Sports Marketing 2.0 | Pat Coyle

MyColts must know its place if it hopes to attract sponsor dollars from big brands.

I was on a conference call last week to explain and demonstrate our new social net (mycolts) to a large, international brand / prospective sponsor.

We showed her all three of our Websites (colts.com, mycolts.net and myindianafootball.com) despite the fact that she had already stated, in an earlier call, that she really wasn’t interested in anything but Colts.com. Her main goal was to REACH as many online Colts fans as possible.

After a few minutes of demonstration, however, the sponsor became noticeably enthusiastic about our new Web properties, but then she asked question that reminded me exactly where she is coming from:

“How many people do you project will participate in your social net?”

I answered the question the only way I could. I said “I don’t know.”

Of course I have some thoughts. I have made predictions to my colleagues. But knowing that this sponsor is accustomed to buying TV to get REACH, and not wishing to get too deep into the “quality vs. quantity” story at that time, I dodged.

Happily, the sponsor didn’t press the subject and we went on to have a delightful, high-level tour of our new applications. Along the way the sponsor pointed out several attractive elements that might form the basis for additional promotional extensions.

But her question is still ringing in my ears. HOW MANY? HOW BIG IS YOUR AUDIENCE? Translation, I want EXPOSURE to as many eyeballs as I can get. All this creative social-net stuff is cool, but at some level I will measure the value of your offering by the size of your audience.

This point is reinforced by the fact that this sponsor has never been exposed to social nets. She doesn’t have a myspace or facebook page. We were giving her a tour of a foreign land. We opened her eyes to a new world of possibilities, but when she goes to exlain it to her boss, I wonder how strenuously she can possibly defend it.

Three things we need to DEMONSTRATE:

1. Buying sponsorship of a sports team is NOT a mass media play, and that’s a good thing - Saying these words may kill us before we gets started if the sponsor is accustomed to buying “reach” first and asking questions later; But it’s true.

Sports teams do sell media, but we are not JUST media. We have devoted fans who want to get closer to the team. If a sponsor can move a fan closer to the, team, then that sponsor has a chance to build its own relationship. Adding value to the fan experience should be the focus of sponsorship. Sponsors have the opportunity (and challenge) to leverage fan affinity.

If we try to stand toe-to-toe with traditional media, we will lose every time. But if we show sponsors how to use team media to truly engage with our fans, then we can create win-win programs.

2. Exposure to eyeballs is less valuable than engagement - If a sponsor runs a register-to-win contest, then which metric is most valuable: the number of people who see the ad for the promotion, the number of people who register, the number of people who see the ad showing the winner’s experience…or the number of fans who truly appreciate the sponsor for running the contest in the first place?

Every product is a niche product at some point. At the end of the day, whatever the sponsor is offering will only be of interest to a portion of our fan base. Better to admit this up front…and build promotion with “right sized” objectives…to get the target group of fans to engage.

3. There’s a difference between “quality” and “quantity” audiences - the two thoughts I’ve expressed above demonstrate this third point - it is incumbent upon the team to show that sponsorship is worth more than media. If we are JUST a media channel, then we lose because we don’t deliver as many eyeballs as TV, for example. But if there’s real value in sponsorship, and reaching AVID Colts fans is the goal, then our online properties should win, hands down, every time.

Here’s a good definition of ’sponsorship” from Wikipedia

The Colts, as a sponsor platform, have certain built in advantages. Sponsors WANT to buy sports, for example. But because we rarely sell the text book advantages of true sponsorship, we sometimes get caught in the middle and find ourselves tap dancing when the conversation turns to AUDIENCE SIZE.

Luckily, most people (even sponsors) don’t buy logically.

If audience size were the only thing they cared about, for example, sponsors would have little interest in “in stadium” promotions. Only a tiny percentage of Colts fans attend games live, so the stadium is NOT a mass media channel. If a brand is looking for reach to Colts fans, there is no bigger vehicle than Colts.com, so why put any money in stadium? Probably because that’s the ultimate place where the team and the brands can meet in an emotionally heightened, experience environment.