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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 [...]

By |2022-06-07T13:56:27-04:00January 23rd, 2019|Alternate Sports Programming, Sports Bar Marketing|0 Comments
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Creating a Menu Worthy of the Bruins-Blackhawks NHL Winter Classic

For decades, January 1st belonged to the NCAA and the multitude of football bowl games played to ring in the year. Since 2008, however, the day has shared the spotlight with the NHL, as the league has taken the game of hockey back to its outdoor roots. With snowy, picturesque scenes reminiscent of frozen ponds, the annual Winter Classic shares a side of the game not normally seen by wider audiences. Though television numbers have been in decline since 2014, this year’s game will be the first time the game will be contested between two top-10 U.S. television markets since 2015. The Boston Bruins and Chicago Blackhawks will face off New Year’s Day on the hallowed field of Notre Dame University. Puck drop is slated for 1 PM, coinciding with the Fiesta Bowl and preceding the Rose Bowl and Sugar [...]

By |2022-06-07T14:00:28-04:00December 18th, 2018|Sports Bar Marketing|0 Comments
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Bowl Your Guests Over for the End of College Football Season

With the calendar about to roll over, the number of days you have to boost your sales with hungry, thirsty football fans keeps growing smaller. Fortunately, the NCAA ends their season like a Fourth of July fireworks display -- with a spectacular grand finale. With 40 bowl games left on the slate, there are plenty of opportunities to close out this year on a high note and jump start your 2019. With all due respect to the Boca Raton Bowl, the Taxslayer Bowl, and the always delicious Idaho Potato Bowl, you should be focusing your efforts on the big games to get the biggest numbers. Unless, of course, you have some local interest in those bowl games. Here are a few pointers to tailor your service, with a special wing idea thrown in for each game. Saturday, December 29th, 2018 [...]

By |2022-06-07T14:01:43-04:00December 17th, 2018|Sports Bar Marketing|0 Comments
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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 [...]

By |2022-06-08T09:05:48-04:00December 12th, 2018|Alternate Sports Programming, Online Sports, Sports Bar Marketing|0 Comments
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How to Attract & Host Amazing Alumni Group Events

There’s a reason why seemingly every classic TV show from the 1980s has been rebooted in recent years. Nostalgia is a powerful drug. Whatever it is that forces us to see the past through rose-colored glasses, its effect is undeniable. And no reminiscence is stronger than that of those yearning for their college years. When adults get a chance to reunite and recreate their early 20s it can represent a windfall to your bottom line. How, then, do you get alumni groups in the door? The key is two-fold: connect with college alumni groups and host events – such as college sports “viewing parties” -- for those groups. Step #1: Connecting with Alumni Groups A proactive marketing and event planning manager is your point-person for this operation. They must be able to use their social media skills and networking contacts [...]

By |2022-06-08T09:06:39-04:00December 10th, 2018|Sports Bar Marketing|0 Comments
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Team-Themed Chicken Wing Recipes to Attract NHL Fans

It’s autumn, which means one thing: football. Right? Wrong. If your marketing program is putting all of its eggs in the Saturday/Sunday basket then you’re likely missing out on a few market segments, including hockey fans. Having spent a number of years running some of Boston’s busiest sports bars, I can tell you that hockey fans are extremely loyal -- not only to their favorite teams but also to an establishment that goes out of their way to make them feel special. Sure, you can do big numbers with the football crowd, but that’s once or twice a week for four months. Hockey is every night of the year from October to June. One method that always ingratiated our restaurants to hockey fan clubs was to give them a little something specific to their team of choice. An easy way [...]

By |2022-06-08T09:11:04-04:00December 3rd, 2018|Guest Management, Sports Bar Marketing|0 Comments
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Marketing the NHL’s ‘European Game of the Week’ to Fans

It would appear the NHL is taking a page out of the NHL and NBA playbooks by turning their eyes to Europe. The league announced that they are adjusting their schedule to more weekend mid-day games in order to attract more attention from across the pond. While that is good news for Europeans, what does it mean to you as a sports-themed operator? The answer is a quite a few things. To start it means you’ll have more varied content to show on weekends. A good mix of professional and college athletics is great news for attracting more folks during a tough-to-sell revenue period. It’s also a great excuse to deliver something to your much maligned NHL fans. No doubt the NHL is the last among equals in the North American pro sports ranks (all due respect to our Canadian [...]

