Pandemic Propels Sports Sponsorships To Out-Perform Expectations


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The pandemic-inspired digital transformation combined with pent-up demand and the unifying nature of sports led to more effective sponsorship campaigns in 2020 than in 2019—among those willing to stick with it to capitalize on the circumstances.

Wakefield Research Partners reports that among over 177,000 fans studied in 2019-20, sponsors of 32 professional sports properties reached more fans in 2020 (than 2019) through digital and social media, commercial messages on TV and radio, (virtual) community events, and in-camera view gameday assets provided by teams. Venue-based assets were less effective with no fans in the stands in 2020, but were still one of the top three most recognizable elements of a sponsorship campaign. Holding all else equal across the 359 sponsorships studied over the two years in the NFL, NHL, and NBA, aided sponsor recall increased from an average of 37.2% in 2019 to 38.5% in 2020.

Taking a deeper dive into the fan database provides insights that counter popular thinking about how sponsorships work.

Sectors: Totally and Categorically Matter

Sectors differ in sponsorship spending, practices, and effectiveness. Any analysis of sponsorship effects must first account or control for categorical differences.

The asset reach for the top five categories is roughly twice that of the bottom five sectors. Worldwide, the financial services and auto sectors spend billions on sponsorships. Hospitals and health care organizations often spend seven figures to sponsor team training facilities. Beer and quick service restaurants are endemic to sporting events and heavily invest in sponsorships. In contrast, liquor & spirit beverages, home improvement, and office products lack universal interest or relevance among fans and these sectors have been less effective in the sponsorships studied to date.

Accounting for the differences in asset effectiveness across sponsorship sectors allows analysis to uncover a few other surprising insights.

Season ticket holders: It’s not what you think

Fans without season tickets recall more sponsored assets (+17%) than do half or full-season ticket holders (STHs). Fans who don’t attend games and have no ticket plans make up over 90% of a pro franchise fan base. These are the fans brands pay to reach, not just the 5-10% who get to a game any given (normal) year.

The data shows fans with no plans are more likely to recall the sponsor’s use of the team’s logo and marks in marketing campaigns (known as IP, or intellectual property, rights), as well as other communications from the sponsor via community events, TV & radio commercials, website, digital content, and social media at much higher levels than season ticket holders.

Season ticket holders recall more venue-based, gameday assets. STHs aren’t watching on TV or listening on the radio. They go to the games. In 2020, they were pretty much the only fans in the buildings that allowed attendance. Given higher age and income levels, STHs are light social and digital users. STHs do have higher sponsor recall (+8%) than non-plan holders, but STHs are less likely to be reached with assets that operate outside the confines of the stadium or arena.

Gender: Maybe men do pay attention?

Compared to females, males are more likely to notice nearly all sponsored assets (IP, TV, radio, digital, social, and total assets) except two. Females are more likely to notice:

  1. Experiential/community events, and
  2. Aspects of the physical environment—that is, the venue-based sponsored elements fans see on the way into the seats.

Men & women are no different when it comes to noticing the in-bowl or in-camera view assets seen while seated at the game or watching on TV.

What’s love got to do with it?

Singles are less likely to notice pretty much everything, including: IP, community, TV, radio (by a lot), digital, social, and venue/gameday assets. Overall, sponsor asset recognition for singles is 25% lower than for married fans.

What happens when people get married and get older?

Marrieds are more likely to pay attention to sponsors because they are the household decision-makers responsible for others. Singles tend to more narrow interests. The older the fan, however, the less the recall of sponsors. And, from my personal experience, everything else is pretty much downhill from there, as this graph shows.

However, the fact that singles pay less attention is a mixed bag dependent upon whether we are talking about single men or single women and which sponsorship asset. In statistical terms, we call this an interaction between marital status and gender. In practical terms, shown below, the biggest differences are in experiential/community events, radio, digital media, social media, and venue-based assets.

In an audience of 100 million (or more) for the NFL, every percentage point matters. The differences in community events and radio are strategy changers for brands with gender-specific or life-stage target audiences.

Income: More money may mean paying less attention

Holding all else constant, comparing fans with high ($150,000 or more) and low (less than $50,000) household income levels reveal significant differences.

Compared to low income fans, high income fans pay:

  1. Less attention to the sponsor’s use of IP rights (-2%), TV ads (-16%), radio (-4%), and social media (-15%).
  2. More attention to the venue-based (+27%), gameday (+36%) and digital assets (+15%).
  3. About the same attention to community/experiential events.

Sellers of high-end products will fare best focused on assets activated at the game supported by digital communications (website and focused emails).

A Final Word on Asset Effectiveness

For all the hand-wringing, pauses, losses, and make-goods by partners as play resumed, as it turns out, 2020 was a far better year than many expected for sponsors. Necessity forced creativity to make partnership deals whole with assets outside the venue.

The lesson learned is that sponsors can reach fans apart from games and even apart from the season (i.e., year-round) through these other avenues. Sponsorships are now more valuable for those who learned their lessons well.

As illustrated below, the relative prominence or importance of sponsorship assets recognized by fans year-over-year is similar: The use of IP rights (team logos/marks), commercial broadcasts (TV), venue-based elements (e.g., naming rights, signage, etc.), and in-bowl or in-camera-view are the most valuable and recognized assets.

Including increased use of commercials on TV, the greatest growth in what fans recognized sponsors using were digital (website, emails, and other digital content), social media, community-focused events, and, surprise, radio. Overall, fans recognized more assets (2.82) in 2020 than in 2019 (2.70), even with the drop of venue-based assets—which were out of sight but not out of mind.

In conclusion

Having sponsorship rights is one thing. Whether or not fans recognize the use of these rights by sponsors is another. Overall, brand preference for a sponsor increases by 13% with the first asset (i.e., the sponsorship is recalled by fans) and then 2-3% for each additional asset recognized by fans. A fully-executed sponsorship strategy with four or more assets effectively reaching fans, on average, increased brand preference by a total of 24.4%, which was exactly the same in 2020 as in 2019. The only difference was the distribution of the assets partners used to reach fans.

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