How to Fuel the Gaming Crowd with Strategic Marketing

Part Three: eSports Marketing for Sports Bars By Nick Vener and Andrew Jaffee Now that you understand who you’re targeting with eSports, the fun begins. You will need every arrow in your proverbial marketing quiver if you are going to build an eSports following from scratch. This installment on creating an eSports experience in your restaurant will focus on the direct marketing you need to undertake to succeed with fans of gaming. In modern marketing strategies, the majority of efforts take place digitally -- on social media and online communities. If the social media followings of the top eSports personalities are any indication this is where their fans are as well. Consequently, you will need to rely heavily on social media to build your new eSports audience, but you can’t stop there. You will need to include good old fashion [...]

What to Know about eSports Fans & Gamers

Part Two: Know Your Audience While you’ll find eSports fans across the age spectrum, it’s the younger generations – Millennials and even more so Gen Z – that have really embraced this “alternative” sports category. In fact, the very future of the modern sports bar may depend on catering to eSports fans. Data shows that nontraditional sports, like eSports, are far more interesting to Millennials with 56% favoring them, and only 44% saying the same for traditional sports. Bottom line: If you’re not trying to get eSports fans into your establishment, you’re likely dooming your business. Who are eSports Fans & Players? Suffice to say, eSport fans and players likely don’t resemble your typical bar guests. They are a highly populated and underserved group of folks. They’re a community that have never had a place like a sports bar to [...]

The Major Audience Sports Bars are Missing

Part One: Introduction By Nick Vener and Andrew Jaffee Our mission at the SportsTV Guide is to help you stay in front of trends in our industry and facilitate you leveraging those trends for your business. That is why we are embarking on a comprehensive review of where the future of sports is heading with a series focused on eSports. This series is focused on the why, how, what and when of eSports for restaurants and bars. This post will focus specifically on why you need to take eSports seriously and the implications for your operation, especially for sports-themed operators. Why are eSports Essential to Have in Your Restaurant? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Nf3gfuGIn1w Great question! Let’s start with who makes up the eSports gaming community (i.e., players and fans) who you want to attract by embracing eSports in your sports marketing efforts. The [...]

The Gap Between Sports Bars & Showing Women’s Sports

According to a Nielsen research study, 84% of sports fans are interested in watching women’s sports. But are sports bars taking advantage of that fandom? We polled our subscribers of The Daily Rail newsletter and the SportsTV Guide (all sports bar & restaurant owners, operators and managers), to find out that answer. Most Sports Bars Show Women’s Sports The good news is that sports bar operators and owners are taking advantage of the women’s sports fanbase. The majority of sports bar operators (82%) said they show women’s sports at their bar or restaurant. How often varies greatly in the industry, however. A third of sports bars reported showing women’s sports several times per week while another third said they only show women’s sports a handful of times per year. Fewer than a quarter of sports bar (22%) reported that they [...]

Do Sports Bars Show Women’s Sports?

According to a recent Nielsen report, 84% of sports fans are interested in watching women's sports. But are sports bars taking advantage of that fandom pharmacieinde.com? That's what we're hoping to find out in this short, few-questions survey. Once we get the results, we'll publish them in an infographic juxtaposed to the Nielsen results. We'll also provide some tips for how sports bar operators and managers can identify and maximize the opportunities showing women's sports on TV can bring them.   powered by Typeform

Will the AAF Bring Success to Sports Bars?

Every February we all cry poor as the NBA and NHL drag on, the interminable college basketball schedule continues, and pitchers and catchers finally report. Well, your poverty ends on February 9th as the Alliance of American Football (AAF) kicks off its inaugural season. To be direct, your guess might be as good as mine, but I am going to attempt to look at history and current trends and divine what will happen and how you can profit from it. Let’s start with a brief history lesson and see what we can glean from that. Will History Repeat Itself? In the ‘60s an upstart league called the American Football League took on the NFL. By 1969, the New York Jets had beaten the unbeatable Baltimore Colts in Super Bowl III. From there, it was just a formality for the leagues [...]

