Euroleague Basketball: A CASE STUDY OF THE SWEDISH MARKET

EMELIE NYMAN ÖSTBARD

BARCELONA, SPAIN, 2013

This presentation belongs to Emelie Nyman Östbard and was done in connection with

the final thesis project at La Salle.

Index Sport in Sweden 3

Swedish Basketball 6

League 8

International Presence 9

International Competition 11

International Players 12

Sport Media Presence in Sweden 13

Broadcasting

Social Media and internet 15

Important Media Channels 16

Sponsors 17

NBA in Sweden 18

The typical basketball consumer 19

Norway & Denmark 20

Recommendations 21

Evaluation of the Swedish market 23

Key Success Factors for the Swedish market 24

2

Sport in Sweden

Almost half of the Swedish population are members of a sport club (3,4 million)

2,4 million compete regularly

The main purpose of the Swedish sports confederation (RF) is to support the sport federations and represent the sport movement in their contact with the government and politicans. They set the strategy to chose for financing, org. structures and communication.

The sport movement (’the Nordic sports model’) is a democratic movement where sport is organized as an independent voluntary movement. Where a club is a voluntary non-profit org. owned by its members.

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Sport in Sweden

- Cont’

The clubs receive most of their income from membership fees and other member costs, sponsorship represents between 15-20% and

20% are given in form of grants from local and central governments.

Voluntary work is the basis of the Swedish and nordic sports clubs

and represents around 70.000 fulltime jobs.

4

Sport in Sweden

- Cont’ Sweden is ranked as number

seven on the Olympic medal table.

The Swedish Sport Confederation (2012) have established some factors that are important to the Swedish sport movement

(table.1)

The idea of Swedish sport is to ”organize sport at all levels so that it develop people positevely

both physically and mentally, socially and culturally”.

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External factors Internal factors

Welfare: long period without war, no natural catastrophes, raw materials, energy sources, well-developed educational system and good infrastucture

Lenghty tradition

Long tradition of collaboration between local authorities and sport

Organizes as a popular movement with sport’s greatest resources, the extensive voluntary contributions, and having elite sports and spor-for-all under the same

umbrella

Sport enjoys a strong reputation with politicians and receives generous grants and investment capital for sport facilities

Opportunities for combining sport and education, through national sports secondary schools

Serious investment in leadership training and adult-education organization SISU – Swedish Sports Education

Extensive sport research, principally physiology

TABLE.1

Swedish Basketball

The Swedish Basketball Federation (SBBF) was founded in 1952

SBBF have divided Sweden into 5

competition regions that are responsible for the third tier of competitions. There are 12 district regions that are responsible for the operations of the clubs, the lower

tier- and younger- club competitions.

The members of SBBF are the clubs

and non-profit associations.

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SOK: Swedish Olympic Committee EOK: European Olympic

Committee IOK: International Olympic Committee FIBA: International Basketball Federation FIBA E: European Basketball Federation RF: Swedish Sport Confederation DF: District Federations SDF: Swedish Basketball District Federations F: Regional Federations Spelare: Players

Swedish Basketball

The basic values of SBBF are: together for the best of Swedish Basketball; everyone’s right to participate; passion, happiness and

curiosity; high competence level; fair play in everything we do; democracy and participation

The vision is to be: ”the most

available nationalsport in Sweden”

Registered members in SBBF 63,113

Players with licenses (over 13 years old) 13,500

Players under 13 years old 9,000

Non-licensed players 3,000

Registered coaches 750

Registered clubs 350

Source of information: SBBF (Henrik Schöldström)

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Swedish Basketball

- League

SBBF have the main responsibility for the professional leagues of both men and women. The mens’ league is called: Basketligan herr and is from this season on an open league (relegation and promotion system)

with up to 12 participating clubs. SBBF are also responsible for the second highest leagues as well as the wheelchair basketball league.

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Swedish Basketball

- International Presence

The Swedish National team both men and women have qualified for the

EuroBasket 2013.

