How sports CMOs are turning teams into lifestyle brands and how their roles are changing

As competition for attention intensifies and advertising dollars surge, chief marketing officers for sports teams are adapting strategies to focus on audience cultivation and experiential marketing, with some organizations going outside the arena for marketing talent skilled in those areas. This evolution is proving some timeworn sports marketing truisms are no longer true: “Build it and they will come” is one. “Just win, baby” is another. Super Bowl commercials Tracking the latest brand and agency plans Click here “This idea that you don’t really have to work hard to create demand, that is an old model,” said Ryan McConnell, executive VP and head of Kantar Sports Monitor at Kantar. “We’re realizing today there’s so much money in sports, so much attention, that marketers have to get smarter about who the fan is, how they consume sports, and how to attract them.” Where sports marketers once focused on ticket sales and “marketing the score”—meaning focusing on game results—today they’re about mobilizing their bases behind programs meant to reinforce the tribal nature of team fandoms and their brands—Chiefs Kingdom, Red Sox Nation or Bills Mafia, for example. “I think at their core, sports teams are really content publishers,” said Paul Alfieri, CMO of Cadent, a data technology firm that consults with brands on television ad sales. “They’re trying to maximize their audience because the audience is fragmented. … You’re seeing the CMO think more holistically about the franchise, not just as a sports brand, but a lifestyle brand.” The New York Mets’ season was one long string of viral episodes. The team gained widespread attention by embracing Grimace in its marketing after an appearance by the McDonald’s mascot sparked a winning streak that helped turn their season around. The Mets also enjoyed free publicity from a flamboyantly dressed fan known among fans as the “Rally Pimp” who regularly captured the attention of TV cameras and social media. A military veteran saluted at opening day, Seymour Weiner, was brought back to promote $1 hot dog night. The Mets later invited breakout TikTok stars Hailey Welch (the Hawk Tuah Girl) and the Rizzler to separate games at Citi Field. The Mets also scored on the pop charts. “OMG,” a song by second baseman Jose Iglesias, reached No. 1 on the Billboard and iTunes Latin pop charts in July and became the team’s celebratory home-run song. Oh it’s Grimace on the 7 train 💜🚇 pic.twitter.com/9P9E84kYHY— Jen Chung (@jenchung) October 8, 2024 These stunts captured the hearts of fans by flicking at their character as hopeful underdogs, said Alfieri, who considers himself a Mets fan. The Mets were quick to run with their successes, as orange-and-blue “OMG” signs became ubiquitous in the stadium, and the team also deepened its relationship with McDonald’s, installing a purple seat at Citi Field, while the Golden Arches installed a billboard and a No. 7 subway car wrap. Grimace owns citi field now pic.twitter.com/5IWsAivJmh— Guillaume Huin (@HuinGuillaume) June 26, 2024 “They leaned in,” Alfieri said. “You want your content to be a hot property, and if you catch someone because of Grimace or because of ‘OMG’ and can bring them into the mystique, then you’ve created scale in your audience.” The Mets were not available to comment for this story. Authentic messaging The Tampa Bay Buccaneers have moved away from marketing related to game results with an eye on programs that transcend what’s happening on the field, said James Ruth, CMO of the NFL team. “When Baker Mayfield connects with Mike Evans there’s nothing better,” said Ruth of the team’s quarterback-receiver combo. “But Mike Evans touchdown grabs is not the core value proposition people get out of sport. What they get out of sport is the opportunity to step into a stadium, be a part of the same team with 66,000 other people. You get to feel something, feel the highs and feel the lows.” Tampa Bay’s campaign this year, called “Krewe Since,” is about aligning the team with generations of fans while building regional pride. “Krewe Since” features photographs of Buccaneers players holding a team flag and noting their tenure with the team—“Krewe since ’21,” for example. Fans get the same treatment, noting the year they became fans. “Krewe” is the name for the Buccaneers’ fan tribe, a reference to the pirate krewes associated with Tampa’s Gasparilla Pirate Fest. “We displayed all the creative in the same lens, on the same pedestal, to drive this idea that fans are a