The Power of Sponsorships in Professional Sports Playoffs: A Win for Teams and Brands
The Golden Opportunity of Playoff Sponsorships
With the NHL and NBA in the thick of the playoffs, the buzz isn’t just about who’ll take home the championship but also about the substantial value return from sponsorships. Playoffs represent a golden opportunity for brands, where the intense focus and heightened viewership can translate into significant benefits for sponsors. Oftentimes, teams will offer their brands an additional sponsorship package option specifically for playoffs. This can include adding additional assets to the sponsorship mix, increasing the quantity of the current assets, or a mix of both. But what makes these sponsorships during playoffs such an attractive proposition?
1. Enhanced Visibility
The playoffs draw some of the highest viewerships in sports broadcasting, offering sponsors a platform to reach a larger and more engaged audience. For instance, the NFL's Super Bowl regularly attracts over 100 million viewers, and advertisements can cost as much as $5.6 million for a 30-second slot. Similarly, the NBA Finals boast viewership numbers in the tens of millions, making them a lucrative spot for advertisers seeking national exposure.
2. Targeted Audience Engagement
Sports fans are known for their loyalty and passion, qualities that make them attractive targets for marketing campaigns. During the playoffs, this audience is not only larger but also more diverse. Brands like Nike and Adidas often see a spike in sales during basketball and soccer playoffs, directly linked to their visibility during these high-profile games. Targeted advertising and sponsorships can significantly increase consumer engagement and buying behavior.
3. Emotional Connection
Playoffs are often charged with emotions, as they encapsulate the struggle, drama, and triumph of sports. Brands that effectively weave their narrative into the playoffs can see a measurable boost in consumer sentiment. For example, Budweiser's emotional ads during the NHL and MLB playoffs have been shown to enhance consumer connection, with surveys indicating a 10% rise in brand favorability among viewers.
4. Exclusivity and Prestige
Being associated with a prestigious event like the playoffs can elevate a brand’s prestige. This exclusivity is often reflected in the increased brand value. For instance, exclusive sponsors of the FIFA World Cup or the UEFA Champions League can see their brand value increase by up to 20% during the tournament period, thanks to global visibility and association with the prestige of the event.
5. Social Media Amplification
The expansion of social media has opened new avenues for sponsors. During the NBA Finals, Twitter reported over 200 million tweets related to the playoffs, offering sponsors a vast platform for engagement. With increased posts and impressions comes increased value for featured brands. Enhanced AI logo detection technology allows for these brands to be detected on social media whether they sponsor the post or show up in the background of images. This allows for a more accurate valuation of the value return from social based on impressions, engagements, and other factors. Companies like Pepsi and Coca-Cola utilize these platforms for real-time marketing, which can drive up engagement rates and create viral moments, significantly enhancing ROI on their sponsorship investments.
A Strategic Game Play
The value brought in by sponsorships during professional sports playoffs is undeniably significant. These partnerships not only offer immense return through enhanced visibility and audience engagement but also provide brands a chance to embed themselves into the emotional and memorable landscape of sports. For sponsors, understanding and leveraging these aspects can turn playoff seasons into profitable and strategic gameplay.
As playoffs continue to be a central stage for sporting excellence, the synergy between sports and sponsorships will likely grow stronger, driving innovation and creating more dynamic marketing opportunities. Brands that can navigate this environment effectively will find themselves scoring big, not just in terms of visibility, but in long-lasting customer loyalty and brand equity.
Where does Trajektory come in?
When it comes to big-time playoff value, Trajektory is there for teams and brands when they hit the big stage. The Trajektory platform helps ease the process of tracking value, attendance, engagements, impressions, and more throughout the regular season and playoffs. Trajektory helps teams keep track of valuations for DEDs, dasherboards, stanchions, helmets, on-court ads, field board ads, social, TV broadcast, LEDs, static signage, shoes, jerseys, and more. Trajektory’s best-in-tech logo detection capabilities also ensure that all brands - whether their logos are small or large - are detected and valued on-screen, on social media, and anywhere else. Trajektory’s newest feature release, Industry Insights, also lets teams and brands see their rankings for value, engagements, followers, average broadcast viewership, and more amongst other teams in their own league and other leagues. Along with seeing rankings, teams can also search for specific social content and filter down by items such as specific dates, leagues, captions, channels, brands, locations, and media overlays. This makes it easy to find and aggregate value for specific posts without searching for hours. With Trajektory, you’ll have access to all the data you could ever imagine right at your fingertips all season long.