It is the first time in 25 years that the womens team have qualified and they

finished on 7th place

5 out of 6 youth national teams are qualified for the European Championship

A-group in 2013

The wheelchair national team U23 have qualified for the world cup

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Swedish national team women

EuroBasket 2013 – media covers

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Swedish Basketball

- International competitions

In 2003 Sweden hosted the EuroBasket for Men in Stockholm.

However, the Swedish national team did not make it

through the group stage. They also hosted the European

Championship U18 for women 2009 in Södertälje.

Sweden have two clubs that compete on an international

club competition level:

Norrköping Dolphins qualified for EuroChallange 2010/11, 2011/12, 2012/13 – this season they advanced to the top 16 phase and finished 12th.

Södertälje Kings qualified for EuroChallenge 2012/13 but did

not advance. Will participate in EuroChallenge season 2013/14.

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Swedish Basketball

- International players

Players in Europe Ludvig Håkansson, 1996 FCB Regal II, Spain.

Valter Lindström, 1995, Real Madrid, Spain.

Nick Spires, 1994 FCB Regal II, Spain.

Marcus Eriksson, 1993 FCB Regal II, Spain.

Jonathan Person, 1993 Gotha, Germany.

Viktor Gaddefors, 1992, SAIE3 Bologna, Italy.

Erik Rush, 1988 Cimberio Varese, Italy.

Thomas Massamba, 1985 Lukoil Academik, Bulgaria.

Kenny Grant, 1982 Nancy, France.

There are currently no Swedish players in Euroleague.

The lists represents a sample of the players currently abroad.

Players in the USA Jonas Jerebko, 1987 Detroit Pistons, USA, NBA.

Jeffrey Taylor, 1989 Charlotte Bobcats, USA, NBA.

Chris Czerapowicz, 1990 Davidson Wildcats, NCAA.

Carl Engström, 1991 Alabama Crimson, NCAA

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Sport Media Presence in Sweden

- Broadcasting A report from Nordicom covering the average viewing per day in 2011 in Sweden

showed that 18% of the average daily viewers were watching sports (27% men, 9% women).

The segments watching sports is divided into the following brackets:

The table below shows the viewer timeslots among TV-viewers between the ages 9-79 in 2011 (in %)

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Gender Age Education (16–79 year)

Total Men Women 9–14 15–24 25–44 45–64 65–79 Low Middle High

06.00–08.00 4 4 4 5 3 3 4 6 6 3 4

08.00–12.00 9 7 10 11 8 8 7 11 9 8 8

12.00–17.00 12 12 11 20 16 11 8 10 12 11 9

17.00–19.00 24 25 23 32 23 16 21 32 32 23 18

19.00–22.00 77 77 78 60 68 77 82 83 84 79 78

22.00–24.00 23 24 21 5 21 29 25 22 25 26 25

24.00–06.00 2 2 1 1 3 3 2 1 2 2 2

Source: Undersökningen Nordicom-Sveriges mediebarometer 2011.

Sport Media Presence in Sweden

- Broadcasting

The two biggest sport TV stations in Sweden are TV4 Sport and

Viasat Sport.

Viasat has Scandinavia’s most comprehensive portfolio of sport

rights and has exclusive broadcasting rights to the Euroleague

competition. They also broadcast international basketball

competitions.

TV10 is mainly a sport channel launched in 2010 by Viasat, the

channel have rights to broadcast Euroleague basketball.

The Swedish Basketball League had an agreement during 2013

with the Kanal Global channel and the stream site of the online

newspaper Aftonbladet to broadcast their games

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Sport Media Presence in Sweden

- Social Media and Internet Official website of the Swedish Basketball Federation: www.basket.se

Features: The Swedish basketball federation uses this website to inform about news and information from the federation, the national teams, the basketball

leagues, national and regional competitions, education, calendar of activities and contact information.

BasketSverige: www.basketsverige.se

Features: BasketSverige contains information about the basketball

league men and women as well as news about the NBA. The

information is conveyed through articles and blog posts. There are one

blog focused on the NBA. The site has both Facebook and Twitter

accounts. Two other main persons involved are Jakob Törnell and

Magnus Stråhle that produces podcasts with interviews of basketball

players and profiles in Sweden.

