When an expected 350,000 spectators turn out for the Gravity Games in Providence’s Waterplace Park this week, marketers and advertisers will be afforded a rare opportunity: to grab the attention of an elusive demographic.
“It’s so difficult to reach the young, male target,” said Kevin O’Malley, president of Emap USA’s sports division, producer of the Gravity Games. “They have fleeting attention spans.”
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To be sure, people of all ages will attend the nine-day event to see 250 athletes from 17 countries compete in sports such as aggressive inline vert and street luge. Competitors will launch themselves off plywood halfpipes and fly through downtown at breakneck speeds.
But the vast majority of spectators will be in the 12- to 34-year-old category, according to Stephanie Fray, vice president of marketing for the Gravity Games. The event caters to that demographic through an entertainment-marketing scheme that combines action sports with music, film and style.
“It’s an outlet for action-sports enthusiasts to showcase their talents, but it also speaks to the lifestyle of the fans in their words and on their terms,” Fray said. “It’s about more than just the sports.”
The mainstream marketing of fringe street sports began in 1995 with the advent of ESPN’s “Extreme Games,” now called the X Games. The Gravity Games started in 1999 as a partnership between Emap USA – publisher of action-sports magazines such as Surfer and Skateboarder – and NBC Sports.
Gravity Games producers tout it as the event of choice for action-sports athletes, one that keeps the competition at a grassroots level. Athletes are involved in designing the competitions, creating the courses and even have input in business decisions, according to Jon Miller, vice president of programming for NBC Sports.
“The Gravity Games has much more of an athlete focus,” Miller said. “That’s a big, big difference. You won’t see tricks or stunts set up simply to produce the biggest crash. The focus is on the competition.”
The Gravity Games for the first time will feature an action sports film festival, and big-name bands such as Smashmouth and the Mighty Mighty Bosstones will play.
Fray also said there is a “street-fashion” element to the action-sports lifestyle that is beginning to attract young females. “A lot of girls come out to watch so they can pick up on fashion trends,” she said.
But sponsors are betting that young spectators pick up on more than the latest shoe styles.
Brand names from Toyota and Mongoose bikes to Norelco and Speed Stick have signed on as sponsors. Toys R Us reached a licensing agreement with Gravity Games earlier this year and will feature displays at its stores, grabbing the attention of what O’Malley calls the “feeder pipeline” of 12- to 17-year-olds.
Coca Cola’s sport-drink brand Powerade also is a Gravity Games sponsor, coinciding with Coke’s effort to reposition the brand to reach beyond traditional sports and into the up-and-coming action-sports arena.
“With the relaunch of the brand, we wanted to tap into active lifestyle trends,” said Rohan Oza, senior brand manager for Powerade. “The filter on sports is broadening and the Gravity Games allows us to participate in that younger demographic.”
Although Gravity Games won’t disclose the value of its sponsorship sales, ESPN’s X Games – held in Philadelphia last month – took in a reported $30 million in sponsorship money.
While it’s a complicated demographic to reach, it’s easy to see why Gravity Games’ sponsors are spending big money to tap the huge youth market.
The 71 million people born between 1977 and 1994 – sometimes referred to as Generation Y – rivals the size of the baby boom generation, according to American Demographics magazine. Moreover, these kids have money to spend. U.S. teens in 2000 spent $155 billion, according to Teenage Research Unlimited, an Illinois-based research firm that studies teen trends.
But marketers still are trying to find the best way to reach their pocketbooks.
“I think they’re trying to figure out how to market around these action-sports events,” said Jay Gladden, a sports-management professor at the University of Massachusetts.
“To a certain extent, the (action-sports subculture) tries to buck the mainstream, so you’d think they’d be anti-brand,” Gladden said. “In reality they’re very brand conscious, but they favor brands that are less mainstream. I think marketers are trying to strike that balance.”
As they have for the last two years, the Gravity Games will run opposite National Football League games on Sundays. While NBC executives know the program won’t beat the NFL’s ratings, they say it’s the purity of the viewership that counts.
“There aren’t many places on network television where advertisers can reach the 12- to 24-year-old demographic weekend after weekend in the fall,” said NBC’s Miller.
The Gravity Games has the edge over the NFL when it comes to those viewers, who, Miller says, “just aren’t big NFL fans.” The network is boosting the number of Gravity Games airings from five to seven this year and the programming will follow NASCAR coverage, which has an enormous audience dominated by young male viewers, Miller said.
“Following NASCAR for the first time will be a huge benefit,” he said.