By |2022-06-08T09:12:11-04:00November 20th, 2018|Sports Bar Marketing|0 Comments
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3 Fun Ways to Drive Restaurant Sales During Football

You may have heard, but football ratings are way down. Since most of our subscribers rely on football to deliver relief from an all too slow summer, this is really bad news. Although, it doesn’t mean you don’t have weapons to combat the fading NFL ratings and their impact on your sales. Maybe it’s time to see the traffic softening as an opportunity to be more creative in your efforts and increase check averages. Sure there are fewer guests, but if you stabilize your traffic for football, you can then increase it by driving guest spending with smart programs. We know the season has already begun, but there is no time like the present to get rolling. So, here are three fun ways to drive sales during football and fight back against any reduction in traffic: Sell More Wings Sure [...]

By |2022-06-08T09:14:47-04:00September 24th, 2018|Sports Bar Marketing|0 Comments
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3 Winning Strategies for Sports Bars Marketing NCAA Football

Of the six major American sports, college football is by far the most overrated one for sports bars. Not because it doesn’t drive traffic -- it does! Not because there isn’t enough coverage -- there is! Not because there aren’t enough fans -- there are! No, college football is overrated because there isn’t much your guests can’t get at home on their own TVs. Now that doesn’t mean you shouldn’t try to leverage this business; you definitely should. The trick is to make sure your efforts aren’t on strategies that don’t deliver results. It all started 11 years ago when the Big Ten Network launched. As a result of their success, the PAC12 network, SEC Network and the ACC Network have all been born. Essentially, these proprietary networks exploded the number of games on easily accessible in-line channels. This caused [...]

By |2022-06-08T09:19:14-04:00July 27th, 2018|Sports Bar Marketing, Sports TV Schedule|0 Comments
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What You Can Learn About Social Media from Leagues & Teams

Since the social media was fully embraced by the sports industry, the management of sports teams, leagues, and associations began to use them as a tool to promote their growth and connection to the fans. And sports bars and sports-themed restaurants could take some cues. For example, a study conducted in 2017, Twitter partnered with NFL to do a live broadcast of 10 games for $10 million. Facebook also streamed 46 games from Mexico’s Liga MX soccer league in the same year. The use of social media by sports organizations is a crucial aspect of the marketing strategy geared towards enhanced productivity and more returns on investment. And while you’re not running a sports league team, you’re still running a sports organization. Your roster is your staff and, like pro teams, you’re trying to generate interest in your organization by [...]

By |2026-04-06T09:45:52-04:00July 24th, 2018|Sports Bar Marketing, Sports Bar Social Media|0 Comments
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How Sports Bars Can Make the NFL Preseason Work for Them

For the NFL, the preseason is a chance to get their teams ready for the season. The same is true for sports bars and sports-themed operators -- and that’s why we love the NFL Preseason. Starting in early August, there are NFL games available for showing in your locations. This is the right time to get ready for the upcoming regular season schedule by making the preseason work for you. Those of you that want to show the preseason games will have some additional decisions to make. So, let’s get started. How to Get Non-Locally Aired NFL Preseason Games The biggest challenge most sports bar managers will experience during the NFL Preseason is that most games are not available locally. Unlike the regular season, there is no NFL Sunday Ticket for the preseason. Your only option is to explore the [...]

By |2022-06-08T09:20:56-04:00July 19th, 2018|Sports Bar Marketing, Sports TV Schedule|0 Comments
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3 Tricks to Increase Sports Bars’ Online Reviews

By Jeff Quinn, RepCheckup Our favorite athletes need to think about their reputation when it comes to signing bigger contracts and sponsorships/endorsements. It comes down to more than just physical attributes; but it is also their reputation off the field too. They need to make sure they are reviewed in a good light by fans and critics. The same applies to sports bars, which need to make sure that regulars and newcomers alike have a reason to come to your location. In today’s blog, we’re going to talk about how you can increase your bar’s online review backlog to give people even more of a reason to come to your sports bar. Why Online Reviews Matter for Sports Bars Many people think online reviews only apply to fancy restaurants, hotels, and service or retail businesses. The truth is that online [...]

By |2022-06-08T09:21:44-04:00July 15th, 2018|Guest Management, Sports Bar Marketing, Sports Bar Technology|0 Comments
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