Amateur Sports A person who does not get paid to play a sport – Must only have desire and drive to play – Amateur sporting events attract: Fans Attention Money(concessions, sponsors) Examples?

AAU Amateur Athletic Union Established 1888 – Non-Profit organization to encourage children to explore sports – Many local businesses will financially support teams This is a form of sponsorship – Children who participate in sports are more likely to participate in adult leagues More sponsorship opportunities for local businesses

High School Sports Promotes a sense of community Think Friday night lights Center of the community Some sports are treated with more attention than others – Sometimes based on fan support and income – HS sports do not get a budget from the school and often rely on funding from booster clubs and fundraising Some say so much attention shouldn’t be paid to athletics in a school setting – National Federation of State High School Association (NFHS) sets guidelines to make sure students benefit from a balanced education and athletic experience

College Sports Some consider college sports to be more competitive than professional sports College offers sports based on the region and number of students – More students equal larger budgets – Larger budgets mean better facilities and recruits Colleges count on this revenue to support its programs – NCAA is the governing body of college athletics

Professional Sports A person who has the ability and will to earn an income from a particular sport – Salaries of professional players come from his/her employer(team/organization) – Some pro athletes may depend on corporations to pay athletes salaries(Professional Drivers) – Athletes can also earn money from corporations in the form of endorsements Example: LeBron James signed a $110 million dollar 6 year contract with Cleveland in He also signed a 7 year $93 million dollar contract with Nike in 2003 and renewed the contract in 2010 at $10 million per year. LeBron earns $28 million each year in endorsements alone. – Professional Sports are the most costly and the most heavily marketed of all the sports categories –

Sports as Entertainment Going to sporting events (particularly professional sports) are almost as much entertainment as they are sporting events Luxury Stadiums Unique Concessions Merchandise “Experience” prior to the event

Other Categories of Sports Olympic Athletes – Goal of the Olympics is to “Contribute to building a peaceful and better world by educating youth through sports practiced without discrimination of any kind and in Olympic Spirit, which requires mutual understanding with a spirit of friendship, solidarity and fair play” Example: In 2012 the London games had athletes from 204 National Olympic Committees with 10,960 athletes who competed in 302 events. Some events allow professional athletes to compete…why is this?

Other categories of sports Paralympics – Started in 1948 as an athletic outlet for WWII veterans who were wounded – Developed into Olympic style games – &feature=related &feature=related

Other categories of sports Special Olympics – Started in 1968 by Eunice Kennedy Shriver in Chicago’s Soldier Field – Offers year round training with 32 different events – Currently serves 3.7 million people in the world and more than 170 countries participates – Q&feature=relmfu Q&feature=relmfu

Women’s Sports Have advanced greatly in the last 40 years Title IX – law that bans gender discrimination in schools that receive federal funding. – In , approximately 294,000 high school girls competed in interscholastic sports – By , that number had increased to more than 2,652,000 – Title IX also increased the number of scholarships available to college athletes – 5M&feature=related 5M&feature=related

Extreme Sports Sports that involve nontraditional, daring methods of athletic competition Relatively new to sports marketing efforts – Very localized efforts – More and more of these events are on TV and getting media coverage – Tony Hawk is a pioneer in extreme sports promotion – ESPN and the X-games, has also been instrumental in promotion of these games –