Sports Marketing Group

Sports Marketing Group (SMG) is a sports and sponsorship research consultancy located in Boca Raton, Florida and Atlanta, Georgia.
History
SMG was founded in January of 1986 by its founder Nye Lavalle when it was spun off from World Sports Group. Established in Boca Raton, Florida, SMG served advertising agencies and public relations firms in their entry into the growing sports marketing discipline from 1986 until 1988 when SMG became a more client-centric organization moving to Detroit, New York and Dallas to advise its clients directly.
Unlike other sports marketing agencies at the time such as ProServ, IMG, and Advantage International that marketed and promoted athletes and sports properties, SMG was created as a sports and sponsorship research consultancy to independently advise corporations and media using the application of scientific marketing research principles in the emerging sports, sponsorship and sports marketing industries. It has never been in the business of marketing athletes or properties.
Notoriety and controversy
Sports Marketing Group became most known for it's research studies that have determined America's most popular and hated spectator sports and athletes over the years. According to the Associated Press and AdWeek Magazine, since 1988, SMG has conducted some of the largest and most definitive surveys and research projects of spectator sports and sponsorship in America. Until the creation of the ESPN Sports Poll by Dr. Richard Luker and Chilton Research in 1994, SMG was only research firm to measure the total fan bases of over 100 spectator sports in America.
SMG has created much controversy, ridicule, and media attention with its most popular and hated spectator sports polls over the years. The traditional male dominated sports media, was at first reluctant to accept the findings of its research. However, in 1991, Adweek Magazine called SMG's studies "the most comprehensive popularity study of it's kind" In 1993, Adweek wrote that "the head of one international ad agency called it the first social and cultural census of America."
SMG became most known for its predictions that figure skating and NASCAR would be the sports of the nineties and its research led ad agencies and marketers to raise these sports to new heights in the nineties. After the Tonya Harding and Nancy Kerrigan affair, Sports Marketing Group's leader's prediction that the first night of the Winter Olympics would have higher Neilsen Ratings than the Super Bowl was met with much skepticism when in the January 16, 1994 edition of US News & World Report quoted "Lavalle predicts more people will view the Winter Olympics than any event in the history of sports. "It's the dream team of figure skating."
Adweek later reported "Dallas researcher and sports marketing specialist Nye Lavalle has said it ever since the results of his first sports popularity survey came out in 1989: figure skating rivals NFL football in popularity in this country and will one day become recognized by TV programmers and advertisers. That day has come with the controversy and drama surrounding figure skating at the '94 Winter Olympics."
"It took the Nancy Kerrigan-Tonya Harding spectacle to open a few eyes, but Lavalle, who was looked upon skeptically last summer when he predicted high Nielsens for Olympic figure skating, now looks like a genius. His forecast of 35-37 ratings for the women's events and 28-33 ratings for the other figure skating events didn't turn out to be generous at all with the women's pulling in the high 30s and the other events around 30. Skating he asserted, would have pulled high numbers even without the controversy."
Despite the jokes and ridicule SMG endured over the years, it was the only organization to project the actual ratings success of the Winter Olympics that year. Clients of SMG bought Super Bowl size ratings and audiences at a fraction of the cost. CBS Sports left over a half-billion dollars on the table by under-projecting the ratings. Even furniture store business publications trumpeted the ratings success of the 1994 Winter Games. Furniture World, a trade publication (http://www.furninfo.com/) reported "It was one of the greatest media bargains of the century. Any home furnishings retailer who had a spot in that event filled Wednesday and Friday evenings gained the greatest audience they could hope for and the best price per thousand reached in the history of television. Just for the record, during the week of February 14 thru 20, 1994, for the top ten programs, the Winter Olympics finished #1 thru #7 as shown in the table "Viewer Numbers in Millions" on the preceding page."
"To understand the size of the women's figure skating final is to understand that it was the sixth highest rated show ever on television. But this should come as no surprise to us. A generational and gender revolution is quietly sweeping American sports. Teenage girls and their moms are leading the way, fueling much of the explosive growth in all sports and lifting figure skating and gymnastics near the top of the country's most popular spectator sports. The National Sports Study II, the largest sports and lifestyle study ever conducted in America was recently released by the Sports Marketing Group, a research based consultancy in Dallas. The study, based on 1,479 respondents to a 64 page questionnaire, updates and broadens one conducted in 1990. It is weighted and balanced to represent all demographic groups in proportion to current U.S. Census data. It carries a margin of error of 1.7 to 2.6 percent."
SMG's research, sold to the ISU and USFSA, helped figure skating become a multimillion-dollar sport. Some sports writers accused SMG's Lavalle of setting up the Tonya Harding/Nancy Kerrigan debacle in Detroit during the U.S. Figure Skating Championships, since Lavalle was born in Detroit and grew up in Grosse Pointe (of Grosse Pointe Blank movie fame). This crazy idea born of an out-of-control tabloid and sports press, was later proven wrong when Tonya Harding's husband was implicated in the attack.
SMG collaboration with Steve Wilstein and Associated Press
SMG's studies, were often reported on by award-winning Associated Press columnist, Steve Wilstein, who was the journalist who first broke the story on Mark McGwire's Andro and steroid use. Wilstein's reports of SMG's studies received wide-spread media attention around the world for not only disclosing the most popular sports in America, but the most hated as well. Even the Russian newspaper Pravda would publish American's likes and dislikes.
The top 10 most-hated sports in America in 2003, based on responses of "hate" and "dislike a lot," were: 1, dogfighting (81.4%); 2, pro wrestling (55.7%); 3, bullfighting (46.2%); 4, pro boxing (31.3%); 5, PGA Tour (30.4%); 6, PGA seniors (29.9%); 7, LPGA Tour (29.2%); 8, NASCAR (27.9%); 9, Major League Soccer (27.6%); 10, ATP men's tennis (26.5%). SMG received much criticism from sports leaders who found their sports at the lower end of the popularity totem pole or at the top of the dislike and hate list.
The collaboration of SMG's research and Wilstein's writing led to Wilstein winning two Associated Press Sports Editors Awards and one Associated Press Managing Editors Awards for best enterprise stories. The 1991 Business of Sports research project between Sports Marketing Group and Wilstein and other writers from the AP was the foundation for the later establishment of exclusive sports business publications such as Street & Smith's Sports Business Journal and Sports Business Daily. Wilstein and SMG were the first to chronicle and measure the total economic impact of the multi-billion dollar sports industry in America.
In 1993, SMG and the AP's Wilstein teamed up to deliver a series on the size and extent of sports gambling in America. The gambling series won the AP Managing Editors award for best enterprise story of the year and the survey was considered the most comprehensive study of sports gambling to that time.
SMG services and products
SMG's offers sports, media and corporate clients with a variety of exclusive sponsorship consulting, sponsorship research, and sports research studies. It also offers information and data from SMG's national studies and exclusive databases on over 114 sports, 800 athletes, 100 sponsors, 100 sports teams, and 100 sports events.

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