In a world where it is increasingly hard for companies, marketers, advertisers and anyone else with a message they want to get in front of the public to be assured that their message will be seen and heard there is still one great medium that insures the end audience will be reached and will be engaged in what they are watching and that one medium is….

Sports!

There is nothing like live sports action to engage the general public and engage them far beyond the games themselves because often the real action lies in the lead-up-to and reactions after the games that provide great opportunities for companies to deliver their message to willing and ready to listen consumers.

Ad Age has the truth behind of….

Why Sports Is the Ultimate Winning Play for Engagement, Michael McCarthy, Ad Age

“Every marketer seems to stand up and cheer for sports. From jewelry retailers to automakers, brands dole out millions of dollars to have access to one of the last DVR-proof offerings on TV, an arena where "mass market," "reach" and 30-second spots still mean something.

Robert Carter, VP-automotive operations for Toyota Motor Sales USA, puts it simply. "You have a better opportunity to get your message in front of a sports viewer vs. somebody that DVRs a drama, then commercial-skips," said Mr. Carter at the Automotive News World Congress in Detroit.

But modern sports marketing stretches far beyond TV. It might be the best place to get creative in both message and media: data-based mobile marketing plays at NBA arenas; virtual ads behind home plate during Major League Baseball telecasts; real-time tweets during NCAA's March Madness; and b-to-b plays at the U.S. Open and Nascar races.

Why? Because people engage with sports like nothing else. If you want to talk passion points, think of those Red Sox fans after the team won its first World Series in 86 years; consider the buzz already building for the World Cup; or just Google "Auburn Alabama final play."

The North American sports market alone is expected to hit $67.7 billion in revenue by 2017, up from $53.6 billion in 2012, according to PwC. That figure includes gate revenue, media rights, corporate sponsorships and merchandising.

Gate revenues are projected to remain the largest segment at $19.1 billion in 2017, growing at a rate of 3.9%. But PwC notes that media rights and sponsorship segments will grow faster, 7.7% and 6%, respectively.”

Wow!

Those are some amazingly fast-growing numbers in the North American sports market which has been on a steady rise for several decades now and has been on a noteworthy tear in the last few years even in the face of one of the longest and toughest recessions in American history.

What we here at the Roaring Fork Agency have learned in the last five years since the bubble was burst on the US economy in the Fall of 2008 is that there are a lot of things that Americans will do without but they will not do without….

Their Teams and Their Sports

…..and that reality should be well-understood by anyone that has a product or service they are trying to sell into the marketplace which means that any solid marketing mix plan should include sports, sports, sports….and did we say sports?

Speaking of sports the Super Bowl is now only 10 days away and Ad Age has a round-up of…

Super Bowl Ad Chart: Who’s Buying What in Super Bowl 2014, Ad Age

…and below are a few of the teaser commercials released by companies for the game: