The top 5 sports marketing moments of 2023

Sports, which can draw large and engaged audiences like few other properties, continued to be a favorite platform for marketers in 2023. Meanwhile, team owners and investors are paying more to be in the game, owing to large returns and ever-appreciating assets. Super Bowl commercials Tracking the latest brand and agency plans Enter here On the court and on the field, the NBA and MLB made adjustments that increased fan attention on their regular seasons, while women’s sports reached new heights behind fan, advertiser and media support. Here are five big moments from sports in 2023. See our Year in Review stories here 5. NBA goes for a second championship Combatting the notion that the pro basketball season doesn’t matter until Christmas, the NBA this year introduced an In-Season Tournament (IST) to add new meaning to its November and early December games and erect a new tentpole for the league’s upcoming media rights negotiations. Read more: How the NBA is marketing its in-season tournament The format borrowed from soccer cup-style tournaments with pool play followed by a single-elimination playoff and championship game in Las Vegas. The NBA promoted the event with commercials, custom court designs, special uniforms and a bespoke theme song, a remake of “Mama Said Knock You Out” by LL Cool J and The Roots. Although there were some skeptics, fans were paying attention: TV ratings for the IST through its first two weeks of play were up 55% compared to the equivalent dates a year ago (two of last year’s dates aired against the 2022 World Series), while overall NBA viewership on ESPN and TNT was up 11% year over year, according to Sports Media Watch. 4. Messi arrives in Miami It’s impossible to overstate the impact Lionel Messi had on Major League Soccer upon arriving in the U.S. in June. The Argentine superstar signed to Inter Miami gave MLS instant credibility as a world-class league while providing must-see programming for MLS Season Pass, part of the league’s 10-year, $2.5 billion deal with Apple TV that began this year. (Messi’s debut game with Inter Miami also set a viewership record with about 1.75 million viewers on Univision’s Spanish-language broadcast.) The league said Messi’s presence “significantly” increased subscriptions to MLS Season Pass, as viewers from around the world tuned in to watch. That’s a bonus for Messi, who reportedly earns a portion of revenue from new international subscribers. Fans also responded to Messi with their wallets and social media attention. Messi’s Inter Miami jersey became the most-sold jersey in the history of MLSstore.com—and the best-selling kit of 2023 within 45 minutes of its launch. Inter Miami’s Instagram account this season soared from approximately 1 million to more than 15 million followers. 3. Women’s college sports on the rise It was a strong year overall for women’s sports, which are drawing bigger and more advertiser-friendly audiences. The NCAA Women’s Basketball Championship featuring LSU and Iowa drew 9.9 million viewers, according to ESPN, while making stars of LSU’s Angel Reese and Iowa’s Caitlin Clark. The title game, which aired on ABC for the first time, showed a 104% viewership increase over 2022’s championship. Disney Advertising sold out of in-game sponsorship opportunities, welcoming 15 sponsors and nearly 100 advertisers during the championship. Meanwhile, college women’s volleyball set a record when 92,000 fans packed the University of Nebraska’s football stadium to see the Cornhuskers face off against Omaha. That marked the largest crowd ever assembled to watch a women’s sports event—amateur or pro—according to the NCAA. 2. Baseball’s new rules hit with fans MLB’s introduction of the pitch clock was a response to the dead time in the game—and it ended up a home run for fans. The average MLB game time in 2023 was just under two hours and 40 minutes—nearly 24 minutes faster than in 2022, and under three hours per game for the first time since 2015. When combined with larger bases, a rule limiting pick-off throws and restrictions on some defensive shifts, the new rules helped to return a crispness to play that reenergized the game—and was sold through a new campaign from Wieden+Kennedy focused on the game’s idiosyncratic charm. Fans responded at the turnstiles, with attendance topping 70 million for the first time since 2017. (Now, MLB just needs to address a playoff system that produced a lackluster World Series with low TV ratings in 2023.) 1. Women’s soccer draws heavy investment The Women’s World Cup might have ended far too early and in disappointing fashion for Team USA, but once players dispersed to their respective National Women’s Soccer League (NWSL) franchises, they played to a banner year. While promoting itself as the home of Women’s World Cup stars, NWSL attendance was up 32% vs. 2022, drawing more than 1.3 million fans. And things look bright for the future: Incoming expansion franchises in San Francisco and Boston are reportedly paying more than $50 million in fees to be a part of the league. A newly announced media rights deal worth a reported $240 million will see NWSL games broadcast on ION, ESPN, CBS and Prime Video starting in 2024. See our Year in Review stories here

The top 5 sports marketing moments of 2023

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