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A complete package of extremely easy-to-use, on-line teaching tools that permits a business or technology class to convert itself into an actual sports-marketing company. The class researches and learns about real-world marketing and promotional concepts. It then delivers them using a live Web site and traditional marketing tools. The class actually goes to work for one of your school's interscholastic sports teams to increase school and community interest in the team and to drive more spectators to the team's games.

There are seven steps to completing a successful eCommSports Kit with your class. These steps are:

1. Conducting Business Research through Case Studies
2. Brainstorming and Selecting a Sports Team to Market
3. Creating a Business Plan
4. Forming Your Sports-Marketing Company
5. Creating Your eCommSports Web Site
6. Implementing Your Marketing Strategy
7. Analyzing Your Performance

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• Instructor Materials

  Provides complete lesson plans and all of the supporting materials an instructor will need to successfully lead a classroom of students through the seven suggested steps of an eCommSports classroom project.

• Student Materials

  The templates, checklists, and tutorials students will need to successfully execute the marketing and management activities included in the seven steps of the project.

• eCommSports Web site

  Each Kit includes password protected access for the teacher and students to the innovative web site builder tools your class will use to create and manage its live sports team Web site, with your very own Web address. This Web site is fully supported by the eCommSports technical staff and hosted on eCommSports servers.

  Once your class completes Step 5 and activates the Web site your students create and manage as part of their eCommSports Project, the site remains live for athe entire semester. With each project, you receive on-line access to all of the teacher and student materials for a classroom of up to 25. Additional student passwords (beyond 25) can be purchased as add-ons. See "How much does an eCommSports Kit cost?" for more information.

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• Step 1:

  Your eCommSports project begins with a brief case history study of how web sites are used to promote and market popular professional and college-level sports teams. The class is then introduced to the eCommSports package and shown how they will be able to create and run a similar Web site for one of your school's sports teams.

• Step 2:

  Next, students brainstorm things that can be done at the site and in your school and community to increase interest in one of your school's interscholastic sports teams and drive more fans to the team's games.

• Step 3:

  Notes from the brainstorming session are then converted into a business plan using the business plan template included in your eCommSports Kit.

• Step 4:

  Your classroom is converted into a live e-company with each student assigned a job and grouped into work teams just like it's done in a real-world workplace.

• Step 5:

  Your students create a live Web site for the team using the wizard-based, template driven Web site development technology included in the eCommSports package. This makes it possible for eCommSports students to develop great-looking, fully professional sports team Web sites without needing to know anything about HTML programming or Web site design. They just need to be able to read instructions, click a mouse, and do keyboard entry with two fingers.

• Step 6:

  Your class puts together a marketing plan that describes and milestones how it intends to get people in your school and community to first visit the team's new eCommSports Web site and then attend one or more of the team's future games.

• Step 7:

  Your class analyzes its performance versus the goals it established in your business plan and determines what it could do differently in an effort to improve results next time.

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• eCommSports instantly updates your curriculum

  eCommSports brings the current technologies of the Internet and e-Commerce to your business, marketing, entrepreneurship, or technology classroom. The eCommSports package provides everything a teacher needs to instantly accomplish this integration and requires no HTML or advanced computer skills to achieve outstanding classroom results.

• eCommSports increases enrollments

  Business and technology departments that use this resource have reported increased enrollment in their classes of as much as 300% and enhanced prestige and stronger working relationships with other departments and organizations in their school. The end result has been a surge in student interest and enrollment in these "free elective" programs.

• eCommSports gets students more engaged in the classroom

  Schools that have used this unique teaching resource have reported that its hands-on, real-world concept helps motivate even the most non-attentive students to become seriously engaged in the classroom and gets the entire class more excited about "learning business" because they get to "do business."

• eCommSports helps you better prepare students for today's workplace

  Regardless of which career your students choose, understanding how the Internet can be effectively used to communicate and do business with customers will enhance their chances for success and make them more highly valued when they enter the workplace.

