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 not just what happens on the field that makes the experience. There are always fun and engaging experiences in-between the pitches and hits that can help your team drive participation and excitement with fans.

Today, we will dive into a few ideas to help your team capture fan attention during breaks in the action to drive more engagement and even more sponsorship revenue on game day in your ballparks.

Gone are the days of only having bobblehead giveaway items, autographs, and other free merchandise. If the past few years have taught us anything in regard to baseball, it’s that digital makes fan engagement easier.

What Are Digital In-Game Promotions In Baseball?

Digital in-game promotions in baseball help take what we’ve seen in ballparks for years and allow fans to fully participate with them through their smartphones. They have opened up a new experience allowing every fan to join in a feel a part of the action.

It follows the shift that we see today between digital marketing vs. traditional marketing, especially when you are tying a corporate sponsor to the promotion.

Usually, they are presented during breaks in the action (in between innings, etc.) to keep the excitement of the games flowing and make sure that fans don’t flock to their social media feeds as they sit and wait for play to resume.

Baseball In-Game Promotions That Work for Major or Minor League Baseball Teams

We’ve put together a diverse list of in-game baseball promotions below that not only will keep your fans engaged, but also can help you drive more digital sponsorship revenue in the process. These between-inning contests are a surefire way to raise engagement while opening new revenue streams through sponsorships.

Let’s dive in.

4th, 5th, 6th Inning Win

Nothing better than tying a team or sponsor offer to an outcome in the game. Fans will feed off the excitement of each inning as they watch in hopes that their prediction is correct.

You can harness this excitement with a promotion like SQWAD’s 4th 5th 6th inning win. Fans simply on their phones try and predict which inning your team will score a run in; the 4th inning, 5th inning, or 6th inning.

As they watch the game, they sit on the edge of their seats when their inning comes up. The excitement grows when a player gets to 3rd base. Will he make it home so I can win my prize?

When your team scores in the inning they picked, elation ensues. That score which may be meaningless in a blowout is the most important moment in the game for them. Win or lose, they are tied to it every game.

Through our system, fans receive their sponsor offer via email for easy redemption in the stadium or at home to make the experience even sweeter. This activation is a must-have in your ballpark.

Make the Call Ticket Promotion

It’s always great to get your ticket staff involved on game day to help build relationships and sell more tickets.

Have fans call into a ticket salesperson’s direct line to make the call on a certain stat in the game. Have the ticket salesperson take down the pick, name, & phone number.

If correct, the ticket salesperson can call or email the fan directly to get them their prize, creating a great moment for them to upsell tickets to future games and build a relationship with the fans.

Scoreboard Trivia

Fans love to put their team knowledge to the test. We constantly are to prove that we in fact are the most knowledgeable fan in the stadium.

Scoreboard trivia allows them to do just that during the long breaks in the action for your team.

During a break in the 4th inning, fans see the question and possible answers pop onto the scoreboard. They scan a QR code to answer for themselves on their phone.

During the game, they can see where others have answered to contemplate their decision.

At a moment’s notice, the answers are revealed. If the fan is correct, they win a prize sent to them directly via email for easy redemption.

Trivia is a perfect way to keep fans engaged during a long inning swap or pitching changes.

Check out our scoreboard trivia activation for more details.

Bongo Cam

Fans LOVE to get on the scoreboard. It’s their 3 seconds of fame. It can make their entire game day experience.

But we can push them to do more than just wave at the camera or give a thumbs up. We can make it even more memorable for them.

Enter the Bongo Cam.

It’s a simple but effective way to get fans out of their seats and engage with your scoreboard. As fans see the bongos they try and play to the beat. It’s best to add some great music as you run this promotion that has a funky bongo groove to it.

On the team side, all you have to do is add an overlay to your scoreboard video, and BOOM! You have an engagement that will be memorable long after fan embarrassment fades off.

Add a sponsor to the experience (logo on the bongos, etc.) and you’ll be able to tie their brand with the fun and unique experience.

Hat Shuffle

Nothing beats a good hat shuffle. Reminiscent of the hidden ball games we sometimes see from street performers, fans watch as a baseball is hidden underneath a cap.

