5 sports marketing lessons from Advertising Week

How brands and sports play together was a focus at Advertising Week, which devoted a track to what it called the “new sports economy.” Panel discussions touched on NILs, new opportunities in sports, technology and branding for athletes and organizations. Below, five takeaways. A-List & Creativity Awards Enter for a chance to be recognized as the best in advertising Submit your entry here 1. Local teams, global ambitions Taylor Swift is a “marketing gift,” but one that the Kansas City Chiefs are careful not exploit, said Lara Klug, chief marketing officer of the NFL franchise. The football team, she said, has been careful to treat the pop star girlfriend of Travis Kelce as just another fan. Swift is, however, helping to bring worldwide attention to the Chiefs franchise, playing into what Krug described as a “lofty and ambitious” goal to be known as the “world’s team” in a manner not unlike the Dallas Cowboys are called “America’s Team.” Krug also discussed the team’s partnership with fellow Kansas City business Hallmark which has grown into a sappy Hallmark movie (“Holiday Touchdown: A Chiefs Love Story”) that was shot at Arrowhead Stadium and is debuting Nov. 30 on the Hallmark Channel. @todayshow Football is back, and #Hallmark has announced that its #KansasCityChiefs movie will be out on November 30! The movie will also have very special appearances by our very own @jenna_bushhager, #MamaKelce and @chiefs head coach #AndyReid. #TODAYShow ♬ original sound - TODAY Show Angel City FC was conceived to be a global brand, according to Julie Uhrman, president and co-founder of the National Women’s Soccer League franchise. “Our goal for our first game in 2022 was to sell out the stadium and have global press attention,” Uhrman said. “If we’re a global brand, we can drive more awareness and attention, which ultimately drives the highest revenue, and we achieved that.” Uhrman’s remarks came while she recounted a glorious origin story for the soccer franchise—which included having an all-female founding team—insisting it was something anyone could do. “Here’s the formula: Invest in the community, invest in your fans, invest in the product,” she said. “Create a product that has value and don’t discount it. Tell the world that it exists in marketing and out of home. Tell the story of the players … none of that is brain surgery.” 2. College basketball evolves It’s a rapidly changing world for college sports and media, but basketball got left behind. That’s the inspiration for separate new men’s and women’s events to be played for the first time. The Women’s Champions Classic starts Dec. 7 at Barclays Center in Brooklyn, New. York, featuring Connecticut, Tennessee, Iowa and Louisville, backed by Horizon Sports & Experiences and Fox Sports. “The vision of this was very simple,” said David Levy, Horizon’s CEO and a former Turner executive. “In all the years that I ran Turner Sports, I saw a lot of early season tournaments for men’s basketball games that count, but only on the men’s side. I didn’t see any dominant women’s early-season basketball. I thought there was a white space.” We’re thrilled to announce that Shark Beauty™ a Shark Ninja brand and leader in the hair care industry 👋🫶 designing innovative products by—and for—all hair types, will be the title sponsor for the inaugural Shark Beauty™ Women's Champions Classic! pic.twitter.com/514485SHtu— WomensChampsClassic (@WChampsClassic) September 26, 2024 On the men’s side, the College Basketball Crown debuts next spring in Las Vegas. Scheduled from March 31 to April 6, 2025—for the period between the Elite 8 and Final 4 rounds of the NCAA tournament—the Crown represents “positive disruption,” and benefits for participants, the network, and partnering brands, said Jordan Bazant, executive VP of Fox Sports, which is developing the event with AEG Global Partnerships. Select teams from the Big East, Big 12 and Big Ten conferences will play along with at-large participants. Ghost Energy and JSX have been announced as founding partners. The event will serve as a competitor to the long-running National Invitational Tournament (with both events playing second fiddle to March Madness). “College sports has evolved in all different sports, not just college football, but the Olympic sports, etc. The one thing that really hadn’t evolved was men’s college basketball, and specifically the postseason,” Bazant said. “And in this day and age, in college sports, if you’re not proactive, you’re regressive.” 3. Measurement progress Sports sponsorship measurement may be emerging from the dark ages, but it’s still not perfect, executives said during a panel focusing on the evolving landscape of sports media and advertising. “Five years ago, if you asked a major brand partner of the NBA what the quantifiable impact of that [sponsorship] was they would have said no, and that could mean $20, $25 or $50 million,” said Jon Tuck, president of Publicis Sports. “It’s not really acceptable for a CMO to go to a CEO or CFO and say, ‘I don't know.’” New measurement tools are helping to change that, Tuck said, with technologies allowing brands to track the impact of a sign in a stadium caught in a highlight that goes viral, for example. Robin Cohen, executive VP for integrated media investment and planning for Rain the Growth Agency termed the measurement space “evolving,” acknowledging that “everybody wants to solve the problem.” “I think a little less disruption would really help us solve the measurement game,” added Tara Gotch, executive VP for Comscore. 4. The evolving NIL landscape “When working with brands, you want to work with brands that you genuinely enjoy, something you use on the regular,” said Alexandra “Sasha” Ozerets, a varsity tennis player at California Polytechnic State University, testifying as to the Name, Images and Likeness deals that appeal most to her. “When you’re working with those companies, you can automatically just influence everyone around you—your teammates, people on campus, other athletes.” The athletic clothing wear brand Vuori is one of those brands, said Ozerets (below left, with teammates Peyton Dunkle and Misha Berry). “I wear it to the gym. I wear it to our workouts, even though we have our sponsored school company for our team.” View this post on Instagram A post shared by sash (@sasha.ozerets) Brands not surprisingly want the same thing, added Courtney Scott, VP of marketing for the nutrition brand Gainful, which moved to NIL as traditional influencer marketing got “so commoditized and transactional,” Scott said. Her other secret? Smaller sports. “The football player’s story is told a lot. The track star has their story told a lot. But talking to people on the fencing team, these are not stories you hear all the time.” As authenticity becomes more important, brands may want to consider offering young athletes equity as part of their agreement, said Darren Heitner, a lawyer specializing in NIL. “It’s incentivizing the athlete beyond a promo code or guaranteed amount of money,” said Heitner. And though potentially risky and more complex, “oftentimes what see is that the athlete goes above and beyond what the pure required deliverables are in the contract, and they really feel invested in themselves.” 5. Branding athletes Style, community involvement and personal development all play a role in amplifying athlete brands, paying dividends for those few who dominate their sports and the many more who go on to establish a career beyond the playing field. Keisha McLeod, owner, visual architect, stylist and author for KMCME, recounted her 20 years of working with athletes including James Harden, Serena Williams, Auston Matthews and Candice Parker. These athletes used style to amplify their personal brands, making them attractive to other brands. “Anybody could put clothes on, anybody can just walk down the tunnel,” McLeod said. “But how do these brands know you? How do they take care of you? How can you now get paid for what you're wearing? How can you shoot that commercial and become these walking advertisements instead of shopping and spending your money?” Joe Carney, co-founder and CEO of Ziynx, a platform connecting student-athletes to NIL deals, said his business is focused on making the NIL opportunity mean more for its users. “We strategically focused on the 99% of these kids who aren’t making real life-changing money,” Carney said, noting that many deal with mental health issues or the “identity foreclosure” when their athletic careers end. The app helps its users to develop a “character profile” that can help them become more marketable in the job marketplace.

5 sports marketing lessons from Advertising Week

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