Corporate Sponsorship and School Districts

For years, all across North America, we have seen school district funding fluctuate with the economy.  Loss of programs, overcrowded class rooms and outdated facilities have been just a few of the issues many districts have been facing.  In the early 2000’s, we really stared to see a trend taking off.  The success found for both corporations and school districts through sponsorship has continued to propel like-minded groups to follow suit.  

In the past many have looked at these types of partnerships with skepticism, most worrying about oversaturating our schools with corporate initiatives. As these relationships have become more popular, we have seen a drastic shift in perspective and with this shift has come a rapid increase in benefits for both parties involved and their surrounding communities. 

One of the trendsetting districts to increase revenue through corporate partnerships was a school district in Indiana. “The nonprofit Penn-Harris-Madison Education Foundation has signed deals that will bring the school district, which includes 11 public high schools in Northern Indiana, more than $600,000 in added revenue in the coming years. The district sold off the naming rights to football stadiums, baseball fields and even a music room”. (Chicago Tribune)

There is an undisputable increase in visibility for corporations within this industry and in turn a massive increased local customer base. The ability to tailor involvement and specifically target demographics, corporations are creating new exposure elements implementing more activation, and in turn maximizing brand awareness of products and services. Additionally, the corporation also gets real chance to make a difference by committing much needed funding to help enhance the community in which they serve. 

Back in 2004 Judith Thomas, marketing director for the National Federation of State High School Associations stated: “Corporate involvement at the high school level is about to explode nationwide. It is an unlimited, untapped market and it is in places companies often can’t easily reach (” Pennington”).

 In 2005 When Safeway donated $50,000 to a San Francisco School District after around 200 teachers were laid off, their Public Affairs manager Teena Massingill stated: “Giving back to the community is a pleasure and a responsibility,” (McCollum”).

A lot of times, when partnering with a school district the exposure will extend throughout the high school campus parks and facilities increasing the ability to reach every resident within the district. This creates a real win-win opportunity for quick return on investment.  Beyond the benefits listed above, corporate partners truly get a chance to make a difference by benefiting not only the community but also the students through the creation of scholarships, mentoring programs and increased fundraising efforts/opportunities.  Residence of the community (consumers) will take all of these elements into account when forming opinions about corporate sponsors.

For example, Sweetwater Union High School District, in the San Diego area, has made sponsorship contracts with nearly 300 national and local businesses. This money has gone directly into their sports programs, specifically creating freshman teams and allowed for intramural teams to develop at the middle school level, (“McCollum”).

Moving forward we hope to see this industry trend continue to grow alongside the communities they reside in.

The Olympic Advertising Platform #BeTheFastest

Marketers have been using sporting events to advertise as long as a television has been in living rooms around the world.  There are more and more events going on every year, providing a great platform for this continued practice.  One of the most coveted events on a global scale is of coarse one of the oldest and only takes place every 4 years, thus creating even more anticipation and excitement leading up with a big count down.  The 2016 Olympic Games.

Marketers worldwide have a chance to use this global build up to their advantage when it comes to advertising.  With 207 countries participating this year and 306 events to take place imagine the multiplications included when it comes to calculating global reach for brands that will be advertising during and leading up the event.  

Emotional connection when creating an advertisement has become increasingly important. As the public consumption has reached an all-time high,  the subconscious has adapted to blocking out many forms of advertising to the point where brand recognition is comparable to breathing for our younger generations.  How often do we really remember the advertisements that we see? What captivates us? Innovation and emotion are the 2 main factors we recognise in Virgin Media's, Usain Bolt add #BeTheFastest below. 

This advertisement uses emotions, excitement, pop culture and pure heart to capture the audience. This is a tastefully done advertisement because as you can see, it is impossible to decipher what brand it is actually for until the very last frame. The audience is captivated by each 9.58 second interval, they do not want to look away, it is so eloquently put together that most would not even realise that it is indeed an advertisement at all.  We recognise and commend Virgin Media on this successful campaign #BeTheFastest. Comment below and let us know your thoughts!

Naming Rights, A Trip Down Memory Lane.....

Though the origin of naming rights may be debated, certainly a watershed moment in their development was the 1972-73 naming rights agreement between Rich Products, a Buffalo food manufacturer, and Erie County which enabled the former to put its name on a new football stadium in Orchard Park, New York, the home of the National Football League’s Buffalo Bills. The agreement called for Rich Foods to pay $1.5 million over 25 years in exchange for signage at the stadium and a commercial association with the franchise.

The naming rights phenomenon continued in northern New York when Carrier Corporation, a maker of heating, ventilation, and air-conditioning equipment and refrigeration systems, concluded an agreement with Syracuse University in 1979 to name the school’s new athletic facility. Then, in 1986, Pilot Air Freight purchased the naming rights from the City of Buffalo for the new stadium that housed the Buffalo Bisons, a minor league baseball team.

About this same time, California-based Arco Oil bought the naming rights to the new arena in Sacramento that would be home (Arco Arena) for the Sacramento Kings of the National Basketball Association. In 1988, Great Western Bank became the first company to re-name a facility, theForum in Los Angeles, which was then the home court of the Los Angeles Lakers.

Interest in naming rights really began to gain steam in the 1990's when a slew of professional facilities, starting with the Target Center in Minneapolis (home of the NBA Minnesota Timberwolves), hastened to adopt corporate monikers. Not surprisingly, the fees associated with these sponsorship's also increased—in some cases dramatically.