The hats start in a flurry of moves. The fan struggles to follow which hat has the ball underneath it. In an instant

In the past, fans only yelled out the answer with no reward if they were correct. But today, you can digitize the experience on the fan’s phone.

With SQWAD’s Hat Shuffle digital activation, we give fans the power to guess right on their phone which hat the ball is under. If they are correct, they win a prize that is sent right to their email.

The best part is the cheers, and groans, as the answer is revealed. Don’t worry, you can send a prize home with fans who aren’t correct as well to keep everyone happy.

A Hat Shuffle is a perfect activation to play in between your innings while keeping them engaged and focused on your sponsor.

Bark in the Park is Popular for Minor League Teams

Most sports fans LOVE their four-legged companions. Many will dress them in team attire to mesh the passions of the team and the fan’s furry, four-legged companion.

This leaves the perfect opportunity for a great promotional night for sports teams.

Simply make one of your game days a Bark in the Park themed game where fans can bring their dogs to enjoy the park.

To digitize the experience and get maximum reach, have fans post a photo of their dog on social media with a hashtag around the event. This is a great way to pull engagement and create some FOMO for the fans at home.

Scratch & Win

Let’s face it, fans LOVE to win things in your stadium. Nothing beats a baseball giveaway in your ballpark.

You can hand them sponsor offers on game day, but a prize won feels so much better than a prize given.

Enter Scratch & Win. A simple but exciting game that turns coupons into excitement much like a lottery scratch-off does.

Fans open their digital scratch & win and receive digital cards to, yep you guessed it, scratch with their fingers to reveal team and sponsor prizes.

You can add in bobbleheads, signed apparel, cash to use in the stadium, and sponsor offers for them to redeem as they head home. Each fan receives their offer via email for easy redemption in the ballpark or at your sponsor’s location.

Have an opening in the 4th inning that you need to fill? Put a QR code up on your scoreboard and watch as fans rush to scratch their way to great prizes.

Moment of the Game Photo Challenge

Sometimes the best content comes directly from the fans on game day.

Have fans take photos throughout the night on their phones of their angle of the field, a play, and even the food they have. Add a social media tag of #[teamname]momentofthegame.

At the end of the night, have your sponsor pick one of the photos to feature in-stadium and on social media post-game. Add a sponsor prize to the winners to make it even more valuable.

Mascot Race

Maybe it’s a hot dog, or a baseball, or even some delicious pierogies! Mascot races have been around since the inception of baseball.

Fans watch as mascots (really your interns in mascot suits) race around your warning track as fans cheer on their favorite character. Mascot Races help build a connection with your team, sometimes it is the thing that keeps them coming back each game.

When you digitize this experience, you can 10x the value of the in-game promotion. As with the hat shuffle, when you give fans the ability to choose which character will win before the race you bring participation into the experience which bonds them closer to the promotion.

When fans can pick their favorite character you set up a situation where they start to fall in love with a particular one. They are more bought into whether they win or lose.

With our Race activation, fans can select the character they think will win before the race begins right on their phone. From there, they watch on and cheer with more conviction than ever.

If their pick is correct, they can win a sponsor or team prize that is sent right to their email for easy redemption.

This is a fan favorite for both major and minor league baseball promotions and a must if you want to electrify your crowd on game day.

Foul Pole

A great way to keep fans engaged throughout the game comes with those yellow poles that decide if there is a home run celebration or a groan from the crowd.

Before the game starts have fans comment on a social media post with #RightPole or #LeftPole. If in the game a baseball hits the foul pole, one lucky fan will go home with a great prize.

Tag the sponsor on the post for even more sponsor value.

Digital In-Game Promotions Help You Close More Sponsorships

Not only are these activations great for engaging fans, but they are also great for upselling sponsors.

Today, sponsors don’t want to just “be seen” by fans. They want to connect with them in meaningful and measurable ways. No longer is an outfield sign sufficient enough to close the big sponsorship deals.

Digital In-Game Promotions help your sponsors do more than being seen. They drive fan participation, which in turn increases recall, builds brand affinity, and can show measurable returns far better than your sign and scoreboard reads.

