Is there any real difference between “sponsorship” and “media advertising”?
I SURE HOPE SO.
Is a generic banner ad on a team Website just as good as an integrated, online / offline “sponsorship”?
THERE’S A HUGE DIFFERENCE!
(By the way, this post is not about tickets. It’s about Web site revenues).
I believe team Web sites are among the most undervalued assets in sports, both by sponsors and the many teams themselves. This is unfortunate, but certainly not impossible to solve.
Three things we could do about it:
1. Teams need to learn to value visitors from out of their local markets - We know what to do with local fans (sell tickets), but we’re not too sure how to make money from fans outside our markets. Colts.com, for example, draws 7.5 million visitors each year, and 3/4 are from outside our home state. What is our revenue per unique visitor?? What if we could make $1 per visitor per year in sponsorship revenues? Very quickly our Website would become the single biggest sponsor asset in our portfolio…even before counting money from E commerce (i.e. merchandise sales).
2. Teach sponsors to think of teams as MORE than just local or at best regional marketing channels - We need to get ourselves and our partners out out of the “stadium” mindset. You don’t have to live in the market to be a fan anymore!! We are not JUST a local event. We are an international affiinity group. A CAUSE. Local pays the bills for now, but the really big opportunity for both teams and sponsors is on the national front. This is virgin territory. Blue sky. Untapped. AND LARGE!
3. Changing the way we think about team sites requires, well, changing the way we think - period - before humans will change behavior we FIRST must change the way we think…so you can see the dilemma.
Many advertisers are making BANNER ADS the focal point their online marketing programs. And why not? Banner ads are easy. And theyr’re easy for teams too. They’re just like signs. We know how to sell signs and our sponsors know how to buy ‘em.
However, I believe an overemphasis on banner ads will lead to undervaluing our online assets, limit our revenue potential and do a disservice to our sponsors. Banners are bought and sold on a CPM basis. The more eyeballs the better. These decisons are made buy media planners and media buyers. If we only call on media buyer and sell banner ads at CPM, we risk becoming a commodity in the media marketplace.
Please don’t get me wrong. Banners ads belong in the mix, but in order to realize the full value of our sites, I think teams should focus on building partnerships corporate sponsors. Most teams are quite good at selling radio and print elements inside sponsorship packages for prices that far exceed standard media pricing. And sponsors gladly pay these prices because they know that they’re getting maximun value.
Sponsorship is not the same as media…online or off!!
Yes, you can add media elements to your sponsorship package, but just because you buy a banner ad to promote your product doesn’t make you a sponsor.
Sponsors look to add value to the fan experience and benefit from the goodwill such participation creates. That’s what makes the team valuable…we are the conduit that connects the sponsor to the fan. And our websites magnify exponentially the number of connections that can be made.
Fans care deeply about their favorite teams. These fans are frequent visitors to team Websites. The fans consume the content, use the services and join our online and offline communities. Fans may visit many sports sitess, but there is no substitute (in the fans’ minds and hearts) for the Official Team Site.
So instead of just running a banner, sponsors should consider presenting the most popular content or experiential elements of the team sites.
Here’s a really good example: www.mycolts.net/att
Great post. Definitely hear you on #3. The NBA still has its outdated rule about teams not being able to market outside a certain radius (I believe its 75 miles?).
Also, I’d definitely be curious to see your take on the Rangers/NHL website fiasco, if time allows you to write about it.
The problem with the team sites is still their lack of size. Honestly you probably need 2-3 million uniques per month to be on the radar of national media buyers. Now if the NFL could role up all the team sites inventory and sell sponsorships that way, you could command a premium.
The national net of NFL sites is a great idea, but perhaps I’m not explaining my point well enough. If we’re only calling on “media buyers” to sell “banners” we’ll never get full value from team sites. We’re not a “mass” media. The mass media business model seems to be on its way out. We are a network for 32 passionate affinitiy groups. Banner ads are the lazy way to access the NFL audience. If sponsorship is worth anything, then sponsors need ot leverage team sites to personalize messages to the fans of each team rather than spraying the same message to all 32 fan bases just because they can. That’s not sposnorship.
I hear you on the sponsorship and the strong ties a team site has with it’s fan base, but the biggest issue to overcome is still the relative size of the team sites. It is not cost-effective for media buyers to negotiate, plan, mockup, track and execute on that small of a scale…
Banners ads, if nothing else, have a low maintenance cost. Just need know the cpm, the image/flash file and a link….
and just for the record - I think banner ads are worthless
So what do you think about the NBA and NFL looking beyond the US to expand their fan base?
I like the concept of exporting our sports, but it will be difficult…and it seems to me we could be doing a much better job here at home…as in most industries, 80% of our future revenues will come from customer / fans we already have.
I agree with you it is easier to market here in the US, but it seems pretty saturated already…in contrast to this, I understand the NBA is putting a lot more effort marketing the sport in China…from what I understand basketball is increasing in popularity there…given the language and cultural differences could make things a big more challenging, I am sure that the NBA is salivating at the prospect of tapping into a market of over a billion people.
Agreed w/ Sara. I think the NBA has a few great things going and it’s only the beginning. I think the NFL is missing out in quite a few areas as well. I think MLB is really swinging and missing.