share this same experience with him.Flash forward to 2000. My wife and I have moved to Alexandria, Va., for my job. A co-worker asks me if I’d like to attend Washington Redskins’ training camp. Sure—why not? I still love the NFL. At the camp they have a table promoting their season-ticket waitlist, so I sign up.Years pass. In October 2006 our son, Brandish, is born. Ten months later I get the phone call I’d hoped to receive one day: “Mr. Fowler, your wait is over! We have general admission seating for you.”Dad and son, preparing for their first game.Since signing up, I had started to dread the sight of the Redskins’ ticket-office number on my caller ID, fearing that they would only be offering the über-expensiv …","rssText":"<script>var flip_images = {\"http://simmqb.files.wordpress.com/2013/08/brandish-360.jpg?w=360&h=526\":{\"width\":360,\"height\":526},\"http://simmqb.files.wordpress.com/2013/09/fedex-full-2-800.jpg?w=800&h=455\":{\"width\":800,\"height\":455},\"http://simmqb.files.wordpress.com/2013/08/wizards-game-360.jpg?w=360&h=454\":{\"width\":360,\"height\":454},\"http://cdn.flipboard.com/wordpress.com/2011d53a6a15c9605b54e1ff4a4ac12fdd447e19/thumbnail.jpg\":{\"width\":164,\"height\":240},\"http://simmqb.files.wordpress.com/2013/08/joel-and-son-1.jpg?w=800&h=376\":{\"width\":800,\"height\":376},\"http://cdn.flipboard.com/wordpress.com/47b471bd201f8010dd291b1660f68fce1f19a849/thumbnail.jpg\":{\"width\":190,\"height\":240},\"http://cdn.flipboard.com/wordpress.com/afa4d0b6efc1fb114b7acfd44f6b8546c2b0b9b1/thumbnail.jpg\":{\"width\":240,\"height\":136},\"http://cdn.flipboard.com/wordpress.com/4a86681a992d54965b33d749f24ae58979547378/thumbnail.jpg\":{\"width\":240,\"height\":112}};</script>\n<div id=\"flip_rss_body\"> <div class=\"json_content\">\n <div id=\"attachment_4458\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\">\n <div fl:hint-main-image=\"true\" class=\"still rgb-72-78-38 photo imgnsfw-0 color img\">\n <img src=\"http://simmqb.files.wordpress.com/2013/09/fedex-full-2-800.jpg?w=800&h=455\" data-size=\"medium\" width=\"500\" height=\"284\" hints=\"color,imgnsfw-0,photo,rgb-72-78-38,still,\"/>\n </div>\n <p>\n ( Scott Cunningham/Getty Images)\n </p>\n </div>\n <p>\n <strong>By Joel Fowler</strong>\n </p>\n <p>\n It’s a ques­tion that haunts me to this day: “So, Mr. Fowler, how can the Wash­ing­ton Red­skins retain you as a season-ticket hold­er?”\n </p>\n <p>\n I had missed the renew­al dead­line fol­low­ing the end of the 2010 NFL sea­son, but I didn’t think any­thing of it. I made my deci­sion based on my game-day expe­ri­ences over the pre­vi­ous four sea­sons. How do I sum­ma­rize to this tick­et agent that the NFL I assumed I was going to expe­ri­ence com­pared mis­er­ably to the prod­uct I actu­al­ly received?\n </p>\n <p>\n I have loved pro­fes­sion­al foot­ball for as long as I can remem­ber. Grow­ing up in cen­tral Ken­tucky in the 1980s, I devel­oped a bond with the Cincin­nati Ben­gals. My father’s com­pa­ny had sea­son tick­ets, and if a prospec­tive client had a kid who want­ed to go, I got to tag along. Whether the Ben­gals won or lost, I always had a great time at those games because I was there with my dad. I just remem­ber the smile on his face. If I ever had a son, I knew I would want to share this same expe­ri­ence with him.\n </p>\n <p>\n Flash for­ward to 2000. My wife and I have moved to Alexan­dria, Va., for my job. A co-worker asks me if I’d like to attend Wash­ing­ton Red­skins’ train­ing camp. Sure—why not? I still love the NFL. At the camp they have a table pro­mot­ing their season-ticket wait­list, so I sign up.