If you have a sponsor on the fence, look to add more digital in-game promotions like the above into their packages and watch as they increase their investment and spending with your team.

You’ve done it. You got the meeting for that perfect sports sponsorship prospect. The meeting is set. You and your team are prepping for the pitch and have the format ready to go.

But you ask yourself: Is this what they want to see? Is this the pitch that will seal the deal?

How can I know this will land us the deal?

This week, Rich & I dove into 5 questions you should ask yourself before you make a sports sponsorship pitch.

You can listen to the full episode HERE, but I dive into the key takeaways below.

The 5 Questions You Need to Answer Before Pitching

1. Do you know the wants/needs of the sponsor?
2. Does my proposal meet my client’s needs?
3. Am I presenting to the right people?
4. Is the price appropriate?
5. If I were them, would I buy?

Respect in business is a two way street. You need a clear picture of the company’s wants and needs when creating a proposal. Don’t go straight for the gold package if you know the sponsor won’t respond positively. You will work with many possible sponsors and companies that respond best to an audience who listens and is interested in partnering with them to further both businesses.

Avoid wasting time, and form a partnership built on trust and understanding. When you address your sponsor’s needs and support their wants, if everything else lines up, they will figure out the funding for sponsoring events.

Potential Sponsor: Do You Know Their Wants or Needs?

As we’ve always been taught in sales. If there is no need, there will be no sale. Our packages always should have a foundation around what the prospect’s needs are.

But there is an important distinction here that Rich brings up, is what you are solving a need or a want?

A want is something that is nice to have. It isn’t vital to their direct company goals at the moment, but it will be nice to have.

A need is something that ties into their most burning business goal. This directly affects the success of the company that year.

An example here comes with hospitality assets. Our tickets, our suites, etc. Hospitality is perfect for company morale and desired workplace when it comes to employees.

Hospitality sponsorships would be perfect if a sponsor stated they were looking to expand their workforce in the city. Or maybe a sponsor who wanted to uphold the morale of their employees.

If they came to you and said instead that promoting their community campaigns was important. Now hospitality takes a whole new meaning. You could take the suite and show how they can offer it as a raffle for each fan that donates to the charity.

If you came to the company pitching hospitality as a company morale aspect to the sponsor looking to increase their community campaigns…you are fitting a want, not a need. There is the wrong fit and therefore no urgency to purchase.

Knowing the difference between the sponsor’s wants and needs is vital. It comes with asking questions and digging deep into what they need and what their goals are for this year.

This means getting a bit uncomfortable with them. You have to ask a bit more revealing questions.

My go-to question is “What are your company’s biggest and most important goals this year?”. If we ask this question over our usual “What are you looking to accomplish with our sponsorship?”, we get down to the bottom of their company’s needs.

From there, we can truly understand what assets will lead us to a YES.

So the first question you should ask yourself when reviewing your sports sponsorship pitch is, do we even know what their wants or needs are, and can we focus on the needs?

When you look over your pitch, be sure to look at each aspect and ask yourself “Is this a want or need for the sponsor?”. The more assets solve a need, the more likely you are to close the sale. It’s also a sign of professional respect that you value their time and listen to their needs.

Pinpoint this and you will win.

Do My Sports Sponsorship Proposals Meet My Client’s Needs?

Now that you can pinpoint the needs, the next question may be obvious. But it is important.

Sometimes once we know those needs, we still build sponsorship packages that fit our needs as an organization. I see it too often in sports.

Maybe we have a new LED sign, and our team has a mandate to sell inventory on it. We can’t add unless it helps solve the sponsor’s needs.

Why? Because for every item in your sponsorship proposal letter that doesn’t fit their needs, you bring down the certainty that this will help them be successful as a company.

As you give your pitch, each asset should bring a head nod and “yes” from your prospect. This is a straight line between certainty and a purchase. The more certainty you build, the more likely you are to get to a YES.

When you add in auxiliary items that don’t fit those needs, you start to bring down certainty. You start to bring the question into your prospect’s mind: “Are they selling me something that can help my company, or are they just looking for revenue and a commission?”

