Sports Without Marketing

Can you imagine a world of non-sponsored sporting events? Well, I went to the Masters last week and I can't stop thinking about it…

The Masters is a place where the golf and the course are the main focus. Much has been said about the NO Phones policy- a welcome reprieve for this chronically online content creator.
Not enough has been said about their restrictions on sponsors & more Leagues, Tournaments & Teams should study this approach.
While The Masters has sponsors, none of them are allowed on the course. Do you know how incredible and serene that is?

Even in the Masters app, the tournament sponsors are listed very tastefully, in tiny print. Now, it's not to say they don't have sponsors. They have four title Champion sponsors, AT&T, Bank of America, IBM, and Mercedes-Benz, who will do television advertisements during the broadcast. They also have tournament partners, Delta, Rolex, and UPS, as well as some other limited ones.

The Masters also gives up all of their broadcast rights to have complete control over the television product.

Another example of where this showed was in their concession pricing. They have basically kept everything in 1960’s prices. This comes out of the history of hardship for the tournament where they had to do everything possible for people who were driving long distances to experience the tournament.

They did not want to there to be any other barriers that would prevent them from staying and enjoying the golf.

I expected the prices, but unexpected for me was the lack of branding.
There is no one trying to sell you anything.

Of course, there were items for sale, but there was not a barrage to the senses from every brand trying to grab my attention. I’ve taken for granted how common and busy that is in every day life.

For the drinks, items were just listed as “sweet tea, unsweetened tea, import beer, and domestic beer”…etc

Compare that with your standard concession experience at any other sporting event. At Augusta, their fountain drink signage was green and white and just said “Cola” and “Diet Cola”.
Look at the difference below. They're screaming at you, and I don't mean that literally, but there are bright colors that are coming at you. Everybody's trying to get their brand to be seen and to grab your attention.

But at the Masters, there's no company offering free trials. There's no car spinning around in the lake. There's no big Charles Schwab tent. There's no AT&T booth trying to get you to sign up for one month free. There's no credit card company thats's trying to give you 25,000 points if you give them your email.
Imagine any sporting event you go to… you can't even walk in before you're hit with the American Airline Center presented to you by Ford, and brought to you by some crypto company.

The course was beautiful. The experience was beautiful, and more than anything, it allowed for a level of serenity without a phone. Time spent connecting with human beings and the ability to actually enjoy the sport & the event.

Maybe the reason some of our American institutional sports are suffering, and why kids are dropping out of sport at a record rate, is they're being yelled at and entertained to death?
Perhaps we are all distracted from the actual sports that we want to go and consume.

Just some food for thought.

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