eCommSports Kit Curriculum Guide

Step 1 — Conducting Business Research through Case Studies

Lesson Plan

The first part of your eCommSports project involves researching popular sports team Web sites on the Internet and explain to the class that they have the opportunity to create a similar site for one of your school’s sports teams.

Overview: Your eCommSports Kit begins with a brief case 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 demo site and shown how they will be able to create and run a similar Web site for one of your school’s sports teams. The goal in Step 1 is to get students to see and understand some of the marketing and Web site concepts real teams use to generate fan interest and increase attendance at their games.

Suggested classroom time allowance: 80 minutes

Objectives:

1. Learn how Web sites are currently used to market and promote sports teams and sporting events

2. Learn and exercise basic case study skills designed to help them understand the business models and marketing value of sports Web sites.

3. Be introduced to the eCommSports Kit’s demonstration Web site and understand how this site will permit the class to mimic features and content of the case study Web sites they’ve just analyzed

4. Receive a complete description of the sports marketing project the class will be undertaking

Resources:

1. Web Sites of professional and college-level sports teams.
   Suggested sites include:

   • The official Web site of the New York Yankees baseball team located at http://www.yankees.com
   • The official Web site of the Duke University Men’s Basketball Team. It can be accessed at http://www.goduke.com/ by selecting the “Men’s Basketball” menu item.
   • The official Web site of the Michigan University Softball Team. It can be accessed at http://www.mgoblue.com by selecting the “Softball” menu item.

2. The eCommSports Kit demonstration Web site for the Lincoln High School Boys Basketball Team.

   (Note to teacher: You and your class may decide to limit the scope of your eCommSports Kit to the promotion of just a single sporting event. If this is the case, instead of doing your case-study exercise with the “team” sites referenced above, you can substitute the official sites of major sporting events like the Super Bowl, Wimbledon Tennis Tournament, or NCAA Softball Championship Tournament.)

3. Web Site Case Study Checklist

   • Instructor Version
   • Student Version

Teacher Preparation for this Step:

1. Review the Step 1 Lesson Plan in its entirety.

2. Visit the suggested professional and college-level Web sites and become familiar with their content and features.

3. Visit the eCommSports Kit LincolnHoops demo site and become familiar with its content and features.

4. Review the Instructor Version of the Web Site Case Study Checklist. Notice that this version has suggested responses and tips for responding to each of the items on the checklist. The Student Version of the Web Site Case Study Checklist does not include the suggested response information. Your goal as instructor will be to encourage the class to develop responses similar to those provided on your version of this checklist.

5. You don’t want to just introduce your students to this project. You also want to get them excited about it. Prepare notes for this part of the class presentation to make sure you include statements like the following:

   • “We will be converting this classroom into a live sports-marketing company.”
   • “We will be working for one of this school’s own sports teams and we will be able to actually see if our work is paying off with more people attending the team’s games.”
   • “Each of you will be performing a real sports-marketing job that can be included on your future resumes and college applications.”
   • “This class will be building and maintaining a real sports Web site, just like those of the pro and college teams we looked at earlier.”

Class Activities:

1. Begin this step’s classroom presentation by asking the class if their favorite sports teams at the pro and college levels have official Web sites. Next, ask your students if they ever visit those sites. Prepare yourself for the possibility that no students willingly respond to these questions by rephrasing them as follows: “Why do you think a sports team like the New York Yankees has an official Web site?”

   After listening to and discussing some of the student responses to the above questions, make sure your class understands that sports teams like the Yankees and Duke Basketball Team don’t invest the money and effort necessary to build and maintain official Web sites out of the goodness of their hearts. Explain that these teams create these sites as part of their business models which are designed to generate more money for the team by getting more fans to attend the team’s games and purchase more team souvenirs. Also point out that when visits to the team Web site and attendance at the team’s games increase, the team’s advertising revenues also increase. Also mention that many colleges use the sports section of their Web sites as a recruiting tool for both students and student athletes.

2. Next, ask your class if anyone knows what a case study is.

   You want your students to understand that a case study is a research tool used in business to reduce risk. It is very expensive in the business world to learn by failure. Instead, by studying the current and historical business models and marketing activities of business organizations in a consistent way, you can develop a better understanding of what caused or causes their successes and/or their failures. You can then apply this knowledge to your own business, improving the chances that you will avoid similar mistakes, be better able to mimic their successes, and become successful yourself.

3. Visit at least two Web sites of pro or college-level sports team with the class and, using the Web Site Case Study Checklist as your guide, do a basic case-study exercise of each site. At the end of each site review, you want your students to understand how the content and features found at the site help to drive fans to the team’s games and how each site generates revenues.

4. Visit the eCommSports Kit demonstration Web site for the Lincoln High School boys’ basketball team with your class and show them how this Web site for a high school sports team mimics the content and site features found at the Web sites of pro and college teams. You want your students to realize that many of the on-line strategies used to promote these pro and college teams can be successfully applied to teams at the high school level.

5. Now you’re ready to get your students excited about your eCommSports class project by explaining that for the next ten weeks they will have the opportunity to run their own sports marketing company, perform real-world sports marketing jobs and manage a live Web site.

Suggested Homework Assignments:

• Assign students to meet with coaches of various sports teams at your school to find out if those coaches are interested in working with your class to promote their team.

• Ask students to come to the next class prepared to suggest which sports team at your high school would most benefit from the class’s sports marketing services and explain why. Have them review the Student Version of the eCommSports Kit’s Brainstorming Checklist to organize their suggestions.