As soon as this happens, you start to lose the sale. 

So when looking over your sports sponsorship pitch, you have to think to yourself, “Does this help the sponsor need?”. If it doesn’t, cut it.

Be brutally honest here. Don’t look at the short-term revenue here, look at the needs of your sponsors. If you can do that, you will open even more revenue in the long run (and short term).

Am I Presenting to the Right People? This Matters.

Who you are presenting to is just as important as what you are presenting.

Why? Because if you pitch hospitality benefits and how it helps employees to the marketing manager…your fit will be off.

Each person in an organization has motivations when it comes to what they invest in. The marketing manager likely cares about getting in front of fans to drive awareness and purchases.

They care about this because it is what they are in charge of. It is how they are judged from a work perspective.

If the need comes out of employee growth, you have to have the HR manager there for the pitch. If you don’t, your pitch won’t land as well. In a world crammed with advertising outlets vying for that marketing investment, we want to ensure that we are setting ourselves up for the best possible outcome.

This also helps us build champions within the organization. If you get the marketing manager and the HR manager excited about the deal…you have 2 champions pitching now instead of just one. The more champions you have, the more buy-in (and access to budget) you will have.

When looking over your sports sponsorship pitch, ask yourself…do you have the right people in the room for the assets you are pitching? If not, ask if a representative from another department can join.

Am I Pricing This Opportunity Appropriately Given the Value I Am Providing?

This is a vital part of this review process that gets overlooked.You likely already have a price point in mind.

Is that price appropriate, given the value you are providing?

Why must you do this? Well, your sponsor is doing this calculation in their head as you pitch. If your number is too high, you are losing certainty with the prospect.

So how can you get a gauge on what is too high? There are many ways to do this, but my favorite is to look at the current market in digital advertising.

Based on industry, you can find the cost per click, cost per view, and cost per lead averages. This is what a company would spend on average to gain views, clicks, or leads if they spent on say Google or Facebook ads.

If you are pretty sure that an entry-to-win campaign will get around 2,000 sign-ups based on past results, your sponsor will instantly put the average cost per lead calculation into their heads when evaluating your proposal. They will compare it to other forms of advertising and evaluate whether the higher cost is worth it.

Does this mean you should only go off that number? No. What this means is that if you charge a higher rate than the industry standard, you better communicate why your proposal will pull in that high of an investment.

In your pitch, you have to show, for example, why your leads are more powerful than those collected from Facebook ads. Why a view in your stadium is worth more than one on social media.

We dove into a few reasons why sports are more valuable than other forms of advertising. This is a great starting point to prove the value.

On the reverse side, you also don’t want to underestimate the price. I see this happen a lot with teams where they underprice their assets, especially with digital ads.

To help on this front, we’ve created a Sports Sponsorship Calculator for teams to use to see if they are underpricing their digital assets. These numbers are directly pulled from averages that influencers pull in per post. If a 17-year-old influencer can command that price…your sports team can as well.

There is a goldilocks type happy medium here with this step in the process. If you charge over industry standards and don’t give a good reason, you will lose the certainty in your proposal. 

If you charge too little, you will leave dollars on the table, and worse, devalue your assets.

This is a vital step in understanding if your sports sponsorship pitch will land. It always comes down to the dollars. The more you can make the numbers make sense, the better chance you have to land the deal.

If I Was in Their Position, Would I Buy This?

This is the last test. You’ve looked at price, needs, who is in the meeting, etc. It then comes down to the last question.

Would I buy this if I was in their position?

How to Formulate a Successful Sports Sponsorship Proposal

It’s good to have confidence in your proposals, but you’ll need to dive deeper into your sponsor’s mindset. You have to actually get into their shoes.

When I sold restaurant ads for a travel company, this was the biggest shift in how I sold. At first, I would look at the number of travelers they would reach and think “Of course! Yes, it is the best proposal for them!” It was my job to have confidence in my product.

But then I had someone who owned a restaurant look at my proposal. This was a friend of mine, so there was no pressure to sell, as she had her restaurant outside the state I was selling in.

