Fifth annual European Basketball Marketing Summit

Barcelona, July 8, 2011. The European Basketball Marketing Summit '11, held in Barcelona, Spain on Thursday and Friday, attracted more than 60 representatives from European clubs and 14 countries across the continent to hear from experts and discuss together ways of better serving fans, sponsors and communities. The fifth annual summit, which followed the draws for the 2011-12 Turkish Airlines Euroleague and Eurocup, offered both long-term visions and short-term strategies that clubs can put into effect in the run-up to the new season.

Featured speakers from sports marketing specialists and from Euroleague Basketball clubs that won Devotion Marketing Awards this season touched upon subjects ranging from ticketing strategies and sponsor relations to social responsibility synergies, youth markets outreach, arena entertainment and connections between brands and fans. Those presentations were enhanced by a panel and group discussions that addressed the specific questions of the club marketing directors in attendance.

"It's a good opportunity for all the marketing directors to interact, one time per year, and exchange some ideas and proposals for the future," said Nikos Lepeniotis of Olympiacos Piraeus, who was attending his fourth summit. "It's good that every year we have different presentations from different people to discuss issues that are very important to our current programs and future programs. Marketing changes really fast now, with internet and new media, and we have to follow all these adaptations and implement new ideas. Every year here we hear something new from people with big experience in their fields. We try to adapt their ideas to our teams, and together each team adds value to the Euroleague, which is the main brand of basketball in Europe."

The summit, moderated by Kevin Roberts, chief edior of SportsBusiness Group, featured visiting experts Domingo Olivo, Head of Business Development for Havas SE, and David Butler, Director at Loxley & Co. Olivo spoke on creating and maintaining sustainable sponsorship projects. His presentation led to a panel discussion on the subject by Danny Townsend, president of EMEA Repucom; Johny Nye, the founder of Sports Rights Group; and Gerthold Krocker, Inernational Sponsorship Manager for bwin, with whose company Euroleague Basketball announced a three-year sponsorship agreement earlier on Thursday.

"For us, there were two key factors," Krocker said about the Euroleague Basketball agreement. "First was the media exposure which we'll have with Euroleague. And second was the fit, how we fit together. We looked into Euroleague and saw it was thrilling, it was cool and it really fit with bwin."

In his presentation, Butler detailed the integration of corporate social responsibility programs and marketing, emphasizing the desire of sponsors to use the magnetism of sports to enhance their community relations. "For some sponsors, their corporate social responsibility budgets are bigger than their marketing budgets," Butler said. "By emphasizing CSR, you can add weight to your sponsor's own efforts."

Four club representatives outlined aspects of their marketing plans in presentations on Thursday and Friday. Matevz Zupancic of Union Olimpija Ljubljana, whose club won the Gold Marketing Devotion award this week, focused on the efforts made to fill Stocize Arena, the team's new homecourt in Slovenian capital, with more than 11,000 fans on average for Turkish Airlines Euroleague games last season. Juan Useros of Asefa Estudiantes in Madrid, Spain detailed the many aspects of a marketing program that emphasizes the interraction between the club's players and fans, giving both stars status. Deepening the focus on fans was Pasi Lankinen, the Business Intelligence Manager at F.C. Barcelona, who spoke on engaging and creating an emotional link between fans, potential fans, clubs and brands. His presentation was followed by another panel discussion that included Predrag Savovic, president of Bizkaia Bilbao Basket and Jonas Stadalninkas, Marketing Manager at Zalgiris Kaunas. Finally, two representatives of Bronze Devotion Award winner Asseco Prokom Gdynia of Poland - Izabela Kuc, Communications Director and Malgorzata Rudowska, Marketing Director - talked about entertaining fans both in out of the arena.

"It's really exciting to meet people from other teams, to hear different ideas and see how other teams deal with difficulties that, it's interesting to see, are similar for all of us," Danny Federman, Joint Managing Director at Maccabi Electra Tel Aviv, said. "You get to hear how other teams deal with those difficulties and it gives you new ideas and insights about what to do. Plus, the people who are giving these presentations are really high-class professionals.That's important. I wish this summit could happen more than once a year."

Pressemitteilung: Euroleague Basketball