In the last 15 years, the corporate interest in naming rights has shown no signs of letting up. Based on the latest public information, there are now 113 naming rights agreements currently in place for major league facilities in North America alone, and more than half of them have been done in the last decade. In addition, there are scores of naming rights deals for minor league and collegiate facilities, convention centers, amphitheaters, theaters, even high school stadiums. 

Sponsor Logos on NBA Jerseys: What Do We Think?

The NBA recently approved a three-year pilot program that will allow for a 2.5-inch by 2.5-inch advertising space on team jerseys to be sold to sponsors who can then put their logo. The NBA have already experimented with this in the 2016 All-Star game which featured team jerseys with the Kia logo on a the front left opposite the jersey manufacturer’s logo.

Teams will have to sell this space on their own and will have to put half of the revenue generated in the league’s revenue sharing pool. According to industry estimates, this initiative will generate $150 million in additional annual revenue. Obviously, teams with a more global presence and probable playoff appearances will end up selling the space for higher rates, but that being said, this will help do wonders for some smaller, less successful teams.

Financially speaking, this is a welcome addition to the league; however, one also has to analyze what fans are thinking and social media sentiment around this issue is rather divisive. We gather that the the outrage is gathered around two main issues, namely – 

Sponsor logos will be intrusive and will make affect the aesthetics of the jerseys, making them look more like motorsport overalls.
While soccer teams have had sponsor branding on their jerseys for a long time, it makes sense for them considering they have only commercial break during half time. On the other hand, NBA games have more breaks, including timeouts.

While these concerns are legitimate, here are our thoughts on the matter – 

When speaking about aesthetics, one thing that fans have to remember is that this will be a rather small patch and will not be intrusive. Soccer jerseys naturally allowed for significant sponsor branding simply because club logos have traditionally been in the form of small crests placed on the top left of the jersey. Because NBA jerseys have never accounted for significant branding before, it would mean that the team’s branding would have to be reduced. And that is not something that any team is going to stand for, simply because teams have been present for a long time during which, they have built up a significant amount of brand value. Any major change to jersey designs would result in a drop in that value and that’s not what any team wants. So fans can rest easy that the addition of a small patch will be done tastefully and will definitely not result in the jersey looking like motorsport overalls. 

Secondly, ask any person who is a fan of both soccer and basketball (and we have a few within BWA), basketball is definitely a much easier sport to watch either live, or on the television, simply because the commercial breaks allow for more opportunities to get up from one’s seat and not miss out on the in-game action. The risk of leaving one’s couch to fetch a cold one from the fridge is definitely a lot higher in soccer.

Lastly, if fans are still worried about having their team jerseys with logos stitched on, they have to remember that the NBA’s merchandise division will still be selling the jerseys without the patches. The jerseys with the sponsor branding will only be available through the teams’ official store.

The final word: Change such as this has always been inevitable and in time, the fans will get used to it and will grow to accept it. And to this, we’d like to give the example of FC Barcelona. The Catalan soccer team has some of the most loyal and devoted fans amongst all sports teams in the world and had always snubbed jersey sponsorship till 2006 when they signed a deal with UNICEF. As part of the deal, the club also donated €1.5 million to fund, which seemed to appease the purists who were extremely opposed to the deal. After this deal expired, the club signed a deal with Qatar Sports Investment worth €150 million. This decision was met with surprisingly little opposition from the club’s fans. Thus, in time, this phenomenon will also gain acceptance from the league’s fans.

The Meteoric Rise of eSports

Why would anyone want to watch someone else play a computer game? That’s the questions that a lot of sport marketers may have asked themselves when first witnessing the advent of professional gaming tournaments, or as the industry calls it, eSports. The answer may lie in the ‘professional’ part. 

For example, if you are a lover of soccer and play it in your spare time. Would you still follow the games of your favorite professional team on the TV? Would you try to watch them if they were playing in your town? If your answer is yes, then you understand the sentiment behind why so many millennials flock to arenas or tune in to watch their favorite professional gamers practice their craft. Gaming at the highest levels requires an average of 200-300 mechanical actions per minute coupled with critical thinking, quick decision-making and seamless team communication and strategizing. 

Now that we’ve gone behind some of the psychology behind this, let’s look at how popular eSports actually are.  In October 2013, Over 32 million unique viewers tuned into the finals of League of Legends World Championships. This figure also includes a sold out crowd at the Staples Center. To put this into perspective, this total viewership figure is more than the combined viewership of the 2014 World Series and NBA Finals. With figures like this, it is safe to say that gaming tournaments are no longer confined to a group of friends having a Counter-Strike LAN party hunching into their monitors whilst consuming unhealthy amounts of Cheetos and Mountain Dew.

A testament to this is the rise in the number of universities in the USA that offer gaming based scholarships. Furthermore, the number of students participating in inter-university gaming events dwarf the number of participants in men’s division 1 basketball, soccer and hockey.

With such impressive stats and major sports networks starting to broadcast professional gaming tournaments, it was only about time that sponsors would start getting in on the action. Brands such as Red Bull, Monster, Coke Zero, Intel, Nissan, and American Express have been sponsoring major eSports events. In fact, even the Obama administration utilized the help of professional gamers to promote the launch of healthcare.gov. 

That being said, there is still a lot of space in the market for other brands to come in. of course, they have to be mindful of the fact that there is still some stigma attached to playing games. Pre-conceived notions about gamer's still exist amongst a large amount people, including parents and peers. But to that we counter and say that we’re in 2016, and nerdy is the new sexy.