“I think fans really took to us because they could identify with our players, and they love coming to the games, and what we stood for, and how we played, and the chemistry,”
exclaims Cheryl Reeve, head coach and general manager of the Minnesota Lynx professional women’s basketball team. The Lynx offering to fans is a unique combination of exciting fast-paced athletic competition, graceful teamwork, and courageous support for marginalized communities. To accomplish this Reeve has assembled an extraordinary combination of basketball players and business and marketing professionals. “We believe that we’re the gold standard in the league because we have a very connected business and basketball staff,” Reeve explains.

THE MINNESOTA LYNX:
The Minnesota Lynx is one of 12 teams in the Women’s National Basketball Association. “We had the great fortune that the owner of the NBA Minnesota Timberwolves, Glen Taylor, thought it would be great to bring the WNBA to the Minnesota market,” says Reeve. “It was 1999 and we were an expansion team” she adds, which meant that the community needed to make a commitment to season ticket purchases. The first game of the inaugural season had thousands of fans in attendance.
In 22 seasons the Lynx have qualified for the WNBA playoffs 12 times and won the championship 4 times, making it one of the most successful teams in the league. The Lynx was also one of the first teams in professional sports to use their platform for peaceful protest, wearing warm-up shirts that said “Change Starts With Us.”

Home games are played in the Target Center arena in Minneapolis, Minnesota, the same location used by the Minnesota Timberwolves. Players are often drafted from NCAA women’s basketball teams, and some are also recruited from outside the United States. Some of the standout Lynx players have included Katie Smith, Seimone Augustus, Maya Moore, Rebekkah Brunson, Sylvia Fowles, and native Minnesotan Lindsay Whalen.
The Lynx teams are known around the league for their chemistry and camaraderie. In fact, Coach Reeve observes that “our trademark was not just that we won, or how we won, but that we had a genuine love for each other; we love competing with, and for, each other. We had this chemistry that couldn’t be broken.”
The success of the team has led to an often discussed “dynasty” created by Coach Reeve and the Minnesota Lynx players!

Today Coach Cheryl Reeve boasts one of the best records in the league and has won the WNBA Coach of the Year award three times. In addition, the team continues to be advocates for social justice through a content series called “Voices” which discusses issues such as racial injustice, voting rights, gender equality, and diversity.
More than 9,000 fans attend each home game.
The team’s mascot, Prowl, entertains the fans during Lynx games and makes appearances at events throughout the state. And several Lynx players, and Coach Reeve, have been invited to participate in the Olympics.
The exposure is good for basketball and the Lynx. According to Reeve, “maybe fans watch for the first time, they get connected to it, and then that connection goes back to their respective WNBA teams.”

THE WOMEN’S NATIONAL BASKETBALL ASSOCIATION The Women’s National Basketball Association was founded with eight teams in 1996 as the women’s counterpart to the National Basketball Association. At that time the WNBA competed with the American Basketball League, which subsequently ended its operations several years later. The league’s current 12 teams are divided into Eastern and Western conferences which play 36 regular season games from May to September with an All-Star game played in July. The top eight teams participate in the playoffs, which end with a championship series in October.  Basketball traces its origin to 1891 in Springfield, Massachusetts, when a physical education instructor needed an activity to keep students active on a rainy day. They mounted a peach basket to a gymnasium wall and created simple rules: pass the ball to teammates and score points by tossing the ball into the basket.
Women’s basketball began the following year when the new sport was introduced to students at Smith College.
Since then, basketball has become one of the most popular sports in the world and is played at high school, college, and professional levels. The International Basketball Federation (FIBA) became the world governing body for basketball in 1932 and brought the sport to the Olympics in 1936. The global popularity of the sport for girls and boys of all ages is reflected in the growth of leagues such as the WNBA, in the diversity of the players, and in the role teams such as the Minnesota Lynx are playing as vehicles for social change........

Questions 

1. What is the Minnesota Lynx “product”? Do the Lynx have an organizational purpose or a brand purpose in addition to playing basketball?
2. Which of the seven elements of the service marketing mix are most important in the Lynx marketing program?
3. How is promotion (advertising, personal selling, public relations, sales promotion, direct marketing)
used by the Lynx?
4. Describe the activities the Lynx undertake as part of their customer experience management program.
5. How do the Minnesota Lynx assess the impact of their marketing activities? Has the program been successful?