• eCommSports can be used to generate additional revenues for your school

  A class doing an eCommSports project can generate revenue from the activity. For example, if the school sports team being promoted as part of your eCommSports project charges admission to attend its games, increasing the number of spectators who attend the games will generate increased ticket revenues. Your class can also generate revenue by selling banner ad space and team booster sponsorships at your eCommSports Web site to local businesses and organizations in your community.

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• e-Commerce
• Marketing
• Sports Marketing
• Entrepeneurship
• Business Management
• Business Technology
• Web Design
• Computer Applications
• Technology

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A typical project will take a class of 15-25 students meeting 80 to 120 minutes per week, three to five weeks to complete the first four steps of an eCommSports Project. Once a class has reached Step 5 and activates its Web site, the site remains live for the entire semester. During this time, Steps 6 and 7 are completed.

Keep in mind that the duration of your eCommSports Project can be adjusted in direct proportion to the number of athletic contests you wish to promote as part of the project. For example, instead of promoting the full season of games for your school's Varsity Boys' Basketball team, you can choose to promote just a select number of them at the beginning, in the middle, or towards the end of the team's season.

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Your students create a live Web site for the team using the wizard-based, template driven Web site development technology included in the eCommSports package. This makes it possible for eCommSports students to create amd design fully professional sports team Web sites without needing to know anything about HTML programming or Web site design. All that is required is the ability to read instructions, click a mouse, and do keyboard entry with two fingers.

You can try the eCommSports Web site tools yourself and see how easy it is to create a homepage for your eCommSports.com Web site.

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Each eCommSports Kit includes:

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Sale of Web site banner ads and sponsorships by local businesses
The class participating in an eCommSports project will be creating and maintaining a live eCommSports Web site to promote one of your school's sports team. The class will also be learning marketing and publicity techniques designed to get more and more people in your community to visit and re-visit this Web site. Eventually, as the students improve their skills for doing this, traffic at the site should begin to increase significantly. As it does, the site will have advertising appeal to local businesses who want to get their sales messages in front of the types of people visiting this site. Banner ads can be sold to these businesses at prices you feel are appropriate for your community.

It is also possible that a local business or organization in your community is very supportive of the educational and community oriented goals of an eCommSports project and is willing to subidize your school's cost to purchase the eCommSports Kit.

Increased Ticket/Game Revenues
The results of a successful eCommSports project in your school will be more fans attending the home games of the project's featured team. If you select a team that already charges spectators a fee to attend its games, the positive results of an eCommSports project will mean increased amounts of ticket sales revenues for that team.

If the team your class selects to promote does not charge an admission to its games, there is the option of selling raffles, team souvenirs, or other items connected to the team to generate funds.

Charge for Fan Club Participation
One of the recommended activities for building market interest in a sports team is to create a fan club for it. Your eCommSports project class has the option to charge a fee for membership in this Club. In return for this fee, you need to make sure that fan club members receive membership benefits. For example, you can provide them with an e-mail newsletter telling them when new information is available at the Web site; a special fan club tee shirt; and reserved seating at each of the team's home games. Add up the total cost for providing these benefits and charge a membership fee that is more than that amount. Then decide what to do with this "profit" on each membership fee.

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eCommSports is made possible by the partnership of two organizations that have each established outstanding traditions of serving the curriculum and classroom resource needs of business educators in schools throughout the US and Canada.

The eCommSports Web site was created and is copyrighted by Genium Group, Inc. This 1984 spin-off of the General Electric Company has spent the last two decades publishing information products and Web sites for both industrial and educational applications. A pioneer in the integration of classroom curriculum with the Internet, Genium was presented the 2005 Hobart H. Conover Friend of Business Education Award by the Business Teachers' Association of New York State in recognition of "innovative hands-on business education programs." Genium also publishes the eCommEd Curriculum package.