The way she put it changed the way I look at selling. She brought empathy into my selling. She understood how the restaurant views it.

When I sold, I focused on the number of views. The number of travelers who would see the ads.

Restaurants don’t care about views for the most part. For the most part, restaurants care about purchases. They ask “how many meals will this help me sell?” 

Why are these sales most important? Well, as my friend put it:

“When a restaurant buys a $5,000 ad package that comes out of their kid’s soccer cleats fund, it may be a whole year of daycare or car insurance. The money we put into this is money we can’t put elsewhere, many times with smaller restaurants it affects our personal lives.”

“So if you are pitching me on a $5,000 package, you better show me that I won’t regret this when it comes time for me to pay my kid’s daycare bill.”

This totally changed how I looked at the proposals I sold and how I sold them. It turned it into a focus on sales. Did I know the best tactics to ensure that this proposal leads to sales?

This empathy led me to find that if we put the food item in a picture over the “ambiance” of the place, it tripled visits. It led me to do the calculation for them. Based on the average price of their food items on their menu, it would only take 3 visits a month to cover the cost of the ad.

I answered their biggest fears with the closest I could get to certainty. I was able to do this because I started asking myself, “If I was at a restaurant, would I buy this?”. Is the pitch I am giving addressing their biggest fears about signing on with our ad inventory?

This empathy is powerful and forces us to truly understand our customers so we can serve them better.

So when you look over your package and sports sponsorship pitch, ask yourself…would I buy this? Given the business I run and the needs conveyed…would I buy this package?

Build These 5 Questions Into Your Sponsorship Opportunities Review Process 

You have your 5 questions, now it is time to build this into your pitch review process. Before any pitch goes out, you should look at these 5 and answer them all.

This is your fail-safe for missing something. Sometimes we get so caught up in building the pitch and assets that we get too close to the solution, not our customer’s problem.

This will help you break through that, take a step back, and refine it into the best pitch.

You have to become unromantic about what is on your pitch and what your team needs in terms of revenue. If you go in with that mindset, you lose the ability to close the deal.

These five questions put your client’s needs first, and ensure your sports sponsorship pitch does as well. Build it into your process, and you will close more sponsorship sales.

Technology is the pinnacle of the advancement and growth of sports. From the first patents of a football to the invention of instant replay, we’ve seen technology catapult sports to be a frenzy of fan entertainment.

While most people focus on the technological developments of items on the field or court…some of the biggest developments in sports have come in the hallowed grounds we visit on game days. The home stadiums that we visit each game day to cheer on our favorite teams.

$64Bn is spent each year by brands to sponsor their local teams, most of these dollars are investments in reaching fans inside the stadium to try and capture some of the magic of gameday and channel it toward brand loyalty.

Today, I’m diving into the advancement of stadium advertisement and how technology has helped evolve it from stadium advertising boards into an immersive brand experience and captive audience.

What is stadium advertising?

Stadium advertising, simply put, is the action of investing in advertising assets at sports stadiums. I know, a pretty boring assessment. Think stairway ads, concourse signage, arena advertisements…all to use a venue to showcase branding in arenas.

Let’s dive deeper into the crux of why brands invest so much money into our stadiums. Sports have the innate ability to tap into our passions as humans. Much like religions, our favorite sports teams become a community that we cannot live without. We live by the wins, the moments, and the people involved in the history of the teams we choose.

The community that sports creates brings immense value to sponsorships associated with it. When they advertise their company or businesses at the event, they reach potential customers through repetitive advertising.

Teams become influencers to fans. If the proper community is created by the team there is the ability for the brand to piggyback off that trust to help drive sales from those consumers.

Benefits

The largest benefit of advertising inside stadiums is that you become a part of that gameday entertainment as a brand. The stadium is ground zero for fandom. It is where the games are played, the fans cheer, and we as fans build our fandom.

Many times as well, a stadium is at the heart of a community. It is downtown many times, centrally placed for easy access.

This from a geographic standpoint helps us target the fans we want to reach. If 30,000 – 100,000 football fans all make the weekly pilgrimage to a football stadium, we can reach a large, captivated audience all at once with a high amount of relevance in one day with a stadium ad.

