Details of Australia Open Tennis Tournament
Discuss About The International Journal Of Sports Physiology.
Australia open tennis tournament is world’s major tennis championship. The tournament is held at Melbourne Park in Melbourne, Australia. In this report a sponsorship plan and proposal is prepared. Being an event manager I have conducted an audit of the event. The tournament is permanently settled at Melbourne Park. The Australians often dominate the field of tennis internationally. The report includes the detail of Australian open tennis tournament. The details include the goals and purpose of event. The social benefits have been defined which arises from the event. The market and brand position have been cleared out. The other sources of income generated from event have been discussed. Further the possible sponsor types have been expressed. Finally the sponsor proposal has been developed to target one possible sponsor. At last the recommendations and key findings have been given.
The Australian open tennis tournament is grand slam tournament of the year. It was started in 1905 by Lawn tennis association of Australia. The first tournament was held for men in 1905 and for women it was initiated in 1922. The tournament comprises of events for professional players. This tournament held annually over the last fortnight of January. It is all about fun and entertainment (Whiteside & Reid, 2017).
The goals of Australia open tennis are to determine state singles, double and team championships. It is also the goal of Australian open to promote interest and provide opportunity for extensive competition in tennis. The final goal is to promote highest principles of nationality in interscholastic articles for tennis.
The vision of Australia open is to connect more people to tennis. Australia outlines strategic vision for the future of sport. The vision summarises the key goals and methodologies for achieving them (Close, Lacey & Cornwell, 2015). It is helpful in advancing the prospects of tennis and facilitating partnership with state and territory member associations.
The purpose of tennis tournament is to encourage participant of tennis and unite under a common rating language. Australian open tennis tournament is governed by the Tennis Australia. The authority promotes tennis and conducts domestic and international tournament on behalf of country including Australian open. The manual activities are present in the stages of tennis. It identifies the phases of development like explore (4-7 years), develop (7-20 years), encourage (10-12 years), enhance (12-15 years), cultivate (15-17 years) and performance (17+ years).
Community/Social Benefits
The Australian open is one of the most economically successful sports in the world. Tennis is a remarkably social game. Tennis tournament generates a variety of social benefits. It puts positive impact on individual, communities and society. The social benefits caused by tennis tournament are:
- It helps to expand social circles and building networks. It brings people together for a cause.
- Tennis helps to improve cognitive skills of society. It is a sport which involves a lot of thinking and decision making. It encourages person to develop strategy and execute before analysing (Thompson, Martin, Gee & Geurin, 2017).
- Tennis boosts mood as it releases a chemical known as Endorphins which is produced by the central nervous system. It is a great stress reliever.
- The Australian open generates jobs and attracts millions of visitors which promotes positive image on society.
- Tennis is suitable for people of all ages and skill levels. It also reduces stress in society.
- A person can increase social skills as a result of interacting with each other. It has a positive impact on society.
- It contributes to employment and creates full time jobs.
- It puts positive impact of sport on education and increases progression to higher education (Turco, 2015).
- It provides access to research on the benefits of sports.
- It improves participation of young people and their numeracy scores.
- The tennis connect program was launched in 20014 aiming to improve understanding of tennis playing community. This program offered financial reward to the participating member associations, schools and coaches
Market segmentation is an effective tool for the marketers to cater target group. In the market segmentation process, the customers are divided into different groups and segments on the basis of characteristics (Scheinbaum & Lacey, 2015). The customers are segmented on the basis of age, gender etc. The segmentation helps to enhances profit for business and improve customer service. It is an extension of market research which seeks to identify target groups of consumers to brand in such a way which can attracts to a group. It helps company to increase efficiency by focusing on it’s resources which can produce the best return on investment.
The market is segmented by Australian open tennis tournament on the basis of all tennis enthusiasts. The target group is both males and females in the age group 15-60. It has been observed that one-third of Australian aged 14 or older like to watch Australian open always or occasionally. The tennis tournament is particularly popular among people aged 50 or older. The younger Australians show a lack of interest in watching Australian open on TV, specifically 14-17 years old (20.2%) and 18-24 years (21.8%) (Morgan, 2017).
The brand attribute is also known as core values. It represents the essence of brand. It is a set of characteristics which identifies the physical and character traits of a brand. It makes up the personality of business. A company wants to promote brand, need to establish creditability and trust with the target audience. Things which help to identify brand attributes are proper positioning, delivering benefit to customer desire, inconsistency, perception of value and appropriate marketing activities to build equity (Close & Lacey, 2014).
