As a football fan, you’ll be very used to seeing sponsor logos in all manner of locations before, during and after a match. 

As well as on the chest, shoulders and shorts of each player, you’ll see logos flashing up on pitch side LED screens and in on screen graphics, and tiled on walls for post-game interviews. We think logos are a great way to promote and thank our sponsors, but unless footballers started getting face tattoos of the Nike swoosh, there’s not much more space available!

Luckily for us and our sponsors, recent years have seen a shift in revenue generation within sport. In our increasingly digital world, sports fans no longer watch a game then switch off until next week; they’re hungry for more content at a sport, team and player level. With this in mind, online content is a fantastic, engaging way for our sponsors to get their logo seen. Every post, video and webpage has become digital real estate.

Looking into this concept more deeply, this blog post is about how sports organisations like us can use digital real estate to create mutually beneficial partnerships with new sponsors while also creating more content for fans.

Working with our new partner, Capital Content, we’ll be taking the following approaches over the next season:

We’ll think of sponsorship as more than just a logo

While still very popular, sponsors are starting to realise their partnerships have far more potential than just a logo on a jersey. Teams and sponsors will both get much more value out of a sponsorship deal if they use the money to proactively create co-branded online content that engages fans beyond the boundary off the pitch. 

We’ll align our content

Once you’ve decided to create digital content as part of your sponsorship deal, the key is to align the nature of content with the sponsor. A great example is Specsavers, who have sponsored Scottish referees for over a decade. This is a simple and obvious tip but it will create much more relevant, engaging content and increase your conversion rate.

We’ll go beyond the players

When it comes to content ideas, players are the obvious focus – but behind every team is a huge network of support staff. From the gaffer to groundsman, why not create content that connects fans with the entire organisation at multiple levels rather than just the people on the pitch? Talk to the physio about their best warm down tips or chat with the manager about his predictions for the upcoming season. This is the kind of useful content fans will watch and engage with, so it’s a win-win for teams and sponsors alike.

We’ll create seasons for the season

Once upon a time, organisations would create a four minute video then re-share it constantly on their website and social media for months. These days, for maximum exposure for sponsors and maximum engagement for the team, we’ve learned it’s better to create multiple short ‘episodes’ of branded content in themed ‘seasons’. To save time, shoot all the episodes in one day then distribute at intervals across the month or year, keeping social media pages fresh and interesting while also regularly showing sponsor logos and links to fans.

We’ll do some DIY

Pretty much everyone has a 4K camera in their pocket right now. Players in the Premier League are already fully aware of their personal brands, but grassroots and community teams could do much more to utilise their potential when it comes to content creation. Set goals each week for players to record a video in their own time which can then be edited up and shared. A super quick example is a keep-up challenge – get players to do keep-ups for as long as they can then get fans to guess who did the most. This kind of content is easy to create but invaluable when it comes to driving engagement.

By shifting our mindset and thinking of digital content as prime real estate for sponsorship partners, we’re confident that we’ll not only be able to generate more content and cash but also give our sponsors more for their money. The possibilities are infinite and fans are ready to watch.

To find out more about content creation, visit capitalcontent.co.