Maximizing or Missing Marketing Opportunities - Your opinion versus mine.

This week I'm going to write a response to one of our classmates. Their stance was that UAB Football missed out on a marketing opportunity by letting people into the UAB House Party to see Sam Hunt perform for free. They felt that people should have been required to purchase a season ticket or at least regular game ticket in order to attend this show to financially support the UAB football program.

Some things to keep in mind, not all Sam Hunt fans are UAB fans or even football fans, and on the flip side, not all UAB fans are Sam Hunt fans.

 I see this as a maximizing opportunity for both the football program and for Sam Hunt. By allowing "outsiders" into this show with no purchase necessary, they introduced a lot of football fans to a new (to them) performer & a lot of country music fans to a damn good football team. Those country fans could not like football (unlikely) or be Alabama, Auburn, Tennessee, etc fans who would've never went to a UAB event otherwise, but have now been introduced to a new team. A new LOCAL team. A team they can go see regularly, who's tickets aren't outrageous. That can introduce so much more income for the program; letting people decide they want to spend their money there vs. forcing them to do so. On the other side of things, Sam Hunt earned himself a lot of fans through this, I'm sure. People who had never listened to his music before, but happened to hear him at this event or people who heard of his support in doing this show at no charge are now downloading his songs, looking into future concerts, etc.

'Forcing' people to spend money isn't always the best way to market. The way I look at it, the UAB Football program and Sam Hunt probably made a lot more off of not charging for that show.