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IEG’s Annual Sponsorship Conference will be held March 8-11 in Chicago. The theme/tagline this year is Singularity: Ideas So Big They Change Everything. Here’s the first few lines of the event description:

“Just in time to keep the partnership bull raging, Singularity—sudden, unprecedented progress including breakthroughs in brain science, social media and digital data—alters the physics of sponsorship.

Sponsorship is founded on the instinctive, often subconscious, equation that together, the value of each partner is worth more than either could achieve on its own: 1+1=3.something, or Pi.”

In our economy today, it is even more vital than ever  that companies in the sports industry figure out ways to work together and use new strategies and tools to survive and generate revenue.  I’ve never attended an IEG conference before, but I’m planning on going this year, as I think there will be a lot to be learned from some very smart people. They’ve got a great lineup of keynote speakers, including:

• Peter Diamandis, X PRIZE creator
• Rolf Jensen, award-winning author of The Dream Society
• Johan Jervoe, corporate VP, global marketing for McDonald’s
• Tony Robbins, Life coach (I’m a pretty big fan, and am pretty excited to see Mr. Robbins)
• Keld Strudahl, international marketing director for Carlsberg Breweries

It looks like this conference will also feature some great presentations and worshops conducted by thought-leaders from companies such as:

• American Airlines
• Chevron
• MillerCoors
• Kodak
• P&G
• Sprint
• Visa

You can see more about the conference here. It looks like a great event and I’d love to connect with any of you who are planning on attending. It’s not cheap (individual ticket is $1,895), but I think it will be worth it, and you get a discount for purchasing multiple tickets. IEG was nice enough to get in touch with me and provide a discount code. The first 25 people who register using the code “AC2009Sports” will get 10% off the cost of their tickets.

According to their website, almost half of the 1,200 tickets have sold, so if you’re planning on attending, you might want to register soon before the tickets sell out.

Let me know if you’re coming to this event and let’s meet up!

Sponsor Pitch, which launched in closed beta in early December, aims to connect sponsors, properties and agencies to improve the sponsorship discovery/pitch process for all parties. I first heard about the company from founder Kris Mathis on Sports Marketing 2.0 about a month ago, so I requested an invite to see what it was all about. According to the Sponsor Pitch blog, they recently had their 1,000th beta user sign up, so I thought this might be a good time to explore the site a little more and try to help them get the word out. I really like that they launched in beta and are soliciting feedback and involving their users in the development process.

First, a little more about Sponsor Pitch. The site lets properties to upload a video and add information to explain their pitch and what they are all about. Sponsors can search through pitches based on a variety of criteria to find something they’re interested in. The search criteria includes:

• Property Genre (arts & culture, sports, charity, etc)
• Location (city, state and/or zip)
• Timing
• Media assets
• Audience demographics (age, gender, HH income)

After I received my invite code, I signed up as a property so I could explore the site. I searched for sports properties and found that there were already 10+ results, such as the AVP Crocs Tour and The CollegeInsider.com Postseason Tournament. Each property has its own page, which includes a logo, description, who to contact, video, existing sponsors, and event location/s. I really liked this layout, which you can see on the AVP Crocs Tour page (and the picture below). Another added benefit here is that people can rate sponsor pitches, and the best ones appear on the “Hot Opps” section of the site. You can also share these pitches on Facebook, LinkedIn, Delicious and some other social sites.

Next, I decided to check out the “My SponsorPitch” section, where properties can enter details about themselves (and I assume sponsors can do the same here). I decided not to do this tonight, but the fields were very easy to navigate and it looked pretty easy to complete.

Other interesting parts of the site include areas for resources, recent news headlines and a place for service providers (agencies, media, etc) to add their own informational pitch.

Overall, I think Sponsor Pitch has a ton of potential and can help save marketers time by allowing them to more easily find and filter sponsorship opportunities according to the criteria that they’re looking for. Did I mention the site is free for both sponsors and properties?

Have you had a chance to look at Sponsor Pitch yet? If so, what are your thoughts?

I had a great time at the Sports Marketing 2.0 Summit in New York last week meeting new people and discussing new ideas. We had some great discussions on how the internet, social media and new technologies are affecting sports, and how to take advantage of some of these things. Panel topics included measuring sports fans online, engagement, widgets and social networking/user generated content.

One main theme of the day was access–giving fans exclusive content and making them feel like they’re getting something unique/special. Some sponsors/teams are already doing a good job of this, but others should think about this more. I took a decent amount of notes so I won’t make you read through all of them. But I do want to share some key points on widgets that I made note of.

Widgets can be a powerful way to reach people and spread content, though I think the majority of people still don’t know what one is, so it’s not easy to create a widget that spreads easily. People are lazy, and as content creators, we should think about ways to go to them, instead of asking them to come to us. The NBA has over 700 widgets (player stats, pictures, videos, etc) and monetizes by selling ads/sponsorship across units. The Washington Wizards Playoff widget was successful in generating ticket revenue last year.

