July 28th: What You Missed
Jul 28, 2010, 4:22 PM | Updated: Apr 4, 2011, 7:55 pm
THE LEAD:
The PAC 10 is revamping its marketing efforts to try and alter national perception about the conference. Football coaches and the league’s top players are in New York and ESPN headquarters promoting a conference that commissioner Larry Scott says needs to improve its image outside of the west coast. Scott joined the show today to talk about the PAC 10s revamped marketing strategy, future plans for a PAC 10 network and more.
On the PAC 10 promoting itself on the east coast leading up to football season:
We wanted to make a statement and really start creating more awareness and accessibility for the PAC 10, especially on the eve of this new brand launch and re-positioning and really promote our upcoming football season in the way it should be, nationally. The PAC 10 is one of the preeminent football conferences nationally and the media should portray it that way. … Our conference has a lot of ambition and people wanted to see some dramatic change in terms of how we were telling our story.
On why the PAC 10 is changing the way it markets itself:
We did some research, and what we found is there was a disconnect between impressions within the conference about our excellence and all the great attributes, and how we were seen by fans and the media on the east coast and nationally. So I realized we had some work to do to close that gap. These activities, the new logo, how we’re marketing the conference is very much grounded in research that we’ve done amongst fans. The PAC 10 is well understood and well appreciated for all its success on the west coast, but if we want the be a nationally relevant conference, if we’re going to have the kind of financial success and exposure that we want, we’re going to have to speak differently to the rest of the country.
On how the conference will split into divisions for football:
I initially put forward geographic sense, because I believe that makes the most sense for the fans. I’m a big proponent of trying to keep it simple, trying to keep in understandable to the mass audience. … Once we started a conversation internally I realized there were some real sensitivities and concerns about exposure, recruiting, money, and other things, so I slowed down the process. … I’m now targeting making a final decision in October.
On plans to create a PAC 10 network:
We’re pretty far along in terms of the planning and really putting to together a business plan for one. But we won’t make a decision as to whether we do our own branding until we go through a negotiating period with our existing partners, ESPN and ABC on the one hand, Fox Sports on the other hand, and contractually those negotiations are due to take place in early 2011, so I don’t expert we’ll make a final decision until then. In the mean time we’re working on developing it as an option.
Check out the full interview with Larry Scott here:
IN OTHER NEWS
The US Senior Open is being played at Sahalee this week, and one of the biggest names in the field Fred Funk joined the show to talk about the golf course and the favorites to win the tournament. Listen to the full interview here:
