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Ultimate Sports
Overview ULSP publishes & markets collectible entertainment built around the personalities of famous professional athletes through comic books & its own Internet broadcasting company. ULSP is linking its intellectual properties & markets outside of conventional arenas with the tried-and-true comic book format. Other potential markets being targeted include everything from an animated television program & home videos to action figures & video games. Since its formation in 1996, three comic books have been created & published with high profile athletes from the National Basketball Association & Major League Baseball. It is extending the scope of its efforts to include other professional sports leagues & personalities. This ensures a competitive barrier. It has the potential to lock down a long-term recurring revenue stream due to the winning combination of popular sports, well-known athletes, & collectibles. ULSP is also creating an Internet broadcasting channel based on its comic book properties. It intends to leverage its print creations, translating them into Internet content & programming for its web site. It plans to generate revenue with its Internet site by selling advertising, comic books, player fan club & ULSP related merchandise. History Incorporated 6/28/96 in CA, ULSP commenced operations as a publisher of comic books featuring superstar athletes in action & adventure stories. It's goal: To be the biggest & best provider of sports-related entertain-ment. During its first two years, it published two comic books: "Webber's World," starring Sacramento Kings forward Cris Webber, & "Karl Malone: The Mailman," staring the Utah Jazz's Karl Malone. In 3/99, it published its first Major League Baseball Players' Association-licensed comic book, "Cosmic Slam," featuring Mark McGwire, Sammy Sosa, Dave Justice, & Jeff Bagwell. It will be sold in toy stores, newsstands, comic book stores, stadiums, & arenas. ULSP will also initiate direct-marking & Internet sales campaigns. It is negotiating a distribution deal with home shopping entities. The efforts behind "Cosmic Slam" represent Ultimate Sports' strategy of finding new distribution channels & aggressive marketing. Being smaller than competitors, management elected to pursue a strategy to strengthen its competitive position & defend itself from new market entrants & larger, well-financed competitors. The three-element strategy: (1) Aggressive publishing schedule; (2) Internet marketing, promotion, & retailing; & (3) Film & television production. Currently ULSP has no competitors in its market niche of sports-related entertainment, but on a more general level, it competes with other comic book publishers & animation producers. It believes its focus on easily recog-nized, popular athletes will distinguish its product from that of its competitors. On 6/22/99, ULSP announced it signed a licensing contract (one year with an option on two more) with NFL Properties & The NFL Quarterback Club to publish a series of comic books based on NFL superstars as animated cartoon superheroes. "To be partners with NFL Properties, the leader of the $12 billion sports licensing industry along with the NFL Quarterback Club is very exciting," said CEO Frederick R. Licht. "Making the NFL an integral part of our project is another goal we've achieved with the overall objective being the ability to have a strong presence in the four major professional sports leagues. If the success we're experiencing with Major League Baseball is any indication, NFL fans, especially kids, will be ecstatic after seeing the quality products we plan to deliver to them." Troy Aikman, Steve Young, Terrell Davis, Dan Marino, Brett Favre, & many other well-known NFL players will have their likenesses enhanced with everything from superhuman strength to lightning fast speed to x-ray vision to take on evil villains. As part of the agreement, NFL Properties will give ULSP access to NFL team names & logos while The NFL Quarterback Club will make their roster of over 60 players accessible to the company for superhero status. Tentative plans call for the comic books to be in the stadiums of all 31 NFL teams. An additional license covering merchandise & home video is being negotiated. Business Strategy ULSP products have garnered acclaim from athletes, fans, entertainment executives, & most importantly, the distributors that sell them. Based on this positive response, ULSP plans to aggressively move forward in its four areas of publishing, Internet, film & TV, & merchandising. Publishing: ULSP holds publishing licenses for: It is aggressively pursing licenses with: Internet: ULSP believes its editorial content & material are ideal for exploitation on the Internet. Comic book characters are easily animated, & the simple, linear format of adventure stories is easily encapsulated & serialized to produce cliffhanger-style animated shorts. The Internet gives ULSP an opportunity to provide its fan base (primarily younger sports fans) with other useful information & such entertainment opportunities as: 1. Customizable sports tickers with professional, college, little
league, jr. high, & high school sports scores. |
On the revenue side, the Internet allows ULSP to sell products directly to fans, reap higher sales margins, & expand advertising sales. The Internet allows ULSP to combine editorial content, merchandis-ing, licensing, & retail ventures under one roof, & combine them with a visual & audio "Sports Illustrated for Kids" type magazine. It pursues its Internet goals as a "virtual broadcasting" opportunity. Film & TV: ULSP's goal in this area is to align itself with an animation produc-tion company with resources to produce, develop, & distribute animation based on ULSP's properties. It is currently negotiating a TV/film/video animation production deal with a major animation producer. Under the "Ultimate Sports Force" banner, it will package separate titles for launch during the appropriate sports seasons. ULSP is pursuing an opportunity to introduce The Ultimate Sports Force to the mass market through direct-to-video channels. This allows it to develop recognition for its properties & prove their viability in the animation arena, while avoiding the usual network distribution channels. It also believes there is an opportunity to produce "interstitials" featuring its characters for use on other sports-related shows such as Fox's Saturday morning program, "In The Zone." After securing a niche in the domestic animation market, ULSP will pursue opportunities in foreign markets. Many of the athletes it works with are from, & have large fan bases in, foreign countries (Sammy Sosa's following in Central & South America, for example). It will also explore opportunities to license & develop comic books & animation based on internationally popular sports, such as soccer (an "Ultimate Sports Force" program for air in Europe featuring Manchester United, for example). The synergies between the three areas are strong. ULSP plans to exploit them. It will marshal its publishing, Internet, & TV & film efforts to keep current fans constantly interested & reach out for new fans. Merchandising: As ULSP's animated productions & comic books achieve a critical mass of audience recognition, it will introduce toys, clothing, video games, & other products based on its properties. ULSP is pursuing opportunities with several major toy manufacturers to produce a packaged product featuring an Ultimate Sports comic book & an appropriate action figure. Publishing Trends: Comic book publishers continue to concentrate their efforts on their own superhero properties. No publisher currently produces material similar to ULSP. It expects to enjoy first-to-market advantage with its fresh approach to publishing, & to keep that advantage with exclusive licenses. Internet Trends: (1) The Internet is not just for computer geeks; a 2/2/99 article on CNN Interactive observed: "On Jan. 14, the Pew Research Center for the People & the Press published the results of its latest survey about Internet users. The center's conclusion is that the Internet is going `ordinary';" (2) As the Internet audience expands, its demographics become more main-stream. The same CNN article continues, "The survey showed that about half of current Internet users started in the past year, & these new users are no longer as different from the general population as they once were;" & (3) Users are buying books on the Internet, & are turning to the Internet to buy toys as well. Film & Television Trends: Direct-to-video is proving itself as a viable "reverse launch" opportunity. Merchandising Trends: (1) Sports action figures are coming into their own in the toy market. Their performance in a market usually reserved for superhero- & action-related items featured in feature films & animated series is remarkable, & indicative of changing consumer tastes. ULSP plans to package the best of both worlds & offer action figures that appeal to sports fans & action fans; & (2) Limited-edition action figures perform well as collectibles. Even if native only to the collectibles market, limited-edition action figures have shown incredible performance. ULSP will leverage the dual appeal of its characters to reach a wider market. ...continued on next page, click here |
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