👋 Hey, it’s Alex. Welcome back to Sponcon Sports, my weekly newsletter dedicated to sponsored content strategy in the sports industry!

Trend alert! After Bleacher Report brought 76ers players to a Phillies game last month, I’m seeing it pop up a bunch over the last few weeks.

The Minnesota Timberwolves, Toronto Maple Leafs, and Arizona Coyotes all invited players from other pro sports in their markets to a game for some Mic’d Up content.

Average performance of the trio on Instagram was 328K views, 20.9K engagements, and a 6.4% engagement rate. Reply to this email if this is something you want to try.

Lot’s to get to this week. Let’s get into it.

In today’s edition:

• Best Partnerships Questions❓

• IG Story Upgrade 🗳️

• Sponcon of the Week 🔔

🏊 DEEP DIVE
The 8 Partnerships Questions Every Sports Team Should Ask Their Partners in 2023

Generating partnership ideas is undeniably one of the most enjoyable aspects of working in the sports partnerships. Those creative moments are a personal favorite of mine.

However, it's essential to resist the urge to jump right into tactics and instead gather information from partners to make well-informed recommendations.

This process is like warming up before a game. Sure, you can play without warming up, but the risk of injury or playing poorly increases significantly.

Asking the right questions before crafting a sports partnership package accomplishes several crucial goals:

• Saves time through focused ideation.

• Packages assets purposefully to achieve business goals.

• Establishes proper expectations for what success entails.

• Facilitates the creation of quality reports by revealing key KPIs.

Here are the eight essential questions you need to ask before your next partnership proposal:

1. What are your goals?

   • Determine the specific objectives, especially where they fit within the marketing funnel. For instance, if the goal is to drive traffic to a partner's website or generate leads, recommending an organic social content series would not be suitable.

   • On the flip side, if you’re working with a new brand that needs mass awareness amongst your audience a high frequency or high performing content series may be the way to go.

2. How will we measure success?

   • Think about what I said above, a “high-performing” content series. High-performing in terms of what? Impressions, engagements, average time watched, etc.

   • Define success criteria to ensure alignment between tactics and KPIs for each goal.

3. What is your budget?

   • Understand how much a partner wants to spend as it significantly influences package inclusions.

   • This also helps when building a good-better-best approach where you show the partner options at, below, and above the budget they provided during this conversation.

4. How would you rank your goals?

   • This question pairs perfectly with the budget question. If you can’t provide everything on a partner’s wish list due to budget, distinguish between "must-haves" and "nice-to-haves."

5. Are there any channels you want to prioritize?

   • Narrow down asset selection by identifying the channels that matter most to your partner.

6. Who is your target audience?

   • Channel selection and target audience work hand in hand.

   • Nowadays sponsored content on TikTok and Instagram is often asked for given they’re the most popular. But if their target audience is mainly 35+, for example, that may not be the proper channel recommendation.

   • In this scenario Facebook, X, and YouTube may be better choices. That said, if a partner still wants to appear on TikTok or Instagram despite their target audience, you could offer to repurpose content on those channels via paid social media using the same target audience parameters.

7. Have you ever done anything in the past or seen anything in the market that you love?

   • Gain insight into your partner's preferences and past successes.

   • If a specific example is given, you don’t have to replicate it fully. Do what works best for your team. You should also reach out to the other team for key learnings.

8. Are there any key messages you want to prioritize about your product?

   • Recognize that prominent brands often emphasize mid-to-lower funnel tactics. While key messages don’t need to appear in sponsored content verbatim, you can pull pieces of them to strengthen the connection between sponsored content and their product.

   • Example: The Golden State Warriors and Verizon's "Reliable Moments" campaign, where "Reliable" became the keyword associated with Verizon. The Warriors reinforced this connection by showcasing instances where their players demonstrated reliability during games.

🕙 TIMELY TIPS
Rock The Vote on Instagram Stories

The poll sticker is undoubtedly one of the most underrated features for sponsored content on Instagram Stories.

I became bullish on the poll sticker when I realized its potential impact on engagement.

During my time working for the White Sox, we often saw four times as many votes (8K vs. 2K) on Instagram Stories compared to the same poll on X, even though the X post reached a larger audience.

