The Chicago Bears' Winning Website Strategy

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

Last week, I broke down how sports content is becoming one of the smartest ways to drive tune-in for TV and movies.

A few days later, two new examples popped up to reinforce the strategy.

First up: Fox Sports. As the broadcast rights holder for the Indianapolis 500, they planted fans at three Major League Baseball games the Saturday before the race. Each fan—decked out in an Indy 500 t-shirt—celebrated their team’s success by pouring milk on themselves, just like an Indy 500 champ.

• Boston Red Sox fan

• New York Mets fan

• Detroit Tigers fan

That Mets game was FOX’s national game of the week—and lucky for them, New York was hosting the defending champion Los Angeles Dodgers. Talk about great exposure!

The moment was made for social—and it worked. Clips from the stunts racked up over 2.4 million views across FOX-owned channels - all of which included a tune-in CTA, “Don't miss the Indy 500, the greatest spectacle in racing, TOMORROW at 10am ET on FOX! @IndyCarOnFOX.”

Then on Sunday, CBS Sports’ Pete Radovich doubled down on the power of social in a conversation with John Ourand on The Varsity podcast:

“Our social media is our PR, it's our press release, it's our marketing, it's our commercials… I think we're (UCL Today) a great example for other shows that if you lean into social—as opposed to looking at it as an obligation—it can do really good things for you.”

He explained how even traditional broadcast elements—like Super Bowl or Army-Navy game teases—are now built with social in mind:

“Even then, I’m very mindful in the edit of using music that’s going to be clear for social… The whole point of a tease is to generate buzz for a game. So get it done in advance, get it on social, and suddenly people are like, ‘Oh, that’s right, the Army-Navy game’s today.’… If it’s not clear for social, people will see it on TV once—and that’s it.”

Same principle behind movie nights at the ballpark or Squid Game kits on the pitch:

Make something worth sharing—and it becomes a trailer, a billboard, and an invite all at once.

Social isn’t the side dish anymore. It is the campaign.

In Today’s Edition:

• Turning Q&As into ROI 🍕 

• EA Sports FC Kit ID Game ⚽️ 

• Snow League Frozen In Time ⌚️

🏊️ DEEP DIVE
How Pizza Powers Chicago Bears Fan Data

We talk a lot about social content in this newsletter—but this week, let’s give web stories a little love.

The Chicago Bears’ Fast Facts series, presented by Connie’s Pizza, is a great example of optimizing content for where it lives.

Fast Facts is a Q&A series that helps fans get to know the team’s newest faces—coaches, free agents, and rookies. It’s perfect for driving web traffic, especially with fans eager to learn more about the team’s latest additions.

Connie’s Pizza gets 100% share of voice across the series—owning banner placements on the landing page and individual articles. Those banners link directly to Connie’s site, and when the page loads, fans are hit with a first-impression ad promoting a sweepstakes to win two tickets to a Bears home game. Smart, relevant, and great for lead gen.

There’s even room to level up in future seasons:

• Run Reddit AMAs with the new faces.

• Film the interviews and slice them into short-form video.

• Use Instagram Story question stickers to crowd-source the questions.

But the icing on the cake—or should I say, the pepperoni on the pizza?

Since March 20, 2025, fans have also had the chance to win a Connie’s Pizza gift card by submitting local recommendations—places to eat, things to do, and more. It’s an easy ask, and a clever way to keep fans engaged.

Here’s how that piece has played out so far:

• Of the 10 articles published since March 20, six included the gift card sweepstakes.

• Eight placed the CTA at the bottom of the article.

• Two of the last three stories moved the rec prompt to the middle, but neither included the gift card incentive.

The local rec idea is a win-win: it helps the Bears generate leads and gives players and coaches real value—a crowdsourced guide to their new city.

What I’d love to see next: fan-submitted recs showing up in social content—a crowdsourced city guide where players and coaches actually try the spots fans suggested.

That’s the kind of fan integration that turns content into community.

🔍️ SPONCONSPIRATION
Steal These Ideas

[Social Value: $23,983] 433 and Bundesliga partnered with EA Sports FC for a fan challenge: guess the player based on the number on the host’s back. Perfect format for jerseys without front-facing names and numbers.

[Social Value: $58] Huge shoutout to The Snow League for the best use of Instagram’s hold-and-scroll feature in sponcon. And the name? Frozen In Time presented by Hublot—works on so many levels.

[Social Value: $14,426,759] MrBeast dropped his second Pros vs. Joes-style video—this time with T-Mobile—featuring Neymar, Serena Williams, Steph Curry, Aaron Judge, and more. His brand integration is still elite (as I covered back in December), and between this and last month’s baseball tic-tac-toe video, he’s now driven over $10M in social value for T-Mobile.

[Social Value: $1,453] Speaking of great sponcon names, SLS dropped What’s at Stake?—a preview of their first-ever spot takeover, presented by Stake.

[Social Value: $3,379] Meanwhile Juventus is calling its behind-the-scenes training content Thirst Things First, powered by PRIME.

[Social Value: $4,364] NASCAR used a sharp storytelling angle to promote its Pocono race, streaming exclusively on Prime Video.

[Social Value: $17,411] A Red Bull Racing seat fitting became a smooth, organic spotlight for their partner, Secret Lab.

[Social Value: $14,670] The Buffalo Bills rolled out S-Tier product placement with La Nova Wings by introducing their rookies to the infamous wings with bleu cheese combination.

[Social Value: $1,284] Now this is different: The Philadelphia 76ers gave fans a peek into Jared Butler’s day, including his internship at luxury real estate firm, Serhant.

*Social value is defined as the full equivalent media value of this social post based on applicable impressions, video views, and engagements.

🚨 ICYMI
What To Watch For

Juve’s Dream Drop: Juventus dropped a 54-minute documentary—Dream Like Juventus Women—exclusively on TikTok. The film highlights powerful, personal stories from their women’s team.

Charged Up AMA: Really loving this cross-channel play from the Los Angeles Chargers. Their content team hosted an AMA on Reddit, then followed it up by posting a YouTube video of themselves answering the top questions.

Engagement Upgrade: YouTube rolled out Quiz Stickers for Shorts. Meanwhile, TikTok now lets you add external links to Stories.—a big win for brands and creators looking to drive traffic.

Creator Discovery 101: Neil Tennant, NHL’s Senior Manager of Creator Marketing, shared a no-fluff, honest guide to finding the right creator for your campaign [via Paid Partnership Newsletter].

YouTube Creator Optimization: Sticking with creator marketing, Sarah Adam, Head of Partnerships and Creator Marketing at Wix, shared her team’s go-to SEO checklist for vetting YouTube influencer content.

YouTube, Explained Weekly: Paola Marinone and Bengü Atamer, founders of BuzzMyVideos, just launched The Business of YouTube newsletter. Their first issue breaks down Liverpool’s YouTube strategy—and it’s packed with insightful takeaways.

Stat of the Week: According to new data from CMI and MarketingProfs, in-person events (52%) produce the best results among B2B distribution channels—just ahead of webinars (51%). Email (42%) and social media (42%) followed closely behind [via Tequia Burt, LinkedIn For Marketing Blog].