Category Archives: Product Development

How to achieve market success and sustainable competitive advantage with new products and services.

Innovations, Organization Effectiveness, Product Development, Technology/Sports Equation

Creating Competitive Advantage with our Software Systems

George Steinbrenner (Owner – New York Yankees) . . . in the bowels of Yankee Stadium, having secured buy-in from key executives of the club to purchase our EDGE 1.000 performance tracking and data base management system, two colleagues (Tom Black, Don Leopold) and I presented the system to Steinbrenner for final approval.

He interrupted my opening comments, pulled out an envelope with ten handwritten questions on it regarding our system, saying the Yankees would buy it if I answered “yes” to all ten.  I answered “yes” to the first nine, and “no, but . . .” to the last. He smiled at me, turned to his VP Finance, said “buy it”, then abruptly stood up and left the room, others following in his wake.

Side-stepping its telecast and radio broadcast benefits, the Yankees focused on our system’s performance management elements and tools – game tactics planning, player performance evaluation, amateur/professional scouting data base management,  draft/free agent selection and trade planning.

Branding, Market Penetration, Market Research, Product Development

Birthing the San Jose Sharks

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Art Savage  retained me five months before the National Hockey League granted Bay Area expansion rights to George and Gordon Gund(shown here). The first CEO of the new club, initially dubbed “Bay Area Hockey ’91”, Savage asked me to craft the new franchise’s overall business plan, organization/ staffing plan, marketing/sales plan (including naming the team and designing its logo family) and week-by-week launch countdown for what became the San Jose Sharks.

Upon completion, he hired me as employee #2 to become the EVP Business Operations, overseeing all revenue streams (tickets, premium seating/suites, sponsorships and merchandise), TV and radio production, community development, advertising/ promotion and media development.

The role also included defining the culture and values of the young entity, ensuring they were synchronized with those of ownership and the marketplace.

We gained an in-depth understanding of the market and its segmentation over a 15-week period with a comprehensive mix of marketing research activity that included 32 focus groups that I moderated, “crowd group” concept testing, executive interviews with corporate and affinity group targets by phone and a global team naming sweepstakes, carrying out $350,000 worth of work for $45,000 out-of-pocket.

Having to launch the franchise twice, once in 1991 at the Cow Palace in Daly City, 40 miles north of San Jose, and two years later in San Jose when the city’s new downtown arena was completed, understanding attitudes influenced by geography and distance as well as familiarity with and interest in hockey was paramount.

Branding, Innovations, Organization Effectiveness, Product Development, Technology/Sports Equation

Spawning a Baseball Tech Breakthrough

Roy Eisenhardt (President/CEO – Oakland A’s) . . . In 1980, leading Major League Baseball into a new technology-enabled age, hired my company’s STATS, Inc. subsidiary (Sports Team Analysis & Tracking Systems), co-owned with Dr. Richard Cramer, noted Sabermetrician,  to develop EDGE 1.000 ™. Eisenhardt made it clear from the outset that he wanted to increase radio and TV ratings, the enjoyment of fans and the value of the broadcasts to advertisers.

This was the first computerized pitch-by-pitch and pitcher/batter/fielder tendencies information gathered in real time for the purpose of player performance evaluation, game tactics planning and the statistical enrichment of play-by-play radio and TV broadcasts (Apple, provided the development hardware which also included Hayes modems, a DEC mainframe and a Corvus hard drive) . Jay Alves, now an executive with the Colorado Rockies, was recruited to be the first system operator.

We also worked closely with the broadcasters, Bill King and Lon Simmons, to increase their comfort levels with the rapidly updating statistical and trends texture they now had displayed in front of them.

Our EDGE 1.000 provided the initial analytical underpinnings of the A’s amateur player evaluation and drafting process fostered by Sandy Alderson, then Billy Beane and since popularized in the book, Moneyball, by Michael Lewis. The movie version of Moneyball, with Brad Pitt, opens in late 2011.

For the subsequent two decades, the brand image and reputation of the Oakland A’s as well as the confidence instilled in fans would be influenced and shaped by the innovative bent of the Haas family ownership.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Branding, Product Development

Design as a Value in Brand Building

During the the launch of the San Jose Sharks in the early 90s, graphics excellence was highly valued, from the design of the original logos and uniforms, collateral materials and game staging production values (including the iconic Shark Head Tunnel) to commissioned art employed on game magazine covers and retained as part of the franchise’s private collection and heritage. Among the stable of almost 20 graphic artists and illustrators recruited to execute this commitment, five stand out. Continue reading Design as a Value in Brand Building →

Market Penetration, Product Development, Technology/Sports Equation, Work in Process

Improving Athletic Performance

What happens when you combine patient product development, patented technology across multiple sports uses, national B2B sales traction with B2C follow-on extensions emerging from R&D, archived testimonials of satisfied customers, exploratory partnership talks with Fortune 500-sized companies and the high likelihood of positive cash flow by the end of 2011?

You have my client. If you have never seen the thread among basketball, golf, football and three others, my client’s product line will make it abundantly clear.

In the wings is accelerating the product development process, national expansion of its sales force and ratcheting of its universal brand awareness and reputation among consumers and in B2B channels.

 

Innovations, Market Penetration, Market Research, New Revenue, Pricing, Product Development

Premium Seat Pricing Born

 

 

Sandy Alderson (President, above)/ Andy Dolich (Executive, left) – Oakland A’s . . . The former (now General Manager of the New York Mets) and latter (most recently COO of the San Francisco 49ers) demonstrated bold business vision in the mid 1980s when they commissioned me and colleague Bob Hallam to evaluate the relationship among ticket demand, pricing and perceived value, an engagement that led to the dramatic upward rescaling of “box” and “reserved” seats, ushering in the concept of premium seating throughout Major League Baseball.

The notion of pricing tickets relative to demand, a long-standing practice of the airline industry, had spread across Major League Baseball within three years of the A’s taking action. The neighboring  San Francisco Giants were the first to follow suit. The precursor of flex or dynamic pricing , tailored to day-by-day demand, weather, day-of-week, opponent and other variables, was a courageous move.

An important part of its effective execution was the messaging to fans most directly affected by the changes and communication of the reasoning behind the changes.  Not all fans were pleased, but the appropriateness of the philosophy was born out by the sustained results and overall economic benefits. Ironically, the Giants have been at the head of the flex-pricing class.

Lessons learned here have implications far beyond the live sports and entertainment business into the realms of tiered TV/cable and web-based subscriber services.

Innovations, Market Research, Marketing, Product Development

Creating Arena Football

Jim Foster (Inventor of Arena Football/Founder of Arena Football League) . . . The ex-National Football League executive retained us (including colleague Herb Briggin) to bring a fan perspective to refining the original rules of the new sport and to determine how its audience differed from that of the NFL and other major indoor sports so that marketing communications could be tailored to its unique characteristics and appeals.

The work not only helped Foster refine the rules but understand how the new sport’s target audience would differ from that of the National Football League, including the implications this would have for ticket pricing and packaging, event staging, media selection and messaging.

Market Research, Marketing, Product Development

Messaging Master and Management Talent Scout

Tal Smith (President – Houston Astros) . . . one of the most highly regarded Major League Baseball  assessors of on-field talent and a long-time salary arbitration preparation expert , Smith also knew how to communicate a team building philosophy that the media and fans accepted  when the team was in a re-building mode on the field.  His “strong arms/tight defense” served the Astros well during my work with the club, my first MLB client, an engagement which at Smith’s request  included helping convert a recently retired successful pitcher into an effective ticket sales manager . . . Larry Dierker, later a color broadcaster and Manager of the Astros.