Widget best practices
1) content needs to be exclusive
2) Individuality- let people take what they want and customize it

Thanks to Pat Coyle for organizing this conference. You can see some pictures from the event in the widget below.

Find more photos like this on Sports Marketing 2.0

What’s going on everyone! Tomorrow I’ll be in New York for the Sports Marketing 2.0 Summit at the Sports Museum of America. I’ll be attending on behalf of PrepChamps, who I recently took a job with as marketing manager after doing some social media consulting for them the past few months. PrepChamps was founded on a mission to help all high school student athletes get recognized for their athletic achievements. They do this through their website, which allows coaches, athletes, and fans to connect, and through events, camps and combines, since much of the recruiting process takes place offline.

I’m excited to meet new people and hear some new ideas tomorrow. I actually attended the first ever Sports Marketing 2.0 Summit (also in NY) back in January and really enjoyed the discussions about how technology, the internet and social media are changing the sports and sponsorship landscape. You can see some footage from this event here.

If you read this blog and are attending the event tomorrow, let me know so we can meet up and get to know each other better.

According to a recent report by eMarketer, total revenues for US sports sites will reach $2.96 billion in 2012, up from $1.49 billion in 2007. eMarketer also predicts that ad revenues for these sites will go from $819 million in 2007 to $1.95 billion in 2012, an increase of 24%.

Bottom line: sports websites will continue to grow and there is an opportunity for teams, leagues, sponsors and brands to take advantage of this and make money. There is an opportunity to connect fans via sites that have social networking features, provided that this is done in the right way. In my opinion this means:

• targeting a specific or niche group of fans (unless you can somehow come up with a great way to attract general fans and make it interesting for them)
• providing something (besides social networking features) that is valuable and will attract fans to the site
  • exclusive content, merchandise, stats, athlete blogs, etc.

Revenue and sponsorship opportunities are definitely there for sports sites and social networks that can build a good audience. Fans love buying team and player merchandise, so that is one way to generate revenue, besides the ad-supported model. Fans are also accustomed to seeing sponsors and brands in sports. Sponsors can even enhance the game experience for fans offline (e.g. Lexus providing free parking and VIP lounges for car owners at certain arena/stadiums) so why can’t they do the same online.

Pat Coyle from the Indianapolis Colts has been talking about the rise of sponsorship online for a while now. Basically it boils down to the fact that while you may be able to reach X people at a stadium, a sponsor can reach 10x or 100x people online.  For more of his thoughts about this topic, I suggest you read his post, “Look beyond the stadium to find MOST fans.”

If you have any questions or would like to discuss any ideas relating to sports and social media feel free to contact me and let me know.

Have a great weekend!

I apologize for the lack of activity here lately. I’ve been pretty busy with client work and I recently got involved with a startup web business (Scavenja) with 7 other people. Scavenja is a photo-based scavenger hunt that connects offline and online activities and integrates sponsors in a variety of ways, providing a unique and memorable brand experience for players. We started the company last weekend (July 11-13)  at RTP Startup Weekend. Scavenja is still in private, invite-only beta so we can get feedback and continue adding features, but we’re pretty excited about it.

Anyways, what I wanted to talk about today was the Jr. NBA/Jr. WNBA Basketball camp that came to Raleigh’s Athens Drive High School. The camp’s official name is the Pledge to be a S.T.A.R (sportsmanship, teamwork, attitude, respect) Summer Camp. The goal of this event was for the NBA to teach about 250 boys and girls ages 9-13 basketball fundamentals, while emphasizing important values like listening, teamwork, etc.

I went out to the event this morning to check it out and meet up with a friend who works with the NBA in community relations. Olympians Katrina McClain and Teresa Edwards were there helping teach the kids and build enthusiasm, and Charlotte Bobcats player Sean May was scheduled to arrive later. The energy in the gym was great, and the staff had all the kids clapping, smiling and having fun. I tried to put together a quick video to show some of things that were going on (awesome editing skillz, i know). At the end the kids are screaming, “Teach me, coach! I wanna learn!”

The Jr. NBA/Jr. WNBA Basketball Camp is a great example of grassroots marketing and integrating a league sponsorship at a local level. Raleigh is not an NBA market (closest team is 2.5 hours away in Charlotte) so this was a good chance for the league to connect with people who may not be as likely to be fans. The NBA  will conduct 12 of these camps this summer in similar markets, but typically runs more than 100 grassroots events each year.

From a sponsorship standpoint, this was also a unique opportunity to reach an engaged audience. The event was sponsored by Singulair (an asthma medicine), which is made by Merck, an official league partner. Singulair was integrated into the event via banners and a nice brochure, which was created to help parents understand asthma and sports and how asthma controllers like Singulair can help.

Overall I’d say the JR. NBA/Jr. WNBA Basketball Camp and other events like it are great. The league reaches a new audience, sponsors are integrated at a local level, and most importantly, kids have fun and learn about basketball.