Strategy Breakdown: Built To Sell vs Built If Sold

👋 Welcome back to Sponcon Sports, a weekly newsletter dedicated to sponsored content strategy in the sports industry!

If I were Ralph Lauren, one key item would top my to-do list for the Team USA Olympics sponsorship: securing collaboration tool usage for flag bearer announcement content on Instagram and TikTok.

The moment was massive. The United States chose LeBron James and Coco Gauff as their flag bearers for the 2024 Paris Olympics. Both donned special white RL coats during the opening ceremony.

On Instagram alone, videos of James and Gauff in those coats garnered over 30M views and 1.3M engagements.

While this provided incredible earned media value for the brand, I’d be eager to have that content live on their social pages and pinned to the top.

Not every Olympics will generate this level of engagement, but in years when global stars are chosen, like this one, I'd even consider paying for extra usage rights to drive sales via paid media and owned channels.

In Today’s Edition:

• Built To Sell vs Built If Sold 🥊

• NBCU’s New Spin On Mic’d Up 🫀

• Valtteri BOT Track Guides 🚲️

🏊️ DEEP DIVE
Strategy Breakdown: Built To Sell vs Built If Sold

A common mistake I see teams make is having too many "built-if-sold" concepts and too few "built-to-sell" concepts in their digital partnership inventory.

A built-if-sold concept only comes to life if a brand partner buys it. This often happens when a team doesn’t have the budget to fund a new idea or when a project needs to be outsourced due to limited bandwidth.

Built-if-sold concepts have their place. As discussed in the first edition of Sponcon Sports, they are the kind of ideas partnership revenue is meant to fund.

The problem with built-if-sold concepts is that they’re tough to sell, and the challenges they present significantly reduce the pool of potential buyers. They often don’t set anyone up for success.

Consider a pitch to a new brand partner.

From the prospect’s point of view, a built-if-sold concept lacks historical data. It’s unproven. You can estimate results based on similar activations (if there are any) or a paid media-boosting budget, but those estimates are likely to be lower compared to proven opportunities.

The sales team isn’t set up for success either. They can’t speak to how the concept was received by your fans. When it comes to aligning a concept’s strengths to the prospect’s KPIs, you can’t be sure if the concept is best for impressions, views, engagement, shares, etc.

On the activation side, you can’t always predict the issues that come with launching something for the first time. There could be roadblocks with legal, the players might not love the idea, or it might take more time than anticipated for your content and creative teams to capture and edit the concept.

Selling a built-if-sold concept to a prospect is challenging. It’s possible, but you should prepare for the following:

• It’s sold at a lower price to reduce the risk for the prospect, potentially becoming undervalued.

• You’ll need to package it with other proven assets to raise the digital partnership’s overall performance floor.

Two things can help give brands the confidence to buy a built-if-sold concept: a good reputation for content performance (e.g., Boston Celtics, Los Angeles Chargers, etc.) and trust.

Speaking of trust, built-if-sold concepts are most likely to be bought by your current partners because of the relationship you’ve developed with them.

That said, even from that group, how many are a fit to buy the concept?

Some will be eliminated off the bat because it doesn’t align with their brand or KPIs. Then, you need to find the money in one of two ways:

1. Asset Swap: Find a partner that wants to swap one of their contractual assets for this new opportunity. The challenge here is that the asset being replaced needs to have dollars budgeted to support your concept.

2. Upsell: Incremental dollars are not easy to get from partners. You need to come prepared with great insights on why you believe it will work and how it will benefit them. Plus, even if they’re interested, you likely won’t get “market value” for it and may not even get enough to cover all costs.

Before you approach a current partner about a built-if-sold opportunity, you need to internally align on the least amount of money you’d take to sell the idea. The goal is to reduce negotiation and make the process as easy as possible. Remember, we need to watch out for our activation team and preserve their relationship with the client. Minimize the back and forth.

While that might sound bad, the benefit of working with a current partner in this scenario is that you’ll only be selling the concept for one season. There’s significantly less risk for the team and the partner because if it doesn’t work, neither side has to do it again.

