Photo by Nathan Shively on Unsplash
September 2, 2024
Should More Brands Find Partners in the Sports Industry?
This past month saw many brands announcing partnerships with athletes and entities in the sports industry, even if the retail brands themselves weren’t inherently connected to anything athletic.
Dove partnered with rising tennis star Emma Navarro to support its “Body Confident Sport” program, aimed at boosting self-esteem and body confidence among young female athletes. Navarro will be the first athlete to display Dove’s logo on her competition apparel, highlighting a collaboration intended to address the issue of young girls dropping out of sports due to low body confidence.
In the press release announcing this partnership, Navarro stressed the importance of sports in enhancing self-confidence and discussed plans to work with Dove to foster a positive environment for young female athletes.
“It’s sad that so many young girls abandon sports due to negative feelings about themselves or their bodies, because playing sports is such a powerful way to improve your confidence in both your body and your mind. I believe that the healthiest approach is to avoid comparing your body and your personality with other people, and only compare yourself to who you were yesterday. If you work hard at a sport consistently, you gain more and more confidence as you see your improvement, and the negative voices begin to have less of an impact. I’m excited to be part of the solution with Dove — together, we’ll continue to create a positive environment for girls in sports, one that prioritizes self-esteem over appearance.”
Emma Navarro via PR Newswire
When it comes to women’s sports in particular, a recent report from Sports Innovation Lab revealed a significant gap in the women’s sports merchandise market, currently valued at $4 billion annually. Despite increased interest and viewership in women’s sports, there is a lack of available merchandise, frustrating fans and creating a lucrative opportunity for brands to invest in this growing market.
Another recent brand partnership, SNICKERS is adding a unique twist to NFL season predictions with its new SatisFORTUNES bite guide, featuring a “Chocomancer” who reads the future through chocolate. As the NFL’s Official Chocolate Sponsor, SNICKERS is offering limited-edition kits that include five team-branded SNICKERS bars and a guide for predicting NFL game outcomes. The Chocomancer, Jennifer Billock, interprets the bars to reveal each team’s fate for the season.
The kits, available for 21 NFL teams, are sold online and support the NFL Foundation’s charitable initiatives. This launch continues SNICKERS’ 20-year partnership with the NFL.
Additionally, arts and crafts retailer Michaels has signed a three-year partnership with the Dallas Cowboys. This collaboration aims to enhance the game day experience for fans by providing team-themed decorations, party supplies, and custom framing for memorabilia. Key initiatives include “Fan Art Friday,” where fans can submit Cowboys-themed artwork for social media features, and a “MakerPlace x Market at The Star” event to highlight local artisans.
Michaels will also host game day activities at AT&T Stadium and offer a 10% discount on in-store purchases for those wearing Cowboys merchandise. The partnership underscores Michaels’ commitment to supporting fan creativity and enhancing team spirit.
For brands like Dove, SNICKERS, and Michaels, aligning with the sports world offers a unique platform to enhance visibility and engage with passionate fan bases in creative ways. These partnerships allow brands to integrate their products into the vibrant, emotionally charged environment of sports with the hope of driving consumer interest and brand loyalty.
While the primary beneficiaries are most likely the brands, which gain exposure and strengthen their market presence, fans and athletes also experience benefits. They enjoy unique products, enriched experiences, and increased engagement with their favorite teams and sports. These collaborations demonstrate that even non-sports-related products can find meaningful connections within the sports industry, often creating a win-win situation for brands, fans, and athletes alike.
Discussion Questions
How do retail partnerships with sports organizations affect consumer perceptions of a brand’s value, especially when the brand’s products are not sports-related?
How can retail brands use sports affiliations to drive long-term customer loyalty and emotional connection beyond just boosting sales?
What impact do these partnerships have on addressing market gaps, such as the shortage of women’s sports merchandise, and how might they influence the retail landscape?
Poll
Loading …BrainTrust
Kristin Shane
EVP Chief Merchandising and Marketing Officer, The Guitar Center
Arnjah Dillard
North America Retail Practice Lead, Stibo Systems
Chuck Ehredt
CEO, Currency Alliance
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Not all brands need partners in the sports industry. But given the popularity and reach of sports, partnerships can be very useful for amplifying brands. They work best where there is a clear link, like personal care products for after sports or laundry detergents for washing sports clothes.
Exactly. There has to be a relevance in the partnership. If the public can’t see it, then it won’t work no matter how hard you communicate it.
I was going to say I wasn’t quite sure about Michaels partnership with the Dallas Cowboys until I remembered that Ben Franklin Crafts & Frames in Redmond, Washington does a bang up business in Seattle Seahawks products, craft components, and décor. For BFC it’s always about understanding what your customers want, with or without a partnership.
Brands have plenty to gain when they combine trust with visible sponsorship messaging that correlates with purchase behavior.