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Sport Media Presence in Sweden

- Important media channels

Television: SVT , TV4 , Viasat, C More (football and golf)

Newspapers: Dagens nyheter, Aftonbladet

’Give and Go’ – national basketball magazine delivered

by the Swedish Basketball Federation and distributed to

the clubs.

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Sponsors Official sponsors of the Swedish Basketball Federation

Out of the 10 clubs in the swedish basketball league the following sponsors occur the most: Swedbank (4), Nike (4), Scandic (4), Stadium (3), PEAB (3), Gothia (2), Intersport (2), Viking Line (2), ICA (2),

Other major companies involved in basketball in Sweden: E.on, adidas, McDonalds, Volkswagen, Astra Zeneca,

Top 20 sport sponsor companies in Sweden (2010) according to Sponsorworld*

Volvo, Ericsson, Svenska spel, Swedbank, ICA, Telia, Vattenfall, Aftonbladet, Folksam, Nordea, Carlsberg, SEB, ATG, Posten, SAS McDonalds, Telenor, Adidas, Puma, Nike

* www.sponsorworld.com/_project/_media/_doc/upload/Topp-50.pdf

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NBA in Sweden

The club Sundsvall Dragons organize a summer camp

called the NBA Camp for players born 95-99 with Mike

Wilhelm from Chicago Bulls.

Viasat Sport/TV10 bought the rights to broadcast the

NBA Playoffs 2013 in Sweden however the rest of the

season was not broadcasted on Swedish TV.

NBA gear is easily bought through stores such as

Footlocker ond other national sport stores.

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Segmentation

- the typical basketball consumer

Male

Middle-class

Age 16-26

Urban

High school/college educated

Active

Uses streaming sites to watch sports on

computer and mobile device

Watch TV

Purchases basketball merchandize and

clothes

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His friends also watches basketball, he

seeks information on and off the court,

uses the information for conversation on

social media and private with friends,

watches mainly NBA and NCAA.

If he has a lot of knowledge about the

sport basketball he follows Euroleague

The main sources of information he would

look at is: the official website of NBA, the

facebook page of NBA; he follows his

favorite players and teams on facebook

and instagram

Twitter is not very popular in Sweden at the moment, the two

most popular social networks are Facebook and Instagram.

Norway & Denmark

The sports movement is organized in the same way in all three nordic countries.

Denmark have a strong youth development and are currently working on

developing their national club competition.

NBA playoffs is broadcasted in Denmark.

There is a organization called GAM3 that organizes 3-3 basketball tournaments

in Denmark focused on urban sport and culture as an integration tool for

immigrants.

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Recommendations After the interviews that I conducted in the process of my thesis I recommend Euroleague to implement a

market entry indicator system for the European market. This indicator system will serve as a guide to what markets are ready to expand to and in what extent. It will also show what markets are not developed enough and will require more investment.

Each criteria receives a score from 1-10 (10 is the highest) which will give a total average score that will indicate the readiness of that market. The number is related to 4 different entry modes. These entry modes were detected during the interviews: 1) Export with ’Pull-option’ – ’game of the week’, 2) Export with ’push-option’ – Sales team in the market, 3) Customized investment with sales representatives – clinics, camps, friendly games with local teams etc., 4) Direct investment – Euroleague team in the market

I have developed an example of a simple indicator system that is shown on the following slide. It represents 5 criterias that I have detected as important in order to determine if expansion is profitable for the company, and, in what way to enter into the market.

The first criteria evaluate how many cities that are able to comply with the criterias for reaching an ”A” license. I included this because it shows the readiness of the infrastructure in the country and ultimately the investments required to have a future Euroleague team in the country.

Second criteria evaluate if there are teams already competing on an international level and therefore requires less investment and in the near future can advance to Eurocup and ultimately Euroleague.

Third criteria counts the number of players competing on a top international level both Euroleague and NBA. These are important to use for marketing purposes.

Forth criteria evaluate the level of the National team, if they compete in the A-groups. This is important for marketing purposes and the level of awareness of basketball in the country.

The fifth criteria evaluate the media structure of the country. How hard it is to broadcast sport and for it to reach the majority of the population. Because this is the main revenue for Euroleague this criteria is important in order to decide to expand and invest and how much.