If it does work, then you have the data necessary to put it on the market and try to get a “true” value for it. That said, the partner who initially supported the concept may want to keep it.

You should make your best effort to sell it to them, albeit for a higher price than they paid the first time, but potentially at a more partner-friendly level as a thank you and to make them more likely to support you in the future.

However, if the concept significantly outperforms the purchase price, you can try to go for market value. Be upfront with your partner about why you’re doing that and still give them the chance to buy it first.

The Beauty Of Built To Sell Concepts

On the flip side, your digital inventory should be packed with built-to-sell concepts because they are proven pieces you’re already creating that don’t require a sponsor.

This approach was discussed when I spoke with Jomboy Media COO Courtney Hirsch.

“We focus on building the content, growing an audience, growing engagement, and then we'll take it to advertisers.

There are small cases where what we want to do lines up with a big tentpole event of theirs or a big initiative, and they will sponsor custom content or this new initiative, but it's mostly the other first one.”

Sports teams’ superpower is their access to a treasure trove of recurring content series, primarily from (but not limited to) game-day coverage.

It’s the type of content brands and creators wish they had access to. Samantha Green mentioned this in our conversation about NIL partnership opportunities:

“What’s working well is content series. It’s something that you can repeat, and it eases the athlete’s mind. You know what you're waking up and creating every day, and it doesn’t have to be the only thing you’re creating.

Having something to repeat also allows your audience to know what to come back to your page for.”

The challenge with built-to-sell concepts is they can be received by brands as logo slaps. The good news is that built-to-sell concepts are highly customizable across several categories. Many times all it takes to sell them is a great name.

Check out “Naming Convention Variety” in The Secret To Maximizing Digital Partnership Inventory.

Meanwhile, we need to consistently activate as many built-to-sell concepts as possible, win or lose. Variety matters because you never know which brand categories you may be pitching on a given day. One day it’s a plant-based food product; the next it’s a law firm.

More concepts mean more solutions.

When I worked for the Chicago White Sox, we noticed our game day Instagram Stories didn’t tell the complete story during losses, often being cut short before the game was over.

This can be an issue because the goal of built-to-sell concepts, when unsponsored, is to gather as much data as possible to support our partnership sales team and ensure results aren’t inflated by only posting during wins.

To fix this, we went through the following exercise.

We sat down as a team and identified every game day touchpoint we wanted to cover on Instagram Stories. Here’s what that could look like for a baseball team:

• Game Day Graphic

• Game Preview Content (stats, tale of the tape, editorial website content)

• Injury Update(s)

• Starting Lineup

• Player Arrivals

• Pregame Warm Ups

• Pregame Poll

• In-Game Highlights and Photos

• Score Update Graphics (Toyota Rav 4th Inning, 7th Inning Stretch)

• Hitting Line and Pitching Line Stat Graphics

• Final Score Graphic

• Boxscore Stats

• Player of the Game Vote

• Photo of the Game

• Postgame Press Conference Sound

• Link to Complete Game Highlights on YouTube

• Up Next (Tomorrow’s Game) with Ticket Purchase CTA

Then we committed to posting that content every game (when applicable). We were able to add a slew of opportunities to our digital partnership inventory with data to back up our pitches (no pun intended).

The added benefit is that it speeds up the pitch process because you have more opportunities brands can choose from, and you can preemptively answer questions about expected performance.

The Takeaway

Balancing "built-if-sold" and "built-to-sell" concepts is crucial for optimizing your digital partnership inventory.

While built-if-sold concepts can be valuable, they often present significant challenges in selling and activation due to their unproven nature. On the other hand, built-to-sell concepts leverage content you’re already creating, offering customizable and repeatable opportunities that appeal to a wide range of brands.

By consistently activating built-to-sell concepts and ensuring they cover all potential game-day touchpoints, you can gather valuable data to support your sales efforts, speed up the pitch process, and provide brands with reliable performance insights.