So why buy stadium advertising at sporting events? Well, it’s an efficient & easy way to reach a target audience and build brand exposure. This is why businesses spend so much money each year on stadium advertising boards.

Brief history

Really to understand the future of stadium advertising, we have to look back at where sports stadium advertising began.

Early stadium advertising can be seen at parks like Ebbets Field in Brooklyn in the early 1900s. In 1930, a scoreboard was added to the stadium, which opened a new opportunity for the team to sell advertising in this space.

Even back then, companies understood how powerful that space was in the stadium to add their advertising. They knew fan eyeballs would gravitate there throughout the game driving awareness & connection with the brand.

As time went on, our scoreboards got larger and more digital. Videoboards replaced the static scoreboards to draw fan eyeballs to the space.

As the saying goes, brand dollars follow fan eyeballs. Where there were replays, stats, and information…that is where businesses wanted to invest their advertising dollars over the entire season.

Companies or industries that benefit the most from advertising in stadiums

Currently, there are 63,000+ brands across 32 industry verticals that spend money on in-stadium advertising. Professional and college football, basketball, and hockey games.

As I stated before the biggest benefit to in-stadium advertising comes with tapping into the community that the team has built. But really, it is about tapping into the trust that the team has built with their fans.

With this, the industries that benefit the most from in-stadium advertising are the ones that benefit the most from building trust. 

Now you could argue that ALL businesses benefit from building trust with their customers. And you would be correct. This is why over 63,000 brands invest their dollars into stadium advertising.

BUT, the labels that benefit the most are the ones that have longer sales cycles in their industry. These are the ones that don’t expect an instant sale, ones that either has a high price or high switching costs in their industry.

With the above, you would imagine that banks, healthcare, and car dealerships would be the top spenders in-stadium advertising.

And you would be correct, In the NFL those categories spend over $50 Million each to reach fans on game day and help build that trust.

So ALL brands benefit from investing in-stadium advertising, but the categories that benefit the most are ones that rely heavily on trust to get sales.

How technology has changed arena advertising for sports fans

Technology has affected stadium advertising in the same way that technology has affected the advertising industry in general. It has shifted it to be more trackable, measurable, and interactive.

Gone are the days in advertising where “being seen” is enough. Today businesses are looking to invest in advertising outlets that drive participation. Ways that allow them to connect with fans in measurable & meaningful ways. Technology offers a great opportunity to broadcast a marketing message to audiences. There are many options and millions of dollars at play for advertisers.

As advertising technology has shifted, stadium advertising has been slow to tag along with it.

How SQWAD is using technology for stadium advertising

SQWAD is helping teams create more valuable stadium advertising assets through our engaging digital activations. We help brands drive participation with the fans to make sure they stand out on game day and are remembered long after the fan has left the stadium.

By replacing static scoreboard logos with promotions like scoreboard trivia, virtual races, and other advertising that pull in the crowd you can create stadium advertising assets that are more valuable than static signage.

For example, with our prediction activation, our clients have been able to grab fans’ attention while sending over 2.3 Million sponsor offers out to fans via email for easy redemption.

These offers lead directly to sales, with 74% of the email sent being opened by fans and 56% used in the sponsor’s store or online.

With this new technology captivating fans’ phones, you can bring exciting new inventory to your sponsors and a brand new experience to your game day.

At SQWAD, we have activations for every sponsor category, auto, banks, you name it. We can help your team drive more sponsorship revenue.

Final thoughts about stadium ads

When you break it all down, stadium advertising’s value focuses on the trust your team has built with your fans.

The advertising assets are just the vessel in which the brands you sell to are able to tap into the trust you have built. 

Technology, through assets like SQWAD, helps your team create a more efficient vessel. One that is more measurable and more engaging in its path to harness that trust and transfer a part of it to your brands.

In stadium advertising technology at its core is on a never-ending mission to create more efficiency in that transfer. The more efficient it is, the more valuable your stadium advertising assets become to brands.

Push for efficiency, you will win.