\n </p>\n <p>\n Years pass. In Octo­ber 2006 our son, Bran­dish, is born. Ten months later I get the phone call I’d hoped to receive one day: “Mr. Fowler, your wait is over! We have gen­er­al admis­sion seat­ing for you.”\n </p>\n <div id=\"attachment_4320\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\">\n <div class=\"still wide rgb-1-65-106 photo imgnsfw-7 focus-620-113 face-620-113-68 color img\">\n <img src=\"http://simmqb.files.wordpress.com/2013/08/joel-and-son-1.jpg?w=800&h=376\" data-size=\"medium\" width=\"500\" height=\"235\" hints=\"color,face-620-113-68,focus-620-113,imgnsfw-7,photo,rgb-1-65-106,wide,still,\"/>\n </div>\n <p>\n Dad and son, prepar­ing for their first game.\n </p>\n </div>\n <p>\n Since sign­ing up, I had start­ed to dread the sight of the Red­skins’ ticket-office num­ber on my caller ID, fear­ing that they would only be offer­ing the über-expensive club-level seat­ing that we sim­ply could not afford. But that was not the case. In fact, the agent wasn’t even offer­ing nose-bleed end zone seats. This pair of tick­ets was locat­ed in Sec­tion 424, on the 20-yard-line. I can only sum up my feel­ings at that moment in one word. <i>Per­fect.</i>\n </p>\n <p>\n My son is born in the mid­dle of a NFL sea­son—dur­ing the Red­skins’ bye week no less—and the very next sea­son I get the tick­ets I’d always want­ed to have for him? It was kismet.\n </p>\n <p>\n *  *  *\n </p>\n <p>\n Unfor­tu­nate­ly, our actu­al game-day expe­ri­ences were far from per­fect. In that first year things were fun and excit­ing, but we faced two sunk costs that no NFL fan can escape: time and money.\n </p>\n <p>\n With atten­dance creep­ing over 80,000, our drive to Lan­dover, Md., nor­mal­ly a half-hour, could take between two and three hours before we got to a park­ing spot. The Metro train would be quick­er, but haul­ing an infant and all of his neces­si­ties the one mile from the clos­est sta­tion to the upper-deck seats was imprac­ti­cal. (Side note: When informed of the league’s new “clear bags only” pol­i­cy for this sea­son, my wife’s reac­tion was, “Well, that stops new moms from going to games. How are you gonna fit all the stuff you need for your baby in that small bag?”)\n </p>\n <p>\n The tick­ets were not cheap, with a pair of upper-level seats run­ning me more than $1,500 for the sea­son. While that can be a man­age­able cost for a fam­i­ly with two incomes, the Red­skins don’t make it easy, offer­ing pay­ment plans only for their pre­mi­um tick­ets. If you don’t have the extra cash lying around, your cred­it card com­pa­ny will get that inter­est.\n </p>\n <p>\n Game-day expens­es can add up too: $30 for park­ing, $10 for a small pizza, $5 for a soda. But for par­ents like me, the real expense comes with late games, when you need to hire a babysit­ter at $15 an hour. Not only do these Sun­day, Mon­day, and now Thurs­day nighters rob my son of the chance to attend the game, but they take an extra $100 from my wal­let. Numer­ous times, my wife and I decid­ed that we would be more fis­cal­ly respon­si­ble by skip­ping the fourth quar­ter than by wait­ing until end of the game, then sit­ting in three hours of traf­fic as the babysit­ting meter ticked.\n </p>\n <div id=\"attachment_4319\" class=\"wp-caption alignright\">\n <div class=\"still rgb-176-107-97 photo imgnsfw-50 focus-184-256 face-184-256-95 color img\">\n <img src=\"http://simmqb.files.wordpress.com/2013/08/brandish-360.jpg?w=360&h=526\" data-size=\"medium\" width=\"360\" height=\"526\" hints=\"color,face-184-256-95,focus-184-256,imgnsfw-50,photo,rgb-176-107-97,still,\"/>\n </div>\n <p>\n In the 400 sec­tion.