The more that athletes are transforming themselves into brand sponsors, the more that they need to heed the advice of Vickie Saunders, who has consulted with several professional athletes looking to make a transition toward more sponsorship affiliations. Saunders talks about the current marketplace, especially when it comes to the defining category of social media as well as attention of the local public toward what an athlete endorses. Saunders shares her vision of how to further develop an athlete's brand identity, as well as how sponsors have to best protect themselves against the frailties of human nature when athletes endorsing products create national issues of public relations crisis. Twitter: @GetSponsorship
Live sports remains one of the stallworths of terrestrial radio, specifically because they are less likely consumed as recorded content. As with call-in show sports talk, Jason Barrett says that the producer behind the scenes can play an important part of the development of a quality show that draws big listenership. Barrett uses his 20-year-plus experience to convey some of the ways in which a host, as well as a producer, can ensure a show's success for the long-term in a business where the margins and the opportunities are dwindling both on the local and national levels. Twitter: @SportsRadioPD
Michael Ferguson has just about sold it all. That includes not just sports and concert tickets, but booking venue times and in-arena corporate sponsorship. Ferguson shares his tenure as the General Manager of a minor league baseball affiliate of the Detroit Tigers at the Jamestown Jammers, the VP/GM of the Buffalo Blizzard professional soccer team, the GM of the Wichita Wings soccer, handling Lake Erie Raceway marketing & promotions, and the GM/Promoter of the Jamestown Savings Bank in New York. Ferguson talks about selling soccer to non-soccer fans, creating a venue experience as well as ensuring that corporate sponsorship was handled in-house for venue tenants. Ferguson shares his thoughts on what a lot of the public doesn't understand about selling both sports and concerts, especially when it comes to booking and tour dates. Twitter: @MJFerguson2011