You’d think that most Colts fans live in Indy, wouldn’t you?
On average in the NFL, 57% of “fav team” fans live inside the state where their team plays, and 43% live outside. The Colts aren’t an average team…our fan base has gone viral nationally.
and these fans are spending a LOT of time online:
There are 7.5 million Colts favorite team fans online and over 20% spend 20+ hours online each week! Combine Further, we know that 30% of NFL fans spend 15+ hours each week consuming NFL content (combo between online and offline media). It seems that being an NFL fan is a part time job for the most avid fans, and many of these avids are doing much of their ‘work’ online.
Data Soure: TNS Sport, Event & Sponsorships; Home of the ESPN Sports Poll
Most people think EVERY NFL fan in Indy would say the Colts are their favorite team, right? That’s not exactly true. 75% of the NFL fans in Indy say the Colts are their favorite team. That’s STRONG! But it still leaves 1 of 4 NFL fand in Indy cheer for NFL teams other than the Colts…and when you consider that 68.7% of the US Population are NFL fans, and only 32 cities have NFL teams, it makes you realize that targeting stadiums and regions around stadiums fall way short of reaching the majority of NFL TEAM fans.
The upshot of all this is that team Web sites are the only way to reach MOST of the favorite team fan bases, yet most sponsors are totally focused on the stadium and the region around it. Seems to me there’s a pregnant opportunity here to improve the ROI of team sponsorships by activating online.
You said the Colts is not an average team, but I guess some people would want to disagree with that.
[...] Pat Coyle from the Indianapolis Colts has been talking about the rise of sponsorship online for a while now. Basically it boils down to the fact that while you may be able to reach X people at a stadium, a sponsor can reach 10x or 100x people online. For more of his thoughts about this topic, I suggest you read his post, “Look beyond the stadium to find MOST fans.” [...]