\n </p>\n </div>\n <p>\n Still, I expect­ed sac­ri­fices of time and money when sign­ing up for sea­son tick­ets, and was will­ing to live with them. What I did not plan for was the lack of civil­i­ty in my upper-deck sec­tion.\n </p>\n <p>\n For me, the prob­lem began to get seri­ous in Week 3 of the 2008 sea­son. The Ari­zona Car­di­nals came to town, and with them a small group of Car­di­nals fans for whom I’m guess­ing over-intoxication was a com­pe­ti­tion. They were loud and obnox­ious the entire time. Thank­ful­ly my wife and son could not attend this game. I just remem­ber the gri­mace that crossed the face of the father whose sea­son tick­ets were next to mine with every vul­gar­i­ty that his eight-year-old son had to hear. Would that be the look on my face when my son was that old?\n </p>\n <p>\n The ensu­ing games were often just as bad. Home and vis­it­ing fans alike made my seats more like prime view­ing at a keg party than the NFL expe­ri­ence of my youth. There was absolute­ly no fil­ter to the pro­fan­i­ty they were using. Believe me, I’m no prude, but around my chil­dren and other peo­ple’s kids, I strive to be. It’s my belief that chil­dren should learn curs­ing the old-fashioned way—on the play­ground from their friends.\n </p>\n <p>\n Fans of divi­sion­al oppo­nents were often the worst offend­ers, to the point where I didn’t even <em>want</em> to attend games against the Eagles, Cow­boys and Giants. With the advent of Stub­Hub, Craigslist and other resale sites, sea­son tick­ethold­ers could eas­i­ly dou­ble their money from vis­it­ing NFC East fans, and many in the cost-conscious upper sec­tions took advan­tage of the oppor­tu­ni­ty.\n </p>\n <p>\n The tip­ping point for my deci­sion not to renew came in the open­er of the 2010 sea­son, a Sun­day night game against the Cow­boys. In the mid­dle of the sec­ond quar­ter, nature called and I need­ed to visit the restroom. As I was walk­ing down from my 15th row seat, a young lady point­ing to her pink Tony Romo jer­sey was block­ing the row as her team was dri­ving down the field. I asked her nice­ly if I could get by, but that just made her clutch the jer­sey hard­er and push it toward my face. As I raised my voice in an effort to make her under­stand my sit­u­a­tion, an extra from the cast of <i>Swamp Peo­ple </i>in a Jason Wit­ten jer­sey popped up.\n </p>\n <p>\n “Hey, you gotta prob­lem, buddy?” asked Mr. Bleary Eyes.\n </p>\n <p>\n “Um… yeah… I want to get out.”\n </p>\n <p>\n [pul­lquote]Home and vis­it­ing fans alike made my seats more like prime view­ing at a keg party than the NFL expe­ri­ence of my youth.[/pullquote]\n </p>\n <p>\n Appar­ent­ly to him, them’s fight­in’ words. As he approached me in my bur­gundy LaRon Landry jer­sey, Ms. Pink Romo final­ly got out of the row to try to set­tle her man down, and I passed by.\n </p>\n <p>\n “Stop! It’s not worth it!” I heard her say as I walked away.\n </p>\n <p>\n But Swamp Wit­ten kept fol­low­ing me. As I reached the mez­za­nine, his girl­friends’ clutch­ing arms and des­per­ate words final­ly reg­is­tered in his addled brain, and they returned to their seats.\n </p>\n <p>\n Now, I was not afraid. I stand over six feet and weigh 280 pounds. The guy was drunk, and a strong wind could have knocked him over. But I’m a 35-year-old adult, and this was ridicu­lous. I’ve never had to deal with a drunk­en fan harass­ing me in my own liv­ing room.\n </p>\n <p>\n The images from that night flashed in my mind as the Red­skins tick­et agent asked what it would take for me to keep my sea­son tick­ets.\n </p>\n <p>\n “Do you have a family-only or alcohol-free sec­tion?” I asked.