On June 23, 1972, Title IX was signed. Last Saturday marked the 40th anniversary of the historic piece of legislation passing, and this month there have been several great stories about Title IX’s impact on sports, and society as a whole.
In celebrating one of the most important dates in sports history, IMRE SportsIQ presents some of our favorite stories from the month.
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“No person in the United States shall on the basis of sex be excluded from participation in, be denied the benefit of, or be subjected to discrimination under any education program or activity receiving Federal Financial Assistance.”
It’s more commonly referred to as “Title IX” legislation; however, those 37 words have forever changed the landscape of our sports world. The irony is that the word “sport” is not part of that 37-word statement.
On June 23, 1972, President Richard Nixon signed the Education Amendments of 1972 into law (for those politicos scoring at home, that is six days after the now infamous break-in at the Watergate Hotel. I guess Nixon had a better end to the week that the way it started…). It’s a milestone we can be proud of in the United States. It has brought to the forefront of our national conversation names like Billie Jean King, Mia Hamm, Lisa Leslie, Mary Lou Retton, Brandi Chastain, Dara Torres and many others.
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After reading this CNBC blog post by CNBC’s Darren Rovell, seemingly putting down tennis and American sports fans in one, fell swoop, I was determined to disprove it.
An hour after Rafael Nadal proved once again that he is one of the world’s greatest athletes, winning the French Open for the seventh time, Rovell argued that perhaps his Spaniard roots and opponent Novak Djokovic’s Serbian descent is what’s keeping Americans from tuning into the intense sport regularly.
These are world champion athletes. They’re fun to watch compete. Who cares where they were born?
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Baseball season is in full swing and as teams compete for placement within their division, owners compete to fill the stands.
There is a correlation between a team’s record and a stadium’s ticket sales. Many MLB brands turn to display advertising as a way of turning online sports enthusiasts into game day patrons.
This driving force, to sell more tickets, causes many teams to showcase creative display executions that only become direct response vehicles. This type of call-to-action then causes teams to value their display campaign’s success on total clicks.
Brands that allocate a portion of their media budget to banner ads in the sole hope that a user clicking the ad will purchase right then and there are missing the point. Banner ads do not exist in a vacuum. Clicks and click-through rate are a one-dimensional way of measuring a display campaign’s performance. Will sports fans purchase directly from a banner ad? Yes. But, should this be the benchmark for campaign success? No.
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“As GM Goes, So Goes the Nation.”
Such was the conventional wisdom more than 50 years ago when GM churned out vehicles and fed the US economy with sporty models such as Chevelles, Camaros, and others by the millions. In terms of sports marketing, “Baseball, Hotdogs, Apple Pie and Chevrolet” was the tune and the popular sports marketing moniker of its time. More recently, however, General Motors may be signaling, “As GM goes, so goes the sponsorship dollars out of the United States.”
In the last several weeks, GM has made several important announcements, revealing a shift in the advertising and marketing strategy. First, their announcement (just days before the IPO) that they were pulling advertisements from Facebook.
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