Every sponsorship should have a goal. Our partners are spending dollars with us to reach a business outcome. They are buying a result.
But a lot of times, we fall short of understanding exactly what those expectations are.
Why? Well, sometimes we take...
If you’ve listened to our podcast The Inches, first THANK YOU!
If you haven’t, we’ve spent the last 6 months chatting about sponsorship and how digital is affecting the industry with some tactics you can implement to succeed.
Rich has been a huge...
We keep saying it…but it always holds true. Sponsorship prospecting is a 24/7/365 deal now. As Rich Franklin with the Winterhawks says “We’re always prospecting.”
But when the season gets started, things like fulfillment and activation keep things hectic in our work....
I hear this a lot from teams. And it is a bit scary. In fact, I heard this recently from a notable team:
“I think you are overstating the number of times fans are looking at their phones on game day.”
My jaw...
Awareness drives me insane in the sponsorship activation & advertising world.
Logo placement obviously has its value, the more times the customers see the logo the more likely they are to recognize and purchase the product when they see it in the...
There is a great quote from a 19th-century banker Nathan Rothschild that I love and keep coming back to.
“Great fortunes are made when the cannonballs are falling in the harbor, not when the violins play in the ballroom.”
In sports, cannonballs are...
Digital baseball in-game promotions are taking ball games for a turn. Upping the game.
A summer day of baseball at the ballpark is one of the most coveted American pastimes. Generations have been raised on hot dogs, peanuts, and home runs.
But it’s...
Prospecting is an important part of any sales process. We can’t simply live on our current clients, we must find new ones to see how we can help them reach their marketing goals through our sponsorship.
But sometimes it is the hardest...
In the modern sports landscape, fan attention is the ultimate currency. We’ve seen a massive shift toward "playing along" in real-time, highlighted by major leagues leaning into predictive markets and interactive second-screen experiences. Fans don’t...
More inventory doesn’t mean more value. It usually means less.
For years, sports sponsorship has operated under a quiet assumption: if revenue is the goal, inventory is the answer.
Add more signage. Create more assets. Open more...
I’ve been spending a lot of time thinking about what sponsorships in sports have become...and what they were always meant to be.
Not from the perspective of inventory or impressions. Not CPMs, logo counts, or “media...
There’s a temptation in business—especially in sports sponsorships—to believe that reach is everything. The bigger the audience, the bigger the impact. The more logos, the better. The wider the net, the more fish you’ll catch.
But...
“The goal is not to fit in. The goal is to resonate.”— Rick Rubin
The Misconception of Attention
Most sponsorships start from the wrong place.
We assume the audience will care.We assume the logo is enough.We assume that...
In the world of sports sponsorships, creativity is often boxed into a role: something that belongs to the agency, the graphic designer, or the "creative team."
But what if creativity wasn’t a department—it was a mindset?
What...
In sports, perfection is often the illusion.
A perfect record. A flawless play. A pristine image on the jumbotron.
But in the realm of sponsorship, where connection matters more than control, perfection can be a liability. It...
In the high-stakes world of sports sponsorships, where millions are spent on visibility, impressions, and association, a powerful truth often gets lost: fans don't show up for brands.
They show up for the love of the...
I'm always interested in the exact definitions of the words we use. Sometimes, they can be powerful in understanding the meaning behind the everyday language we use.
The definition of the word Resolution is "a firm...