The Australian open has advanced from a sporting event into a large festival. It takes over the Melbourne each year. The Australian open tennis tournament has grown via events, content rights, brand sponsorships, strategic partnerships and licensing. Branding attributes serves both individuals and clients locally and internationally. Australian open regenerated brand by taking A and O as constituents for a new visual identity (Gescheit, et.al. 2017). The initials are used as geometric symbols and convey energy and motion. The flexibility of visual system makes it possible to adapt a variety of applications from digital to social media to tickets and products. The brand attributes engage audiences and makes the world to accessible to tennis anytime
Markets and Brand Position
Australian open is one of the major sport events. Tennis is not restrained to a particular geographic or demographic area. The other sources of income are:
Ticket sales: Australian open marked attendance of over 703,000 viewers in 2015 (Quora, 2017). These tickets cost thousands of dollars depending on participants and depth of tournament. The instant matches which involve exclusive players like Federer, Djokovic and Nadal are tending to be more expensive. The finals and semi-final match tickets are also tend to be more expensive. |
Sponsors: Australian open has national as well as international presence so it is sponsored by all the famous companies. is sponsored by brands like Rolex, ANZ, Kia motors, Longines and more. It is an effective way to reach masses. The main sponsoring industries are motors, fashion, banking and more. |
Auctioning broadcast rights: Most of the audience is connected by the means of television. The broadcast rights are reserved by the tennis authority. This authority sells rights to the various sports channels for the telecast coverage. The sports channels are ESPN, Eurosport, Star sports and more (Walraven, Bijmolt & Koning, 2014). |
Advertisement: Advertisement is a major source of income for the television channels. Time slots are allotted for the particular advertisement. An amount is paid to the advertiser for the duration and frequency of the advertisement. |
Merchandises: Australia open generates income by various merchandise like designed towel, tee shirts, caps, racquets and clothing. The company recorded revenue of $174 million in 2012 which reached to $185 million in the fiscal year of 2012-2013 (Quora, 2017). |
Australian open tennis tournament has long list of sponsors. Some of them are Kia, Rolex, ANZ, Toshiba, Seven, Lavazza, CPA Australia, Emirates and Barilla.
Sponsor |
Rationale |
ANZ |
ANZ is thrilled to support Australian open. ANZ participates in match as it offers many opportunities to staff and customers through participation. ANZ supports Australian open to reflect it’s brand value. |
Kia |
Kia is sponsoring Australian open since 2002 now it has further extended contract till 2022. The motor company plays important role in supporting players and promoting growth of tennis. Kia supplied 130 vehicles to 250 drivers for the 20,000 trips (Kia, 2018). |
Seven |
Seven has expanded program of Australian open and lifted sponsorship and advertising revenue 10% to 12%. According to a report in 2017, Seven started selling packages of Australian open in last April rather than September (Adnews, 2018). |
Rolex |
Rolex started sponsoring Australian open in 2008 and extended contract till 2027. The products of Rolex will be highly visible around the venues and during the tournament. The players also take part in the promotional duties of company. Federer is the highest profile and is ambassador. |
Toshiba |
Toshiba is proud to be sponsor of Australian open. It supplies printer products and services for Australian open tennis tournament. During matches, Toshiba install additional machines and also assigns additional technicians to make sure that everything runs smooth in the event. The company provides solid solution for the technology infrastructure. |
CPA Australia |
CPA Australia is pleased to be part of Australian open. CPA Australia provides extensive global broadcast and digital reach. The company is involved in various associated activities that enables to grow brand presence in the market and supports the generation of talent. |
ANZ is official bank of Australian open. The event offers opportunity to support staff and customers to participate. The bank considers that it has made the most significant investment in tennis to date. The proposal of ANZ includes:
Vision: It is the vision of ANZ to broadcast region of 250 million through tennis. It is the significant reach of brand made on the basis of investment. The vision of Australian open tennis tournament is to connect more people to tennis (Jensen, Cobbs & Turner, 2016).
Success to date: The partnership is done with Victoria University to adopt a mathematical approach to determine the players which are best players. Three steps are linked with the success of Australian open. Work wake up the ranks, in this step relative skill level of players is calculated. Some mathematical principles are applied to tennis. It is a reflection of player’s relative standing with the game. The second step is start winning gram slam matches. The understanding of path is sharpening that most winners have practised (Bruhn & Holzer, 2015). The final step is to develop a winning track record. There are some important contexts which are needed to be considered.
Audience/Market information: The demographics include Australians aged 14 or older watch Australian open occasionally. It is mainly popular among people over the age of 50. The purchasing behaviour of customers is influenced by the social media. It also breaks the communication which is presented in the advertising channels (Ko, Chang, Park & Herbst, 2017). Some viewers like to watch Australian open on the app whereas some like to watch live. The open Australia is conducted in Melbourne.
