Amazon review of the elusive fan

Editorial Reviews

Product Description

Sports are a multibillion-dollar global business that will continue to grow by leaps and bounds into the foreseeable future. The badnews is: It's never been harder to attract, engage, and retain the sports fan.

Today's sports fans are bombarded by choices. Traditional sports, such as baseball, football, and basketball, compete for fans'dollars with snowboarding, lacrosse, poker…even paintball. The old business formulas, developed in the age of three TV networksand creaky stadiums, no longer apply.

World-renowned communication expert Irving Rein, international marketing guru Philip Kotler, and communication specialist BenShields deliver an innovative new business model centered squarely on fan satisfaction and retention. They give you the tools totransform your sports product into an enduring brand-immune to the vagaries of winning and losing-that quickly adapts to changingmarket conditions. Along the way they illustrate their points with fascinating case studies, including

Manchester United's transformation from a plucky home team to a billion-dollar international franchiseProfessional golf phenomenon Michelle Wie's quest to maximize her talents and marketabilitySouthlake Carroll High School football team's benchmarking of professional and college football programs to build its ownbrandDaytona International Speedway's reinvention of fan intimacy

Combining expert analysis with field-tested strategies for winning hearts and minds, The Elusive Fan is your guide to surviving andthriving in today's ever-widening world of sports.

From the Back Cover

PRAISE FOR THE ELUSIVE FAN

”Forget cars, computers, and cola. The most competitive arena in marketing is sports. Rein, Kotler, and Shields do a brilliant job inanalyzing the issues involved in attracting elusive fans who have many more choices today than they have ever had.”-Al Ries,author, The Origin of Brands

“The Elusive Fan is the most thorough and comprehensive overview of the sports marketing industry I have seen. The insights andrecommendations are a must read for anyone involved or interested in the field.”-Brian Billick, Head Coach, Baltimore Ravens

“The authors apply insightful consumer analysis and branding concepts to the practical problems of bringing people to games,attracting eyeballs to sports TV, and opening consumer wallets for merchandise.”-Professor Stephen A. Greyser, Richard P. ChapmanProfessor, Marketing/Communications, Harvard Business School

“The Elusive Fan is a must read for anyone interested in sports marketing strategies-and the 21st century world of sports ingeneral.”-Bob Dekas, Coordinating Producer-College Basketball, CBS Sports

$18.21 $15.113/8/2011 Amazon.com: The Elusive Fan: Reinventing Sports in a…

amazon.com/…/0071454098 3/14

Irving J. Rein Ben Shields

5 star: (5)4 star: (0)3 star: (0)

“Authors Rein, Kotler, and Shields have hit a home run. The Elusive Fan offers a detailed playbook for sports decision makerslooking to up their game.”-Jonathan Hoenig, Fox News personality and portfolio manager at Capitalistpig Hedge Fund LLC

“The Elusive Fan is an essential primer for the past, present, and, most importantly, future of sports.”-Jeff Davis, author of PapaBear: The Life and Legacy of George Halas

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Product DetailsHardcover: 300 pages

Publisher: McGraw-Hill; 1 edition (June 23, 2006)

Language: English

ISBN-10: 0071454098

ISBN-13: 978-0071454094

Product Dimensions: 9.1 x 6.2 x 1.2 inches

Shipping Weight: 1.4 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)

Average Customer Review: (5 customer reviews)

Amazon Bestsellers Rank: #267,417 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews5 Reviews

Average Customer Review

(5 customer reviews)

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By Robert Morris (Dallas, Texas) - See all my reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

8 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

How to prosper in a "competitive and fragmentedmarketplace", July 19, 2006

This review is from: The Elusive Fan: Reinventing Sports in a Crowded Marketplace(Hardcover)

Competition for disposal income spent on recreation and entertainmentis probably more intense now than it has ever been before. On anygiven day, we have so many choices and all of them have direct orindirect costs. This is especially true of sporting events, many of whichare televised. The title of this book refers to someone whose financialsupport is increasingly more difficult to attract and then sustain.According to Rein, Kotler, and Shields, "All sports need to be constantlyadapting and if necessary changing to accommodate a competitive andfragmented marketplace." Their book suggests how to achieve thatobjective by adopting and implementing a "strategic approach thatemphasizes fan connection, innovative segmentation, brand-building,and sustaining market share."

In essence, marketing either creates or increases demand for whateveris offered. With regard to the sports industry (at all levels from localyouth and school teams to professional leagues and internationalcompetition such as the Olympics), the authors assert that thoseresponsible for marketing must reinvent their thinking in terms ofathletes, teams, leagues , and events in order to differentiate them fromcompetition which, yes, includes the option to commit no hours anddollars whatsoever. Instead of buying a ticket to a baseball game, forexample, and probably purchase food, beverages, and merchandisewhile attending it, why not stay home and watch the same game ontelevision? Or instead watch another television program or DVD? Orread a book such as The Elusive Fan? Or go for a walk in the woods?

