Years before she dribbled through the streets of Seattle to sell season tickets for the then-brand new Storm WNBA franchise, Lin Dunn was a firm believer in the role of the women’s basketball coach as the face of his/her program.
She recalled that story while urging her fellow coaches to get busy marketing their teams during a day-long symposium at the Women’s Basketball Coaches Association convention in Nashville at the Women’s Final Four.
In building the Purdue Boilermakers into a Final Four program on the court, and one with a solid fan base behind it, Dunn said she didn’t have the luxury of relying on a marketing department to help with the latter.
“I’m before Title IX,” she said. “I know you have to do the work.”
But with coaching salaries reaching into mid-six-figures and athletic departments hiring marketing specialists, some coaches have gotten away from that.
“There’s a feeling of entitlement because of Title IX,” she said. But marketing and promotions is “part of the job. We’re in the entertainment business.”
One of her former Purdue players was concerned enough that she organized the symposium.
Toledo coach Tricia Cullop (right) contacted coaches from around the country with a track record of marketing success — from strong attendance to community-oriented promotions — and asked them to share their experiences with their peers. She talked with the late Betty Jaynes about putting together a program at the convention.
The result was a gourmet of tips and ideas that can be used at any level of the game. More than anything, Cullop said, the symposium was a call to action in the aftermath of the Ackerman white paper, which detailed stagnant attendance in women’s college basketball.
“Everybody knows what the urgency is,” said Cullop, a WBCA board member who attended the organization’s special called meeting last summer to appoint working groups to address details of the Ackerman report.
Cullop, who serves on the professional and grassroots development panel, traveled around “on my own dime” to ask coaches like Jane Albright, Cheryl Burnett and Bill Fennelly to speak.
And they did.
“Marketing and promotions is like breathing,” Fennelly said at the symposium. Do it or die.”
The Iowa State (and former Toledo) coach inherited a fan base of 300 or so and a losing program when he got to Ames in 1995. Now, the Cyclones are an NCAA tournament regular average more than 10,000 fans a game, second only to Tennessee.
“I made a conscious decision to invite coaches” who weren’t Final Four regulars, she said. “I wanted to make this believable.”
The tips were fairly straightforward and obvious, and range from establishing booster clubs and fundraising events (golf outings are proliferating) to sharpening social media and interviewing skills.
Michigan State coach Suzy Merchant passed along promotional ideas published on her team’s home page and that drive home family-friendly entertainment: 4-pack tickets, post-game autograph sessions and an appearance by “Zeke the Wonderdog.”
It sounds a lot like the world of minor league baseball promotions, and women’s teams have been doing things like this for many years.
Veteran DePaul coach Doug Bruno said he wasn’t sure he thought he would learn anything new but was glad he attended.
“I’ve been in this for 40 years, but it was invigorating,” he said. “It was like going to a basketball clinic. There was so much energy in the room.”
He said coaches were encouraged to begin marketing and promotions plans in August, before they get busy with recruiting and pre-season practice.
“But I don’t want to wait until August to start marketing for the coming season,” Bruno said. “I want to start in April.”
Perhaps the most reliable way to boost attendance remains having a successful team on the court. The marketing symposium came just as UTEP was selling out home games in the Women’s NIT.
Toledo had its first sellout ever — a little more than 7,000 — when it played host to an NIT game in 2011.
“We gained around 1,500 new fans after that” who still attend home games, Cullop said.
The Rockets averaged 3,932 fans a home game in the 2013-14 season, good for 24th in the country, and have been in the top 30 nationally each of the last three seasons.
Cullop said she wants to continue the marketing sessions at future WBCA conventions. For the time being, she says that coaches “now know who to call” when it comes to marketing.
“We should be sharing this like we do Xs and Os,” she said. “We’re all invested in this.”
