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Marketing Seminar, August 2010
PART V: PR Strategies for Business Development
The Public Perception of Reality is Key
Assumptions
The Public Relations Challenges<
The
Public Perception of Reality is Key
The Key Question on which all else hinges is that of the
public perception of the reality of the contemplated project. Public relations strategies are
needed to enable the public and officials, business persons and planners,
to facilitate getting to the same place on the same page. Public
Relations Strategies are to be used in support of the blending of
real estate and overall geographic growth into a community dialogue,
using Internet Strategies, and showing how city/regional growth
success is greatly helped by larger development entities like a newly
renovated stadium or arena built as an anchor of a larger mixed use development.
Assumptions
- Both/and thinking, planning, and doing,
is better than either/or thinking and planning.
- Any professional team is or has the potential to be a hot property.
- Everyone want to control their fate and
destiny, but no one acts in a vacuum.
- There is the potential of $200- $300 million yearly revenue from a mixed-use facility for all to share in a properly sited and developed stadium or arenea that is the anchor for a mixed-use development complex, as:
- making the stadium complex a real
estate development mixed use project frees up taxes and other inducements
already on the books, and
- removes the delays and red tape
of having to get jurisdictional legislation for new tax monies
- This is an economic issue (investment),
not just an emotional issue (higher taxes/free ride).
- The economically competitive issue is
a UNIVERSAL: it makes no difference which team, which city: in the 21st
century: without a new stadium, a team cannot remain competitive or appropriately
profitable.
- The issue is NOT a new stadium per se,
but who will builds it: team, community, or joint venture.
- The key to profitability in the 21st
century, is local revenues. To facilitate higher local revenues requires
new stadiums and arenas or updating through renovations. Those which do not get new stadiums or renovations will move to where they
can get them.
- Professional teams, as any well managed organization
that wants to survive, must necessarily do what is good for team and its league,
and revenues are what are good for the team and its league (as with any other business,
be it profit or not for profit, government or non government). Teams will
go where they'll be able to generate revenues.
- "Troubled economy" is a code
word for politicians to hide behind voters who don't want to pay more taxes
for new stadiums and arenas. That is an either/or approach. The approach to employ to facilitate a new stadium or arena, create jobs and generate higher local revenues, with no or minimal increases
in local taxes, is the most efficient and quickest way to achieve success.
- Where there is a partnership with a city
in which there are multiple uses for a stadium or arena anchoring a larger development
complex, its construction costs can be taken from shared investvents and
revenues, including investments from investment houses deploying the capital needed to be invested by pension funds, 401K funds, mutuall funds, etc..
- The issue is NOT the team. The issue
is whether a city wants to facilitate the community being able to leverage
an a professional team for the economic well being of the city and its greater city area.
- NO city determines whether a team goes
or stays. Only a team's owner and its contract with the city or old stadium/arena does.
It is their property. The conflict comes from falsely making either the team or
the city or both as the culprits, like two bad guys on Main Street shooting it out
at high noon. In these cases, the only ones who benefit are the consultants giving bad advice
leading to the shootouts as well as the planners doing the same.
Both the shooters (team and city) lose, but the consultants and
planners still get paid. Any consultant or planner using this adversarial
model will lead to trouble.
Needed is the consideration of Conflict Resolution Models to establish common ground and common cause enjoining all of the stakeholders. This is why it is key to resolve these unnecessary and usually falsely based conflicts about a goal all share.
- The geographic market is not the issue
either, not in a day of TV when teams in smaller markets can still be competitive
because of shared revenue. The issue is how much revenue a stadium or arena, and the development of which it is a part, can
generate. Stadium-only revenues will no longer suffice. Mixed-use real
estate stadium/arena complexes with stadiums/arenas as anchors are the best bet for
all.
- The only consultants that should be
used are those using models that solve the problem for both sides, recognizing
that the issue is coordinating independent actors (team and city) in the
teeth of their own autonomy. Neither controls the other. Therefore, all
either/or scenarios are disasters. ONLY both/and will win the day. As noted,
there are Conflict Resolution Models that be used to resolve
these unnecessary and usually falsely based conflicts.
The Public Relations Challenges for any team are the same:
- Demonstrating that a team and its stadium
complex is an important asset to the community and region in BOTH quantitative
economic terms AND qualitative quality of life terms
- Providing workable outside the box suggestions
that will work that can come up with a resolution for all, and
thus be able to avoid unneeded fights, obstructions, law suits, and other
forms of delay.
- Include all parties, public and private,
City and team, not just the city.
- Don't blame having a crummy stadium or arena
on either the City or the team.
- Don't say its up to the city to fix
it or its up the team to fix it. Make it a joint venture.
- Praise and thank the city for all the
wonderful years, and show how it can be done for the benefit of all parties,
public and private, institutional and individual, for many more years to come.
- Do a better job of showing how the team
benefits the city and how the city benefits the team.
- Don't make the public have to fight
to be a part of the discussion when it should be invited in without having
to ask to be invited.
- Become more inclusive: involve county
and regional participation in the new stadium or arena complex AND develop new
revenue streams, REGARDLESS OF WHETHER EITHER THE COUNTY OR REGION
CONTRIBUTES DIRECTLY (as they'll contribute indirectly by helping fill the seats
with fans and working to resolve transportation issues). Always leave the
door open for them to return to the table to participate.
- Invite a wider circle of influencers.
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Living on the High Road: Expectation and Commitment at home, on the field, and in the community, done so with desire, dedication, and determination.
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