Potential benefits: ANZ provides additional support to Australian open. ANZ has provided benefit by a starter program for the fast growing children. It has started ANZ tennis hot shots. It has become one of the most popular sports program in the primary schools in Australia. It can create employment by providing opportunity to staff and customers (Grohs, 2016).
Call for action: ANZ is a recognised brand of Australia and is beneficial for the Australian open. The sponsoring company has extended partnership of 2014 for the next five years.
Brand Attributes
Conclusion
In the above report, detail of Australian open tennis tournament is given. It included the introduction and purpose of event including goals and long term vision. The benefit of event on society is described. Further the brand positioning of Australian open is explained. The brand positioning included the market segmentation and brand attributes. Other sources of income that Australian open can seek are defined. Finally the sponsor types and sponsor proposal by ANZ have been discussed. From the above report, it is recommended that Australian open can generate more sources of income to gain more profits. The contract can be made with more sponsors to attain potential benefits to the event.
References
Adnews, (2018). Seven smashes Australian Open revenue record as brands flock to addressable ads. Retrieved on 15 May, 2018 from https://www.adnews.com.au/news/seven-smashes-australian-open-revenue-record-as-brands-flock-to-addressable-ads .
Bruhn, M., & Holzer, M. (2015). The role of the fit construct and sponsorship portfolio size for event sponsorship success: a field study. European Journal of Marketing, 49(5/6), 874-893.
Close, A. G., & Lacey, R. (2014). How the anticipation can be as great as the experience: Explaining event sponsorship exhibit outcomes via affective forecasting. Journal of Current Issues & Research in Advertising, 35(2), 209-224.
Close, A. G., Lacey, R., & Cornwell, T. B. (2015). Visual Processing and Need for Cognition Can Enhance Event-Sponsorship Outcomes: How Sporting Event Sponsorships Benefit From the Way Attendees Process Them. Journal of Advertising Research, 55(2), 206-215.
Gescheit, D. T., Cormack, S. J., Duffield, R., Kovalchik, S., Wood, T. O., Omizzolo, M., & Reid, M. (2017). Injury epidemiology of tennis players at the 2011–2016 Australian Open Grand Slam. Br J Sports Med, 51(17), 1289-1294.
Grohs, R. (2016). Drivers of brand image improvement in sports-event sponsorship. International Journal of Advertising, 35(3), 391-420.
Jensen, J. A., Cobbs, J. B., & Turner, B. A. (2016). Evaluating sponsorship through the lens of the resource-based view: The potential for sustained competitive advantage. Business Horizons, 59(2), 163-173.
Kia, (2018). Australian Open. Retrieved on 15 May, 2018 from https://www.kia.com/au/experience/sponsorship/australian-open.html
Ko, Y. J., Chang, Y., Park, C., & Herbst, F. (2017). Determinants of consumer attitude toward corporate sponsors: A comparison between a profit and nonprofit sport event sponsorship. Journal of Consumer Behaviour, 16(2), 176-186.
Morgan R., (2017). Australian Open tennis viewers a different breed to Aussies who play tennis. Retrieved on 15 May, 2018 from https://www.roymorgan.com/findings/7108-australian-open-viewers-different-breed-to-aussies-who-play-tennis-201701121250
Quora,( 2017). What is the source of fund for tennis grand slam events? Who plays the whopping prize money in each grand slam? Retrieved on 15 May, 2018 from https://www.quora.com/What-is-the-source-of-fund-for-tennis-grand-slam-events-Who-pays-the-whopping-prize-money-in-each-grand-slam
Scheinbaum, A. C., & Lacey, R. (2015). Event social responsibility: A note to improve outcomes for sponsors and events. Journal of business research, 68(9), 1982-1986.
Thompson, A. J., Martin, A. J., Gee, S., & Geurin, A. N. (2017). Fans’ perceptions of professional tennis events’ social media presence: Interaction, insight, and brand anthropomorphism. Communication & Sport, 5(5), 579-603.
Turco, D. M. (2015). The influence of sponsorship on product recall and image among sport spectators. In Proceedings of the 1995 World Marketing Congress (pp. 8-12). Springer, Cham.
Walraven, M., Bijmolt, T. H., & Koning, R. H. (2014). Dynamic effects of sponsoring: How sponsorship awareness develops over time. Journal of advertising, 43(2), 142-154.
Whiteside, D., & Reid, M. (2017). External match workloads during the first week of Australian Open tennis competition. International journal of sports physiology and performance, 12(6), 756-763.