A group of sports management students at USM have been given the opportunity of a lifetime. Working alongside Jon Jennings of the new Maine NBA Developmental team, the students in Joanne Williams’ sports marketing class have been getting first-hand experience and real-life glimpse of what it takes to start a professional sports team from scratch.
The students have been implementing some low-cost marketing strategies in an attempt to stir up curiosity and interest in Portland’s newest minor sports club.
“We’ve basically just been using really low-cost means of marketing like Facebook, Twitter and blogging to spread the word and get people excited about this opportunity,” Josh Jameson, a junior in the sports management program said.
Jameson and a group of fellow students created a highly interactive Facebook page, equipped with videos, links, news briefs and other D-League related material. Their page was part of a larger assignment for the class where students broke up into groups and tried to accrue as many members to their Facebook page as possible.
A simple search on Facebook with the query “Portland D-League” yields no less than 26 results, many of which are associated with Williams’ two marketing classes. Right now, those Facebook groups total over 500 members from places all over the state including UMaine and other colleges.
Jameson says that he hopes to promote the team on the merits of the basketball, the price of the entertainment and the remodeling of the Portland Expo, which, according to him should make the games fun and exciting to watch.
“We really want to get people who are going to the movies or out to dinner to think about going to the games,” Jameson said.
The class has also been working to market the season ticket sales which are now underway for the next season. In fact, Jennings and company have allowed USM a special promotional code so students can track the number of ticket sales related to their marketing campaign.
As of now, the season ticket push is going well. According to Jameson many of the tickets in the “Hollywood” seating section, which are court-level premium seats have already been sold.
And it is not as though the students are marketing for a phantom boss. Jennings has been actively involved in the entire process, coming to Portland once already this semester to meet with students. He’ll be back again on Thursday to check in with his marketing gurus.
Williams’ students have also played a large role in the on-going naming decision for the team. It was part of their assignment to procure potential names for Jennings and his other marketing team to look at.
Right now the team has limited their mascot to six possibilities that fans have the opportunity to vote on. The choices are the Maine Destroyers (honoring Maine’s shipbuilding industry), Beacons (a tribute to Maine’s lighthouses), Red Claws (a hybrid honor to legendary coach Red Auerbach and Maine’s lobster industry), the Crushers (again, lobsters), the Traps (lobsters) and the Swarm (Maine’s state insect is the Honey Bee).
Jameson said that he’s already learned a great deal about marketing from watching Jennings’ calculated maneuvers. The Orrington native said that listening to Jennings talk about demographics has been an enlightening experience for anyone interested in sports marketing.
“He really liked Portland because of its high school basketball tradition, its proximity and distance from Boston and the Expo. He said the Expo really reminded him of the old Boston Garden,” Jameson added. “Listening to what he wanted really gave us an idea of what he looks for and how he markets.”
The Expo will likely resemble the Garden even more after all of the schedule renovations are complete. According to reports, Jennings and company are going to install and professional-grade parquet floor. The floor, from all accounts, will be a significant upgrade and will add to the building’s ambience.
Jameson added that Jennings has no intentions of cutting off his relationship with USM after this marketing exercise concludes. And when asked if he would like to work or intern for the team, Jameson just smiled and said “Yeah, I’d love that.”