By |2022-06-07T13:54:36-04:00February 6th, 2019|Alternate Sports Programming, Sports TV News|0 Comments

How to Keep Business Booming on Off-Nights

Every sports bar experiences lulls, slow seasons, and dead nights. When your business model depends on basketball fans packing your bar, naturally your sales will be leaner on basketball-free nights. How do you occupy the building from July to October? How do football bars fill the till from Tuesday to Friday? While live sports will always dominate the Nielsen ratings, there are a few other programs that can hang with them. Reality television and many premium dramas have proven to be DVR-proof in an age where streaming and watching on one’s own time dominate viewing habits. The best part about these shows, as it pertains to us in the restaurant industry, is how well they lend themselves to communal watching. There are people out there who take their favorite shows as seriously as sports fans take their games. Take a [...]

Understanding the Marketing Potential of eSports for Sports Bars

On paper, the concept may seem absurd. Who wants to watch somebody else play video games? Is there really a market of third siblings forced to spectate while their older siblings take turns with Mario and Luigi out there? To ask those questions in the first place is to fundamentally misunderstand the appeal of eSports. Nobody questions why millions of people tune into the NFL every Sunday afternoon or shell out hundreds of dollars for baseball tickets. The concepts of professional eSports and major league athletics are not as different as you might think. Sure, the gladiator aesthetic and the barbarism is virtually non-existent -- or is it existent, virtually? -- but at the end of the day, in both events, you have spectators observing someone else playing a game. There are flamboyant personalities, tense drama-inducing moments, and fanbases cheering [...]

How Sports Bars Can Win the Tour de France

The Tour de France is one of my favorite events of the year. Full disclosure, I ride 100+ miles a week during the summer and think this sport is amazing. However, that shouldn’t distract from the fact that it’s a cool event that fills in content in July, which could otherwise be a pretty barren month. The trick is how to market for it…or if you even should. So, let’s explore the event and see if we can benefit from it. Tour de France 101 To start, the Tour de France (TDF) is a 23-day event with some of the most interesting visual content you’ll ever see on TV. The race ranges all over France from the countryside to the sea and everything in between. They visit both the Pyrenees in the West, and the Alps in the East for [...]

The OTT Sports Program Provider Directory

In a previous post we talked about why sports bars need to show sports programming only available on OTT services. In short: if you're looking to stand out from every other sports bar that shows what's on ESPN, Comcast, Fox, etc. then you need to look for different and interesting content that sports fans can't get anywhere else. That means OTT sports program providers. Sports bars looking to dip their feet in the OTT sports content waters have a lot of options to choose from. Depending what your bar’s specialty is might sway you one way or another, but here are some of the more mainstream players and what they provide. Amazon Prime Launched: N/A Cost: $99/annual for Amazon Prime, $8.99/month for Prime Video Amazon is a relatively new player in OTT sports but is quickly making waves. Amazon Prime subscribers [...]

Why Sports Bars Need OTT Sports Programming to be the Best

There are a lot of sports bars in the US, so sticking out as being different and the best can be pretty challenging. Most often, operators look toward doing something crazy or fancy with their beer and food menus. And often this is can create a fantastic little niche for many locations. But there are more and more bars out there with a beer list the length of War and Peace. And frankly, if you’re a tried & true sports bar, your guests are coming to your location for one reason beyond all others – to watch sports. So, it would stand to reason that you’d want to give your guests the best possible viewing experience. Be it from the best TV screens, personal audio, a fantasy sports-friendly atmosphere, etc. But sports bar operators would also be wise to create [...]

9 Ways to Use Video Games as an Opportunity for Growth

The arcade-bar/video game night has seen a boom in popularity and a lot of it has to do with timing. For those of us whom grew up with video games, we are now at the age where we can appreciate a good drink at a nice bar surrounded by friends. This is where the two melds together perfectly, creating the arcade-bar, the restaurant industry’s latest trend. The theory within the bar arcade or video game nights is simple: People have something fun to do while eating and drinking. Games are fun and will  transfer into people staying longer and spending more. And if it’s just fun enough, your guests will come back week after week and then boom! Successful game night. Video games and board games can blend seamlessly through different sections of your bar. Think stations. People can find [...]

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