The C Spire Wireless Fan Zone, the songs played at sporting events, the giveaways at games and the fun activities for fans before and after games are all controlled by the Mississippi State University athletic marketing department.
Chad Thomas, the director of MSU athletic marketing, said the department is a jack-of-all-trades most days.
“My job is to market all 16 teams and to sell tickets for our sporting events,” Thomas said. “Once I sell the tickets to the sporting events, my job is to make sure you have fun while you’re at that sporting event because I want you to come back.”
Along with Thomas and assistant coordinator Danielle Smith, three graduate assistants and about 20 student interns comprise the marketing staff.
The graduate assistants and interns are assigned to specific sports, and everyone on staff works at football games. They control raising awareness about thegames, in-game promotions, the music played during games and giveaways among other tasks.
Smith said she and the graduate assistants are on the field during football games while Thomas controls all the marketing in the game from the press box.
“I see Chad more as the director of the show, and then when we come out there,” Smith said. “I produce, and then we have marketing interns that perform everything we need.”
On football game days, the marketing staff is right in the mix of everything. The staff arrive four to five hours before kickoff to oversee the fan fare, which opens three hours before the game and includes a radio show, other MSU teams signing autographs and inflatables among other activities.
The department records every second of the game on a script the week of the game. Thomas makes timing sheets for everyone and cues the band, presentations on the field and the video board.
“We work all week to ensure we have everything planned out for game days,” Thomas said. “I’m there as the reminder to make sure everything happens when it is supposed to happen, so we all work together to make sure we have the best atmosphere we can have.'”
Rhett Hobart, a graduate assistant assigned to volleyball, recently created Volleygrind with the help of head coach Jenny Hazelwood and others via Twitter.
The first home weekend of the volleyball season, T-shirts were given out to fans who came to the game and coaches from several MSU sports played a set against each other.
This event has seen success the past two seasons, with MSU breaking an attendance record on the night of Volleygrind last season and setting the third highest attendance record this season on the night of Volleygrind.
Hobart and others have also incorporated Dog Eat Dog with the volleyball season. Every Friday night, two student organizations face off during halftime of the volleyball match.
Some of these challenges have included the Army ROTC vs. Air Force ROTC and Alumni Delegates vs. Road Runners, which will take place tonight.
Hobart said the marketing staff pre-plans the whole season ahead of time but may change the strategy as needed.
“We try to spread major promotions out throughout the season,” Hobart said. “We do things to make the events exciting without spending a whole lot of money. We try to think outside the box and do unique things at all of our sports to try to make them the best they can be.”
For MSU, marketing requires more innovation because State has the second smallest marketing budget in the SEC. Only Vanderbilt has a smaller budget.
Thomas said because MSU has been playing so well on the field in recent years, the Bulldogs receive free advertising through newspapers and television stations promoting how well State is doing.
“I don’t know if it hurts us, but it forces us to be more innovative and more resourceful with our money. I think we’re at a good place right now at Mississippi State where we get a lot of recognition from around the state and even the region,” Thomas said. “I don’t think our budget necessarily hurts us any. I think we do a good job communicating with our fans because there’s a lot of social media we utilize that’s absolutely free.”
If MSU continues to play in bowl games and with the new contract the SEC will soon sign with ESPN because of the additions of Missouri and Texas A&M, MSU’s budget will hopefully increase some.
But the innovative minds of Thomas, Smith and the graduate assistants combined with MSU’s performance on the field provide State with plenty of marketing tools already.