With voting top of mind this week, here are three ways any team can effectively leverage the poll sticker for sponsored content.

1. Pregame Polls:

• This aligns perfectly with sportsbook and casino partners. Post a team-focused prop bet (in accordance with league rules) and allow fans to vote on which side of the prop they think will occur.

• This content series establishes a strong association with a sportsbook/casino’s product and can run prior to every game to emphasize placing bets before games begin.

2. Player of the Game:

• This concept is adaptable for numerous partners, depending on what you choose to call it (e.g., performance, electric moment, photo, shot). For this example, let's stick with "Player of the Game."

• After each victory, fans can choose who they believe was the player of the game.

• Opting for voting over simply posting a stat graphic naming the player of the game serves two purposes:

  • It empowers fans by letting them have a say - they love sharing their opinions.

  • Voting increases the likelihood of fan interaction with the post, preventing them from tapping past that frame, especially since this content appears later in your story.

3. Play of the Week/Month:

• This model is versatile and can accommodate various partners based on the chosen name. As seen above, we tailored this content series for the New York Knicks and New York Rangers in partnership with Lexus, using different names tailored to each sport.

• I recommend running these sponsored content series exclusively on Instagram Stories to minimize negative sentiment. When looking back at a play of the week/month, fans may not be as forgiving if the post coincides with a tough period in your schedule.

• However, by running it solely on this channel, a weekly cadence is a better fit than a monthly cadence in terms of driving total impressions and engagements.

💼 CASE STUDY
Sponsored Content of the Week

This week, we're taking a closer look at the Cleveland Cavaliers' gameday graphics, which are presented by their arena's naming rights partner, Rocket Mortgage.

I love the Cavs' approach of crafting a unique design for each of their 82 games. This strategy keeps their posts fresh and improves their chances of standing out in the feed, as opposed to using a templated design for every game.

What grabbed my attention on Instagram is their inclusion of reminders in their in-feed gameday graphics. Notably, I haven't come across any other sports teams utilizing this feature for their gameday graphics.

By including a reminder, those who view the post can simply tap the banner at the bottom of the post to receive a notification before the game starts.

Additionally, the Cavaliers share the post with a reminder to their Stories.

What you need to know about reminders

• This feature is exclusively available to professional accounts on Instagram.

• Posts must be created at least 1 hour, but no more than 3 months, before the event.

• The event time will be displayed in the viewer's local time zone, even if it's set in the creator's device time zone.

Next Steps

The reminder feature is definitely worth testing. It will be interesting to see how many people opt in. At the very least, it's an easy, low-effort feature to activate when aiming to boost tune-in or convey time-sensitive information, such as a product drop.

🔍 SPONCONSPIRATION
Steal These Ideas

You need to use this name for a partner in the delivery space. Check out the Fedex Player Tracker courtesy of the Memphis Grizzlies.

Smart solution from the San Jose Sharks, including their Goals for Kids tracker on SAP box scores rather than focusing on only standalone posts for donation updates.

The Chicago Bulls x BMO Hat Series is back! This may be my favorite sponsored content in the NBA. Don’t just look at the post, take a look at the landing page as well.

I love how the Minnesota Wild really lean into the word, “Wild” throughout their content. The ASMR in #TrendingWild presented Michelob Golden Light is certainly an attention grabber.

Props to the Los Angeles Chargers who don’t shy away from using memes in their sponsored content, including this example with Snickers.

🚨 ICYMI
What To Watch For

Free Webinar: Matt Navarra is hosting a free webinar about social media trends in 2024. He’s a must-follow if you work in the content space. This is appointment viewing [not sponsored].

Must Listen: John WallStreet, aka Corey Leff, appeared on the Digital and Social Media Sports Podcast for a great conversation with Neil Horowitz about the sports business space and how he built his newsletter.

Team GPTs?: OpenAI is launching a ChatGPT Store, allowing users to build and sell custom chatbots on the platform.

Partnership Ads Update: If you’re tapping into influencers for partnerships ads on Instagram you need to read Lindsey Gamble’s breakdown of how it can drive more value for your paid media creator strategy.

Ballpark Fan Engagement: 10 digital baseball in-game promotions that engage fans.