Targeted sponsorships allow brands to reach specific audiences more effectively, increasing engagement and loyalty. By aligning sponsorships with consumer interests and behaviors, companies can enhance their brand image and drive higher conversion rates. This strategic approach ensures that marketing efforts are both efficient and impactful.
However, without establishing trust first, sponsorship messages can come off as insincere or manipulative. This can lead to consumer skepticism and damage the brand’s reputation. In the worst cases, it might even drive customers away rather than attracting them. Db
When a brand partners with a sports organization or athlete, it can serve as a form of social proof, signaling that the brand is trustworthy and/or established. Consumers may perceive the partnership as an endorsement of quality and reliability. This can be powerful for non-sports brands, as it helps build credibility and confidence among consumers, even if the product offering is entirely unrelated to sports. Hellllooo Jake from State Farm???
While I can see the potential benefits of retail partnerships with sports organizations, I have some reservations. It’s important to question whether these collaborations truly align with a brand’s core values or if they’re simply a trend following tactic to capture attention. When a brand that isn’t inherently connected to sports enters this space, it risks coming across as inauthentic or opportunistic, potentially alienating its existing customer base.
I believe that brand partnerships should be more than just marketing moves, they should resonate deeply with the brand’s mission and the values it upholds. Otherwise, the partnership might generate short-term buzz but fail to build genuine, long-term connections with consumers. We need to ask ourselves if these collaborations are addressing the real needs of the market. Are they filling genuine gaps, like the lack of women’s sports merchandise, or are they merely capitalizing on a popular trend? If the latter, the impact on the retail landscape might be minimal and fleeting, rather than transformative.
While sports partnerships can be powerful, they should be approached with careful consideration, ensuring that they truly serve the brand, its customers, and the broader community in meaningful ways.
Sponsorships with sports teams and athletes are a powerful and highly visible way to align a brand with the many values associated with all types of sports. It seems to me that the values of the team/athlete need to align with the brand’s values in order for the messaging to resonate, but given the passion many consumers have for sport in general and their favorite teams in particular, some of that passion can rub off on the brand to create greater affinity (loyalty). Of course, brands need to think about how to “activate” their sponsorship through promotions, rewards, surveys, or a online or offline community. Brands are pretty sophisticated about measuring ROI from their marketing spend, so the number of sponsorships and the size of some of them would not exist after 30 years if it did not work for all stakeholders.
Almost every team or well-known athlete can provide visibility and a halo effect to a brand, whether that company has national reach like Dove and Snickers or has a regional following. And with the NCAA rules about “NIL” (name, image and likeness), the pool of athletes has become much bigger. I’m not even sure whether a logical connection between brand and sports figure matters — what car dealership in Wisconsin wouldn’t love to have Jordan Love (no pun intended) endorse its products and services, even if the brand association doesn’t make sense?
Research has identified two mediating roles in the relationship between brand experience and brand loyalty: trust (rational) and perceived quality (emotional). Sports figures and teams represent high-visibility connectors that engender elements of trust and quality. These allow non-sport brands to identify with highly visible partners that can enhance their brand experience and customer loyalty.
I’m a fan of this approach … when consideration is given to the alignment between the sport and the brand attributes. Tapping into a sports affiliation (with a team or a single athlete) without first connecting the dots will be money spent unwisely and cause potential damage to the brand’s reputation and appeal.
Retail-sports partnerships differentiate brands and improve the fan experience.
Dove’s focus on keeping girls in sports elevates its message by inspiring self-acceptance and lifelong joy rather than selling soap. Snickers’ NFL team-branded kits and team predictions guide turn treats into fun and tasty collectibles. Michael’s celebration of sports fans both at home and in stadiums makes it a highly social community builder.
Beyond boosting sales, sports affiliations help fans feel like they belong in a bigger crowd. These partnerships can also help highly-engaged sports lovers feel closer to their favorite athletes.
Good brand marketers create an emotional tie and/or response with their customers. Many sports fans are very emotional when it comes to their team, including some of us who are completely irrational in our emotional tie to a specific team, conference, division, and sport, be it professional, collegiate, or otherwise. It would seem a match made in heaven for brands to try and connect their brand promise and value to the right fan base or segment and experiment with marketing, affiliations, sponsorships, and other connections to drive value for their customers and the brand. Seems Formula One and NASCAR may already be leading the way. #GoCougs #GoHeels #Niners #SFGiants
Sports is “the” Attention stack. It is the one arena where live and in person or tune-in via TV/CTV that demands undivided attention and still creates community. That’s why the price of Sports is going up – as prime real estate. And sports by nature is a “platform” – not just an isolated experience.
Retail partnerships with athletes and sport organizations go beyond just increasing visibility; they allow brands to deeply connect with the values that resonate with their customers. Whether it’s through initiatives that support young athletes or enhancing the fan experiences, these partnerships often create a more meaningful impact than traditional marketing efforts