In this volume, Rein, Kotler, and Shields address questions such asthese:

Most Recent Customer Reviews

The concepts span beyondsportsThe Elusive Fan may be about sports, but theprinciples and strategies the authors discusscan be applied to any sector in the world ofbusiness. Read morePublished on February 7, 2007 by Christopher Fleeger

"The Elusive Fan" Won't HaveAny Trouble Captivating a WideAudienceRein, Shields and Kotler manage to scoreeffortlessly in this fascinating look behind thescenes of sports marketing. Read morePublished on July 25, 2006 by Arnold Duran

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1. How to connect with "the elusive fan"? 2. How to reinvent a sports brand? 3. How to generate the transformation of that brand? 4. How to implement the brand's transformation? 5. How to communicate the brand effectively? 6. How to sustain the fan connection with the brand? 7. Which sports branding initiatives have been most successful? 8. What lessons can be learned from them? 9. What is the future of "fan connection"? 10. How to respond effectively to "the most elusive fans who are justnow being born"?

This brilliant book will be of substantial value to decision-makers in thesports industry who must decide how to market what they offer to anincreasingly more crowded marketplace but I presume to suggest that itwill also be of great interest and value to others who also struggle tounderstand -- and then respond effectively to -- the increasingly more"elusive" consumers within those decision-makers' marketplace.

I especially appreciate the fact that Rein, Kotler, and Shields devoterelatively little attention to theories, hypotheses, etc. and spend most oftheir time rigorously examining real-world examples of thoseorganizations which have achieved marketing success by initiating andthen sustaining the aforementioned "strategic approach that emphasizesfan connection, innovative segmentation, brand-building, andsustaining market share." They are a commendably diverse selection ofeffectively marketed sports brands (both individuals and organizations)and include the Kentucky Derby, Maria Sharapova, owner Mark Cubanthe Dallas Mavericks, the University of Vermont men's basketball team,general manager Billy Beane and the Oakland Athletics , South LakeCarroll (Texas) High School's football program, the ProfessionalBowlers Association, NASCAR's Daytona 500 (the "Great AmericanRace"), and the Northwestern University women's lacrosse team.However different they are in almost every respect, all are successfulsports brands because each "has transformed into a strong, identifiable,and differentiated brand and is an example of how to execute twocritical brand differentiation tools - [begin italics] benchmarking andinnovation. [end italics]"

In the final chapter, Rein, Kotler, and Shields identify and then discusssix successful "drivers" of successful sports brands (please see pages295-306) and as I absorbed and digested this material, it struck me thatthe same "drivers" (after appropriate modification) could achieve the


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By Teufel Shuffle "Joe" (New York, NY USA) - See all my reviews



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same marketing objectives for almost any other category of brand,especially as most products and services have by now becomecommodities in their respective marketplaces which are also "crowded"in ways and to an extent which are unprecedented.

Trace the etymology of the word "fan" and you will learn that it is anabbreviation of the word "fanatic" and probably first appeared inEngland in 1525, referring to an "insane person," from the Latin wordfanaticus. Winston Churchill once explained that a fanatic "is someonewho can't change his mind and won't change the subject." AlthoughRein, Kotler, and Shields limit their attention to the sports world, Iagain suggest that their probing and illuminating insights also havedirect, indeed compelling relevance to most (if not all other) marketsegments and categories. Moreover, that relevance seems certain tobecome even greater in years to come.

Those who share my high regard for this volume are urged to check outMichael Mandelbaum's The Meaning of Sports: Why Americans WatchBaseball, Football, and Basketball and What They See When They Do;also D. Stanley Eitzen`s Sport in Contemporary Society: An Anthology.


informative, entertaining, timely, July 15, 2006


The Elusive Fan is an enjoyable read with a good blend of facts andanalysis. It is entertaining yet serious. As new forms of entertainmentemerge rapidly and businesses of all types hire consultants to competefor our attention and dollars, The Elusive Fan articulates the changes weare witnessing and describes how sports fit in to our evolving economyand culture.



amazon.com/…/0071454098 7/14

By Barbara Fleeger (Tallahassee) - See all my reviews



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Robin Fisher Roffer

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Hamish Pringle

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Robert B. Cialdini

Scott Berkun

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Jay Conrad Levinson

Gary Vaynerchuk

Not Just for Sports, March 15, 2007


Although the Elusive Fan is written for sports marketing and managersin mind, the concepts are equally applicable to other entities whichdepend upon their members for loyalty and financial support. Likesports, the arts are facing new competition and are also a marketplacefor people with only a limited amount of time and money. My husbandworks for a non profit art foundation and the marketing ideas presentedin the book apply to that type of entity just the same as to the sportsgroups. One of his responsibilities is increasing interest in art amongdifferent community groups. He found the marketing information veryuseful and has implemented some of the suggestions. For example, hehas applied the author's recommendations for engaging the youthmarket and expanded the youth art camp at the foundation, hopefullydeveloping loyalty and a lifelong interest in art for students (and theirparents). The book offers lots of ideas for attracting fans/members anddeveloping a thorough brand-building framework, often using realworld case studies. I definitely recommend this book to anyone in anindustry which needs to attract and keep their fans/members.

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Amazon review of the elusive fan