\n </p>\n <p>\n “Umm… no.”\n </p>\n <p>\n “Then I guess you don’t have what it takes.”\n </p>\n <p>\n Click.\n </p>\n <p>\n *  *  *\n </p>\n <div id=\"attachment_4321\" class=\"wp-caption alignright\">\n <div class=\"still rgb-122-119-126 photo imgnsfw-22 focus-111-221 face-267-170-66 face-111-221-75 color img\">\n <img src=\"http://simmqb.files.wordpress.com/2013/08/wizards-game-360.jpg?w=360&h=454\" data-size=\"medium\" width=\"360\" height=\"454\" hints=\"color,face-111-221-75,face-267-170-66,focus-111-221,imgnsfw-22,photo,rgb-122-119-126,still,\"/>\n </div>\n <p>\n Older, and wiser, at the Wiz­ards.\n </p>\n </div>\n <p>\n I won­dered how many other NFL-loving fathers have to deal with this prob­lem, so I recent­ly called or web-chatted with the tick­et offices of all 32 teams to find out. As with many issues in the NFL, this one revolves square­ly around money. A vast major­i­ty (71%) of NFL teams that have above-average atten­dance (like the Red­skins) do not have fam­i­ly seat­ing sec­tions. A vast major­i­ty (73%) of NFL teams with below-average atten­dance have such sec­tions—pre­sum­ably to help boost tick­et sales.\n </p>\n <p>\n There are some friends who ques­tion my rea­son for not renew­ing my tick­ets. They point out that the Red­skins weren’t very good at the time, fin­ish­ing fourth in the NFC East in each of the final three sea­sons I had my tick­ets.\n </p>\n <p>\n My reply is direct and per­sua­sive: I have also been a loyal season-ticket hold­er of the Wash­ing­ton Wiz­ards for the past three years. In that time the Wiz went 72-158, a win­ning per­cent­age of .313, and my son and I couldn’t be hap­pi­er. Our half-hour Metro ride stops right at the Ver­i­zon Cen­ter. I pay for our gen­er­al admis­sion tick­ets over 10 interest-free months. This com­ing sea­son the team will host more than 20 games on Fri­day and Sat­ur­day nights, allow­ing a first-grader to stay up a lit­tle past his bed­time while not dis­rupt­ing school the next day.  Most impor­tant­ly, we’re in a good sec­tion with other polite but pas­sion­ate fans, many of whom con­sume alco­hol but not to excess.\n </p>\n <p>\n My fam­i­ly still loves the Red­skins, and we’re fol­low­ing them through their ups and downs this sea­son. But as far as sport­ing events go, we give our game-day expe­ri­ences to the Wash­ing­ton Wiz­ards, and our NFL expe­ri­ence to Pana­son­ic.\n </p>\n <p>\n <i>Joel Fowler and his wife, Casan­dra, have three chil­dren—Bran­dish, age 6, Veron­i­ca, age 3, and Dax, who was intro­duced to Red­skins Nation on Sept. 16. Unfor­tu­nate­ly it was not a Wash­ing­ton bye week.</i>\n </p>\n </div>\n</div>\n","sourceURL":"http://mmqb.si.com/2013/10/08/why-i-gave-up-my-nfl-season-tickets/","feedTitle":"The MMQB with Peter King","feedUrl":"http://mmqb.si.com/feed/","hideOnCover":true,"inlineImage":{"mediumURL":"http://simmqb.files.wordpress.com/2013/09/fedex-full-2-800.jpg?w=800&h=455","smallURL":"http://cdn.flipboard.com/wordpress.com/afa4d0b6efc1fb114b7acfd44f6b8546c2b0b9b1/thumbnail.jpg","original_width":800,"original_height":455,"original_hints":"color,imgnsfw-0,photo,rgb-72-78-38,still,,main-image,main-image"},"language":"en","rssBaseURL":"http://mmqb.si.com/2013/10/08/why-i-gave-up-my-nfl-season-tickets/","rssCustomClasses":"sysen","authorDisplayName":"Mark Mravic","referredByItems":[{"type":"status","authorDisplayName":"Shane Harmon","authorUsername":"shane_harmon","userid":"9627614","authorDescription":"#Sportsbiz & Major Events professional. Lover of all sports, master of none. 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