💼 CASE STUDY
Sponsored Content of the Week

NBCUniversal and FIGS introduced a fresh take on Mic’d Up content during this year’s Olympics broadcast.

This innovation comes from FIGS, a brand known for providing scrubs to medical personnel, becoming the first brand sponsor of a heart-rate monitor.

“Heart of the Moment” features parents of select athletes, like Karen Hong, mom of US gymnast Asher Hong. They wear heart monitors as they watch from the stands, with their data shown live on NBC and Peacock.

This is a fantastic, new twist on a classic concept.

It perfectly aligns the medical apparel brand with health-focused action, authentic to the moment. This approach not only provides an educational tie but also an emotional connection that better links fans to the athletes and their families.

I see this segment as just the beginning.

This idea could be replicated for other brands in the medical field or with wearable tech brands like Whoop, Oura Ring, Fitbit, Garmin, Apple, and more. Imagine the depth of data you could explore.

What’s better than seamless product integration presented in a way that fans actually want to watch through rightsholders’ channels?

Plus, using players’ family and friends is a smart workaround since players can’t wear the tech during games. You might even try it with the head coach, GM, or owner - calling Steve Ballmer!

We continue to see innovations with Mic’d Up content (like Bleacher Report’s Courtside Cam), and this is just another chance to broaden the scope for more brand sponsor categories.

🔍 SPONCONSPIRATION
Steal These Ideas

Man City reeled in nearly 10M Instagram views by teaming up with @RCDriftTok to create a custom Drift RC car, co-branded with NEXEN Tire. The partnership also featured a behind-the-scenes video of how it was made.

The Philadelphia Eagles had players give each other lie-detector tests in partnership with Miller Lite. This concept would also be great for a spicy food or sauce brand (e.g., hot takes).

This new track guides series from Stake F1 driver Valtteri Bottas taps into his quirky personality perfectly. As an ambassador for Canyon Bikes and SRAM Road, Valtteri rode a Canyon bicycle equipped with SRAM Road gear to break down the ins and outs of each track before the Hungary and Spa races.

Red Bull maximized RB Leipzig’s US Tour stop at Red Bull Arena by delivering an assist from the sky and capturing a first-person POV from midfielder Kevin Kampl during their match against Aston Villa.

The Premier Lacrosse League and DUDE Wipes collaborated on an episode of "What’s Sh*ttier?" where Carolina Chaos head coach Andy Towers and defenseman Jack Rowlett shared their takes while sitting on toilets.

🚨 ICYMI
What To Watch For

IG Analytics Update: Instagram is making an update within insights to make “Views” the primary metric for Reels, Stories, photos, and carousels.

Content Powerhouse: Juventus Chief Marketing and Communications Officer Mike Armstrong joined the Sports Pundit Podcast to discuss the club's strategy behind posting 1,500 pieces of content per week, with some help from AI [h/t Andy Marston].

AI Playbook: Shripal Shah penned another gem in his column on John WallStreet, explaining how Persado's Motivation AI technology helps sports marketers generate personalized, data-driven marketing content at scale.

Business Of Sports Podcasts: Kevin Jones, Founder and CEO of Blue Wire, broke down the sports podcast business model on the Digital and Social Media Sports Podcast [h/t Neil Horowitz].

Matildas Dream Team: Football Australia and Ogilvy have launched the “Dream Team” podcast series, inspired by AI and a children’s book, to tell the story of the Matildas' Paris 2024 campaign. Al is used so it sounds just like Captain Steph Catley is narrating the story.

NFL Partnership: The NFL and Gamesquare are launching "NFL 4 THE FANS LIVE," a traveling event series with gaming and creator-driven content, available both in-person and online via live stream.

Hashtag Blessd: This Spotify-sponsored FC Barcelona post hit all the right notes [h/t Adrià Vilà].

Bookmark This: Colin and Samir shared 13 years of YouTube knowledge in 46 minutes - there are chapters for easy viewing.