The authoritative new book, "The Elusive Fan: Reinventing Sports in a Crowded Marketplace," (McGraw-Hill), discusses the challenges faced by team owners, leagues, and venues as they battle for fan's attention, leisure time, and disposable income. It analyzes fast-changing media, the increasing influence of the Web, changing attitudes about sports, demographic shifts in society, the place of the live event in today's media rich environment, and chronicles some the foremost sports marketing success stories of the early 21st Century.
Remarks by BEN SHIELDS, coauthor of the book with IRVING REIN and PHILIP KOTLER, will be a highlight of the Thirty-fifth Annual RPM Promoters Workshops at Reno and at Speedweek. Shields is a leading academic expert on sports marketing, branding, and new media technology. He is the Irving J. and Laura Lee Fellow in the Department of Commun-ication Studies at Northwestern Univ-ersity where he is completing his Ph.D. and writing a doctoral dissertation on fantasy sports industry.
When NFL football is a stage play made for TV and the Web, fantasy sports are a billion dollar industry, and many "fans" are people who prefer indoor virtual experience to real experience, promoters must still put "butts on the boards" in order to keep the lights on. Shields will bring promoters a fresh, out-of-the-pits look at their day today challenges. He'll show promoters how to build a brand for their track, and stand out in the marketplace.
