Question

Topic: Other

Sports Team Sponsorships

Posted by Anonymous on 10/16/2008 at 1:00 AM ET 25 Points
My question revolves around gaining sponsorships and partnerships for a new soccer club in a small market city. There are only a few other sports franchises within the city. They are as follows:

Professional Hockey (not NHL...5,000 fan avg/game, many national sponsors, some local sponsors)
Junior Hockey (2,000 fan avg/game, few national sponsors, many local sponsors)
Junior Football (1,000 fan avg/game, local sponsors)

The soccer team is expecting to garner 2,000 fan avg/game. In a small market, and with other competitions, how can you go about gaining national sponsorships as well as local sponsorships. Is there an online resource centre that has information on national sports sponsorships and how to go about gaining them?
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RESPONSES

  • Posted by Jay Hamilton-Roth on 10/16/2008 at 8:58 AM Accepted
    Sponsors care about your attendance demographics. How many people? What age ranges? What income level? Married/single? Etc. Which companies would be interested in your attendees? Start locally, build some credibility/interest, and then find regional sponsors. National sponsors would be interested once your track record is established and you're getting great game coverage by the media.
  • Posted by Inbox_Interactive on 10/16/2008 at 9:48 AM Accepted
    Why not start with the companies who already sponsor these other sports teams?

    You already know they have an interest in reaching your market.
  • Posted by michael on 10/16/2008 at 10:46 AM Accepted
    You have the disadvantage of probably not providing a new audience.

    Unless they are playing at the same place, you can go to the direct competitors of the current sponsors and ask if they want in....that is if you can't get the current sponsors on board. If the competition won't jump at the chance, they are telling you something about the effectiveness of the current programs

    Michael
  • Posted on 10/16/2008 at 1:56 PM Author
    Thanks for the responses. Compiling a list of the competitions sponsors seems to be a smart place to start.

    Soccer is the #1 participated sport in Canada with 850,000 registered players. Unfortunately, it lags behind the top four in terms of television & media support. Therefore, selling the game to companies as a tool for their marketing campaigns is always a tough job.

    Does anyone have a resource on sponsorships. I know Team Marketing Report created the Factbook 2008 for sponsorships. It goes through every company that has donated to sport and the contact information for the decision makers in those companies. Anyone have a spare copy floating around? Or knows where you can buy a used copy?
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