part of this tribe and create the sense that everybody is on the same level,” Ruth said. The Buccaneers back this up with what Ruth calls “deep cuts,” or authentic signals to fans that the team sees them. One of these incorporated roosters into a social media collage, an unspoken reference to the birds that run free in Tampa’s Ybor City neighborhood. These efforts are paying off. The percentage of fans who describe the Bucs as “cool” increased by 27% and “for people like me” increased by 14%, according to Qualtrics data shared by the team. The franchise also saw “significant increases” in loyal fans as measured by engagement across ticket sales, merchandise purchases and email engagement, with larger increases among female fans. More news: What to know about sports uniform sponsorship Mike Grahl, CMO of the NBA’s Minnesota Timberwolves, said the challenge of sports marketing today is in balancing the operational side of growing audiences, like event production, with digital tools that can engage audiences in a cost-effective manner. “Resources, especially on the team side, is something we have to be cognizant of. So you have to be ahead of the curve in knowing what’s going to reach an audience at the right time with the right message in order to bring them into your world, so you can have conversations,” Grahl said. “It’s more relational than it is transactional.” Capitalizing on the club’s current momentum, the Timberwolves recently engaged ad agency Zambezi for a marketing campaign that aligns the team and its fans by putting a new spin on “Minnesota Nice.” Ad Age Leading National Advertisers 2024 U.S. ad spending, rankings, analysis and profiles for the biggest marketers Click here How the CMO role is changing Chad Biagini, president of Nolan Partners, an executive recruiter owned by Excel Sports, said demand for chief marketers in sports has “absolutely” increased as the role has evolved, with many organizations now seeking marketers with expertise in consumer goods, media or entertainment, or in industries that have experienced rapid growth and/or rapid change. Nolan in recent years has placed top marketing executives with the Chicago Cubs, Miami Dolphins and Houston Texans, as well as Karin Timpone, MLB’s CMO. “Marketing has become one of the hottest teams to discuss within sports organizations,” Biagini said. Part of this relates to the increasing globalization of sports, he said, with the NFL and NBA now allowing teams to market in overseas markets as though they were local. Also read: How leagues are growing international fandom Sports organizations have gradually changed what they’re looking for in CMOs, evolving from targeting “classicly trained” marketers good at price and promotion to those who could oversee the shift to teams as content creators, according to Biagini. Today, teams are seeking “left brain” individuals who can help them identify and eventually monetize their digital audiences. “A lot of organizations have said, ‘we’re communicating well on these channels but we have no ideas who’s watching that content,’” he said. Grahl said sports CMOs need to be “creative problem solvers” today, using creative skills and technologies to analyze business challenges and find solutions. Lara Krug is now in her fourth season as CMO of the Kansas City Chiefs, coming to the club after a long career at Anheuser-Busch InBev, where she served as VP of marketing for Stella Artois, among other roles. Speaking at an Advertising Week session earlier this month, Krug noted the Chiefs had never had a CMO before she arrived. “We had no brand strategists, we had no programming, we had no project management,” said Krug, describing building the group so as to mimic a large marketing organization. More: 5 sports marketing lessons from Advertising Week Krug discussed evolving partnerships, noting that while the Chiefs’ local partners seek local awareness, national partners such as Hallmark are more interested in creative engagement. Another area of focus for the Chiefs has been the global market, which presents a far bigger opportunity than the three-state local marketing area it’s allowed by the NFL. The ambition is to be the “world’s team” in the same manner as the Dallas Cowboys are known as “America’s Team.” “Not every club can be the world’s team, just like not every club can be America’s Team,” Krug said. “I think there’s plenty of room for everyone, just with a different strategy.”

How sports CMOs are turning teams into lifestyle brands and how their roles are changing

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