The Future of Sports & Sports Business: Advertising
I didn’t want to do this yet. Really, I didn’t. It’s been a saved draft for about a month now. I blame the WNBA.
For those few who haven’t heard, corporate sponsorship has finally invaded the jerseys of American athletes (that aren’t in the MLS or NASCAR). The culprit? The WNBA’s Phoenix Mercury. As reported by a select few on Sunday night, and widespread on Monday, the Mercury have signed a 3-year deal with the Arizona based LifeLock company. The deal is worth at least $1 million annually.
“I think the league and all our owners embrace innovation,” Donna Orender, the W.N.B.A. president, said. “We’re constantly looking at ways to showcase the value we bring to our partners. And when the Mercury and LifeLock connected, it rang bells.”
During an off-season when one franchise, the Houston Comets, folded and the remaining 13 cut their rosters to 11 players from 13, the W.N.B.A. authorized its teams to let companies place their names on the players’ jerseys as part of broad sponsorship agreements. At least one other team is close to a similar deal.
Davis said that although the Mercury and the W.N.B.A. did not have mass appeal, they had “fanatical” followers who appreciated the role of sponsors in the league. (LifeLock is also the title sponsor of two Nascar Sprint Cup races.) “Mercury fans have a real affinity for the sport,” he said. “They just go above and beyond to support it.”
Obviously, this deal seemingly was completed because of the financial troubles of the WNBA teams, but it does raise questions about advertising and different streams of revenue for sports teams. Of course, this isn’t the first time the WNBA marketed their jerseys out to a corporate sponsor,
The Women’s National Basketball Association (WNBA) and McDonald’s today announced a new marketing partnership that will make McDonald’s the presenting partner of “WNBA Tip-Off 2008 presented by McDonald’s.”
As part of McDonald’s presenting partnership of WNBA Tip-Off 2008, the McDonald’s logo will appear on the front of all player jerseys during WNBA Tip-Off games, marking the first time a logo other than the uniform manufacturer will appear on the WNBA uniform during the regular season. WNBA Tip-Off 2008 games include each WNBA teams’ home opener as well as nationally televised games on ABC (May 17 and 24) and ESPN2 (May 20).
Also during WNBA Tip-Off 2008 presented by McDonald’s, McDonald’s will display its logo on the court, on poll pads and on team chair-backs. McDonald’s will also promote its brand through courtside signage, in-game advertisements and a variety of in-game promotions, along with prominent exposure on WNBA.com and NBA.com during the promotion.
And there had also been previous talks of corporate branding on NHL jerseys, although it apparently never came to fruition. So what exactly will we see in terms of advertising and branding in the future?
THE FUTURE OF SPORTS ADVERTISING
The future of sports advertising is so hard to predict because advertising trends are so fickle. This year’s trend is hated by the next year, only to be deemed “retro” and popular again, five years later. But, there do seem to be a few things that can safely be assumed.
Corporate Branding on SOME sports jerseys will increase
The move by the Mercury was just the beginning of what should be a trend regarding advertising on players jerseys. Of course, I don’t see every sport jumping on the bandwagon. Will other WNBA teams jump on the bandwagon? Of course. They need money, and anything they can do to increase revenue seems pretty likely. But sports like baseball (they’re are too traditionalist, and sponorships would sully the game) or football (more than enough revenue that they wouldn’t viably have to look at this as an option) will probably not go the way of corporate sponsorship. The potential problem for any sport that does go to corporate branding on uniforms will be merchandise sales. How many kids are going to want that Kobe Bryant jersey if “Chico’s Bail Bonds” (Bad News Bears rules!) is written across the front of it? And how many corporate sponsors would be willing to have the athlete wear their jersey with the branding on it, but have a blank jersey sold in stores? Corporations would push for their logo on all sold merchandise so they can have millions of walking billboards. I’m just not convinced that major sports leagues are willing to risk the loss in revenue to get what would be a smaller piece of the action from a corporate sponsor.
Holograms will be prevalent
The most recent use of holograms at a sporting event was the fairly obtrusive Subway ad that appeared behind the net at a New York Rangers hockey game. Sure, that ad was a failure, but does that mean we’ve seen the end of holographic advertising? certainly not. Holograms can be easily created and can be easily changed, making them of great interest to advertisers. How long before we see a hologram on a football field during half-time analysis? Or across the news desk during the pre-game show? Or maybe a hologram greeting fans as they enter an arena? Its not as far off as one might think.
Advertising on mobile video will improve
Monetizing the viewing of videos is a problem for which many business models are still being altered. Some video strategies include showing ads at various intervals, similar to commercials on regular television shows. This works fairly well for videos on your computer, but what about people watching videos on their phones or hand-held devices? I don’t know if advertisers are willing to bet their money on a user watching a 30 second video commercial on their iPhone before being able to watch the video. That’s why, I expect advertisers to utilize the idea of small, unobtrusive advertising to invade mobile phone viewing. Whether it be a border surrounding the video (which would obviously limit full screen capability) or a small logo in the bottom corner, I do expect it to be a staple in mobile phone viewing in the near future (Think advertising on the YinzCam for example)
Social Media Outbreak
Advertisers are just beginning to tap into the world of advertising through social media. Range Rover used twitter as a promotional vehicle to discuss their 2010 line of vehicles, Facebook offers advertising options, most sports teams at least have a twitter feed to promote ticket sales and deals, etc. But the surface has just been scratched as far as social media advertising, and I look for more companies to jump on the bandwagon in the coming years. Social media advertising has practically no cost, and as more people “go digital” what’s to stop an increase?
This, obviously, is just a small look at what I think advertising will look like in the future. Again, as I mentioned earlier, advertising, and advertising practices are fickle. So who’s to say for sure. If nothing else though, you’ll notice that there seems to be a conscious effort to shift towards cutting edge technology for advertising. So, if nothing else, I think we’ll start to see, not necessarily a move away from traditional print and television media, but a move towards digital/social media as companies continue to hawk their wares.
NY Post — WNBA Team’s Jersey Sponsorship Could Set Standard
This entry was posted on Tuesday, June 2nd, 2009 at 12:52 pm and is filed under Miscellaneous. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.
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Very surprised to see folks dipping their toe in the Kobe pool as far as advertising. One of the greatest to ever play the game, he still has enough baggage that schlepping a product for someone has to be a bit of a double-edged sword, good news-bad news situation. You’d think as many folks would shy away from whatever he’s hawking as would be inclined to check it out. And “fair-weather advertiser” is certainly a legit phrase in this instance. Geez, less than a year ago he was throwing his team under the bus and backing over them…not to mention the whole ugly he said-she said, the verbal sparring with the popular Shaq Daddy, etc.
Kobe is guilty of having an affair, period! Unfortunately, for he and his wife he got caught. OMG! He that is without sin cast the first stone! If I were Kobe I’d tell Sony, Coke, Sprite, and Mc Donalds to kiss my lily white ass! (or in Kobe’s case black)
Sally (Kobe fan-Laker fan for life)