Team Sponsorship & Marketing Advice?

I'm going to be attempting to get a large sponsorship for my areas only US Soccer Development Academy. My youngest son has been in the club (not the academy) for about a year now and I cant say enough about what a wonderful organization it is. The goal is to get a sponsorship large enough to significantly reduce the cost for the academy players. US Soccer rates all the academies on funding and pretty much the only academies that dont get a dismal rating for "Funding" are the MLS academies. Undoubtedly because they have big sponsors and other significant sources of revenue.

Anyway, if anyone has experience in this area or in marketing, especially sports marketing, I would appreciate any advice you can offer. I have zero experience at this. I've put together a presentation and a list of potential sponsors. I know I need to tailor our sales pitches to each potential sponsor we approach and address what is in it for them, but not a heck of a lot more. I have a few questions for any of you who might know about this sort of stuff. I assume that marketing people at the companies we approach will be involved in any decisions. Am I going to hurt our chances if I dont know the correct marketing jargon or do they expect that? How much do you think it will hurt our chances that the club is NOT a non-profit organization (I know they should be, but these are ex soccer players/coaches with day jobs. They havent wanted to deal with the requirements of maintaining non profit status)? People have told me to try local car dealers and restaurants. I've assumed those type of establishments cant possibly fork over the amount of dough we are looking for, but people tell me I'd be surprised. Anyone know anything about that? Finally, our initial thought is to find one sponsor who can provide an amount of money large enough to have an impact on the academy fees and travel expenses. We would then provide whatever sponsorship avenues they want/make sense (i.e. jersey sponsorship, website ad, home field advertising, email list, match sponsorship, etc). Does that seem like a good approach or are we likely to have more success putting a price on all the different types of sponsorship and approaching numerous companies?

Also, even if you dont have experience with this I'd love to hear any ideas you have. I'm thinking we are going to need to be creative to have any chance of success.

 

Hey Mo,

I'd be glad to pass along what I might do. I majored in Sport Marketing at Bowling Green and then worked two internships with the U. of Toledo Athletic Dept. and Columbus Crew. After college, I worked a year full time in the Ohio State Athletic Dept. I now no longer work in sports but am the E-Marketing Coordinator for a restaurant company.

With that being said, I've been around sports sponsorship but I've never actually been directly involved in deals or anything like that. I also have barely any knowledge about how youth soccer is set up.


Here are some answers and suggestions:

- Most likely marketing people would be involved with the decisions since their responsibility is to protect and maintain the brand for their given company. However, it all depends on the size. For a local restaurant, chances are it will just be a manager where as at a larger company you might have to go through a longer approval process.

- I'm not sure you need a ton of marketing jargon but they will expect that you fully understand the benefits that they will receive and that you are familiar with basic marketing principles.

- For sponsorship for a youth sports team, I definitely think you are at an advantage going to a local businesses like car dealers and restaurants that are community-driven and may even be familiar with your organization. You could also try local sporting goods stores, pharmacies, banks, gym, etc. I think it's important just to make sure that youth soccer is a good fit for their brand or company.

- Budgets probably depend on the size of the establishments. Our restaurants for example, set aside special "LSM" or local store marketing budgets so that they can promote their brand in the community. I'm sure many businesses out there do the same.

- I would definitely tailor your presentations to the business your speaking with. it shows that you're not just looking for money but you value their image and what you can offer them. Come up with good sponsorship ideas that will pertain to their particular business. Show examples and pictures in the presentation.

- Try the best you can to quantify the exposure the business would get. For example, if sponsoring jerseys or the home field, how many spectators will see it throughout the season? For the website, what type of web traffic do you get? For the email, how many subscribers will they be able to reach and how often?

- At the end of the presentation, you may want to put a value on what the sponsorships would be. You could also create packages or tiers with different types of sponsorships to give some options. I would just keep the pricing negotiable and somewhat conservative since you may not always know their budget.

- You may want to try to make an emotional connection with the businesses and explain what the young athletes can get out of it rather than just a dollar amount you need. Appeal to their experiences as a youth and maybe even show pictures from past events and tournaments.

Hope that's a start and I'd be happy to try to answer any other questions too.

 

Thanks for the input MisterF, much appreciated and very reassuring to have advice from someone who's been in the biz. I've done my best to quantify the jersey, field signage, and website exposure so here's my question. Are there any generally accepted numbers for what various levels of exposure are worth? Also, for the jersey exposure, I've put it in terms of how many times they are worn/yr (# players x # games/yr) because I wasnt sure how to reasonably estimate the number of views the jerseys will get. It's so variable based on the age group, level of the team, activities before or after the game, etc. But now I'm thinking maybe I should try to estimate that. Any ideas how to do that? I have broken the jersey exposure down into local, midwest, and national/international exposure, not sure that is a good thing for getting local businesses, but I thought it would be of interest to companies that reach beyond out area.

 

Good luck Mo, I know they got the right person taking on the challenge. Wish I could give some sage advice, but can offer little more than moral support. Your last post kind of answered my question of what level of sponsorship you were looking for. Did the Academy give you a goal ($ wise) to shoot for? Mister F is a great resource and I have found this thread to be really interesting so use this as a sound board.

 

When dealing with some of these business, especially the franchises, if they say they don't have any money currently in their advertising budget it might not hurt to ask when the budget changes (quarterly, yearly, etc). It might just so happen that in a month or so they might be able to help.

Also if you find out that not being a non or not for profit group is hurting your cause, it might give the powers a be a boot in the right direction to get it that way.

 

Joe, tomorrow we are meeting to decide as many details regarding amounts, strategies, first targets, etc. We have a lot of ideas and a general sense of what we will do but the devil is truly in the details. That being said, this club is in a sense the owners life so he is not going to plaster someone's logo all over his teams' jerseys for amounts we could get from car washes and candy sales. As a minimum he wants enough to cut the fees for the academy players in half. That's probably around $50,000. But in reality it needs to be a lot more when you factor in travel expenses, usually to FL or CA. And in a perfect world, it would be nice to cut the fees for all their members. In our region I'm certain there is no better club for developing soccer players, but who knows how many kids never try out because of the fees (and the fees are not bad when compared to my community soccer clubs fees).

Jimsig that is good advice. Another thing I was thinking is that maybe I could find a sponsor that would get and maintain the non profit status for the club as a form of sponsorship. That's not enough for jersey sponsorship but we could put their ads all over the place.

 

No problem, glad to help!

Not sure on generally accepted amounts unfortunately. It does depend on exposure to some extent though.

As far as jerseys views, that might be difficult to pin down. That sort of thing is measured on TV but is a little harder live. I think amount of spectators would be a little easier.

Definitely sounds like you're on the right track though so good luck!

 

How goes it Mo??

 

Thanks for asking Joe. We're still making adjustments to the "sales" pitch but we have decided on our first two targets. I really dont know what I am doing but if no one else is going to do it then I figure I'm better than nothing.

I'm also trying to plan something that you will all think is very cool but I cant reveal what it is at the moment. I dont want some lurker out there to steal my idea.

 

We have a meeting with the regions largest employer regarding sponsorship on Thursday. And they are a non profit so the fact that our club isnt, wont matter. Wish us luck :banana-dance:

 

Awesome news, good luck! :banana-dance:

 

Good Luck Mo!