Advertisers are accustomed to the benefits of digital – it is targeted, flexible, trackable and quick to activate. If sport sponsorship could mix these advantages with the natural passion a fan has for a club or league then the value of sponsorship rights could be dramatically increased.

The next five years are going to be an interesting time for sponsorship and it is essential that rights holders not only retain their digital assets but nurture these too. Without embracing and investing in technology, clubs risk becoming less relevant to their fans and losing touch with an ever changing commercial landscape.

Here are four examples of how digital rights can improve sponsorship:

Product Launches

Currently sport sponsorship does not lend itself to short term campaigns. It takes a long time to sell and is difficult to activate, usually involving experienced agencies at no small expense.

Take a product like a new Hollywood film; the marketing team behind the film’s release will not want to be tied into a 3-5 year period of spend which is common for sport sponsorship. Rights holders should instead offer a digital package that enables a concentrated two month campaign rather than ignoring these substantial marketing budgets.

Targeted Advertising

All brands understand their customer demographic. When sponsoring a sports club or event there is often a large amount of ‘waste’. If, for example, a financial services company is looking to target consumers aged over 35, with a household income of £X and live in a specific location then this might only make up 10% of a club’s fan base.

A sports club with well-established digital rights and could take a lower rights fee and enable the financial services company to target the 10% of the fan base that they are interested in. This then frees up the remaining 90% of fans for a different company to target.

Direct Engagement

One of the fantastic things about sport is how willing fans are to interact with their favourite team or event. Vitality, a life insurance company, use sponsorship to encourage fans to calculate their “Vitality Health Age”. Whilst fans are unlikely to directly download an insurance app or visit an insurance website, if the Vitality Health Age Calculator is integrated into the England Cricket app then these fans are able to interact with an insurance company in a digital environment that they enjoy being on.

Local Affiliations

There are many companies local to a sports team who would like an affiliation with the team beyond the level a hospitality package can get them but without the marketing budgets of pan UK brands. A local car dealership for example could have a dedicated section of a club’s official app for their clients and employees. The dealership would generate value through pointing their clients to sponsored content in the app but would not need to access the wider fan base.

Currently these local sponsors take some signage around the pitch which reduces the value for bigger sponsors as well as creating a more cluttered commercial environment. A digital approach would provide these companies with the advertising they need but without affecting bigger sponsorship rights.

It is a simple fact that we are consuming ever more digital media, particularly on mobile where in the UK we spend two hours on our smartphones every day (Ofcom). As a result, digital media can and should be an integral part of every live sport event and we are starting to see a shift in sport sponsorship to cater for this demand. Clubs, events and other sports rights holders will enjoy greater revenues from these sponsorship rights in the five years.

The post How Sport Sponsorship can Develop more Valuable Digital Rights appeared first on Archie Woodhead, From the Cheap Seats.

The fast growing eSports industry

When I hear the word gaming it conjures up images of teenage boys hunched over a console in a darkened room. That was before I discovered eSports, live gaming events where attendance is growing exponentially. With 67% of gamers wanting to go to more events more often, this growth is set to continue.

This is a brave new world for sport’s administrators but gamers are looking for the same experiences that sports fans have enjoyed for centuries. They want to be part of a community, meet their heroes, enjoy an atmosphere and watch their favourite teams and players. Sound familiar?

Generation Y

Sport’s rights holders need a strategy to engage the millennial (18-34 year old) generation. 69% of this group (more than any other age group) can be persuaded to attend more sports events according to Mintel. In fact as this graph below shows, the older someone gets the less likely they are to change their sport viewing habits.

75% of gamers are in this age group and 54% of these also watch traditional sports. If sports clubs in particular want to position themselves at the centre of a community then they can’t ignore gamers.

London vs. Manchester

Take two of the largest communities in the UK. I would like to see football teams in each of these cities working together to create a new rivalry.

For example, Arsenal could create its own London based gaming team under the Gunners brand and play against a similarly constructed team from Manchester. The gamers could then play on the eve of an Arsenal vs. Manchester United match, juxtaposing the competitions to increase the reach of both events. Gamers would take an interest in how their team does on the football pitch and traditional United and Gunners fans would take interest in their gaming counterparts.

Benefits for the Teams

eSports is still relatively underdeveloped and the industry would benefit from having big sports brands like Arsenal involved.

For major sports teams, this is an opportunity to expand fanbases, create additional rights and generate new commercial opportunities. Ticketing is the most obvious income stream but there would also be new sponsorships, licensing deals and a whole host of digital rights. As the table below shows, when gamers attend an event, they like to buy more merchandise than the traditional sports fan:

Major Event Integration

And why stop there? Perhaps the International Olympic Committee could include gaming as one of its sports? That may well irritate squash’s governing body which has spent over 20 years unsuccessfully campaigning to become part of the world’s biggest sports event. All the same, embracing the gaming community would certainly see an increase in Olympics followers. It would also put eSports on the map in a big way.

Simple Gaming at Existing Events

If so many gamers are interested in live sports then at the very least sports events should build interactive products to engage this audience. Generation Y want to be connected and entertained during a match. It is no longer enough to rely on the atmosphere of a football crowd – without developing additional engagement the in stadia experience will fall further behind TV.

This is a group that rights holders can’t ignore, they behave differently to traditional sports fans but are becoming increasingly important. Sport should take this opportunity to broaden its appeal.

If you want to be truly amazed by the world of eSports then watch the first 30 seconds of this video:

The post Millennials can be Persuaded to Watch More Sport appeared first on Archie Woodhead, From the Cheap Seats.