Sports marketing is a subdivision of marketing which focuses both on the promotion of sports events and teams as well as the promotion of other products and services through sporting events and sports teams. It is a service in which the element promoted can be a physical product or a brand name. The goal is to provide the client with strategies to promote the sport or to promote something other than sport through sports. These strategies follow the traditional four “P”‘s of general marketing Product, Price, Promotion and Place, another 4 P’s are added to sports marketing, relating to the fact sports are considered to be a service. The additional 4 P’s are: Planning, Packaging, Positioning and Perception. The addition of the four extra elements is called the “sports marketing mix.”
One element that sports marketing takes advantage of is that athletes tend to be brand loyal and fans tend to be loyal to their favorite athletes and teams. This can be recognized through the contracts players and athletes sign with sports companies in which they get paid to wear or use their products in each game or sporting event. By doing so, the players and athletes and also their fans develop a loyalty to the products for a longer time.