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Recommendations

Market entry indicator system

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CRITERIA EXPLANATION SCORE (1-10)

1. A city that comply with the criteria of an “A” license.

1.1 10,000 seat arena - 1.2 2x 4**** hotels in the same city -

1.3 International airport less than 100km from arena

-

2. Number of clubs competing in top three European club competitions

3. Number of international player competing in Euroleague and/or NBA

4. Level of National team

5. Level of media market and infrastructure TOTAL SCORE

10-9 Direct investment (4) Should already be min. exporting with sales representation

7-9 Customized investment with clinics, camps etc. (3) Should already be exporting with sales representation

5-7 Sales team in the market (2) Push content - Should already be exporting

2-5 Export (1) Pull content of the ’Game of the week’ and Final Four

Evaluation of the Swedish market

Market entry indicator system

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CRITERIA EXPLANATION SCORE (1-10)

1. A city that comply with the criteria of an “A” license. 10

1.1 10,000 seat arena Stockholm Globe, 16.000 - 1.2 2x 4**** hotels in the same city Stockholm, Norrköping -

1.3 International airport less than 100km from arena 46 km Stockholm Globe, 7.8Km norrköping

-

2. Number of clubs competing in top three European club competitions

2 out of 10 (norrköping dolphins, Södertälje Kings)

2

3. Number of international player competing in Euroleague and/or NBA

2 2

4. Level of National team Qualified A group EuroBasket 5

5. Level of media market and infrastructure Viasat have extensive sport broadcasting

5

TOTAL SCORE (AVERAGE) 4.8

10-9 Direct investment (4) Should already be exporting with sales representation

6-9 Customized investment with clinics, camps etc. (3) Should already be exporting with sales representation

4-6 Sales team in the market (2) Should already be exporting

2-4 Export (1) ’Game of the week’ and Final Four

Key Success Factors for the

Swedish market

Increase the awareness about Euroleague through:

Player recognition: use key players to market the league

Follow them on Facebook and Instagram and use in marketing campaigns

The main advantage over NBA is that it is close - possibility to experience the games

live without spending a lot of money. Arrange travel campaigns and discounts to see

a Euroleague game. This could be done as an arrangement through with the Swedish

Basketball Federation and sponsors already involved.

Play friendly games against a Swedish team or arrange a training camp in Sweden

Sponsor youth camps: through name rights, merchandize, send a Euroleague player to

the camp, have a training game during the camp

Sponsor local clubs with merchandize

Much of this can be done through collaboration with the Swedish basketball federation.

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Key Success Factors for the

Swedish market

Work closely with the SBBF as well as local clubs to facilitate and develop certain key drivers of development

Through investing in the education and knowledge of basketball for the public, players

and volunteers

Through investing in the education of clubs and its employees regarding media and

communications management, marketing, development etc.

Providing insight and advice regarding negotiations with broadcasters and sponsors

Providing a network between countries

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Important information &websites

SWEDISH BASKETBALL FEDERATION CONTACT DETAILS

President: Hans Von Uthmann

Secretary General and FIBA World Board Member: Lena Wallin-Kantzy

Press contact: Henrik Schöldström

Office tel.nr: +46 (8) 6996000

Swedish basketball federation: www.basket.se

Swedish sport confederation: www.rf.se

Swedish basketball league (men): http://iof1.idrottonline.se/SvenskaBasketbollforbundet/Basketliganherr/

Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/user/basketklipp

BasketSverige: www.basketsverige.se

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Sources

Pictures that were used in this presentation are taken from:

The official webpage of the Swedish Basketball Federation

The official webpage of the Swedish Sport Confederation

Sundsvall Dragons official webpage

The images are used only in an academic purpose and are included under the fair use

exemption and are restricted from further use.

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THANK YOU! QUESTIONS?

EMELIE NYMAN ÖSTBARD

EMELIE.NYMAN@HOTMAIL.COM

+46 729 62 62 99 /+44 709 44 55 499

UK.LINKEDIN.COM/IN/EMELIENYMAN/

© EMELIE NYMAN 2013