The future of sports marketing moments
From superfans, to user generated content and a new wave of technological advances, Anthony Santa, Head of Sports & Entertainment at Diamond View, looks at the ways in which brands can push themselves over the creative finishing line as a summer of sport approaches.
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Sports marketing is having a watershed moment in 2024, carried over from enthusiasm last year, and bolstered by a surge in viewership for women’s sports.
Audience interest continues to ramp up as March Madness has wrapped, World Cup qualifiers continue, and the summer Olympics fast approach. Brands brainstorming integrations with sports leagues, teams and consumer companies are nothing new, but there are new ways for brands to seize the moment in 2024.
Audience interest continues to ramp up as March Madness has wrapped, World Cup qualifiers continue, and the Summer Olympics fast approach.
Brands can utilise the advantageous marketing landscape in new ways and, most importantly, create authentic moments to connect with new and loyal audiences. Working with sports teams and brands for decades within Diamond View, it’s easy to trace the trends of sports marketing from the early noughties to now, and where it’s headed in the next few years.
Below are some considerations brands should make when planning (my slightly biased opinion of) crucial sports marketing moments.
Above: Sport is no stranger to committed fandom.
Is it a bird? Is it a plane? No, it’s a superfan!
While the notion of superfans may be a rising phenomenon in other verticals, sport is no stranger to die-hard loyalists. These fans will follow teams across the nation for entire seasons, which is obviously a level of devotion to be taken seriously. It's also important to bring new fans into the fold in ways that make them feel included and which, one day, might turn them into superfans themselves.
To entice newcomers to sport in general, or to specific teams, brands should understand that every city is different.
To entice newcomers to sport in general, or to specific teams, brands should understand that every city is different. It sounds obvious, but marketers must learn the particularities of each fan group. [American] football fans aren’t soccer fans or baseball fans, and followers from different teams in the same sport will still reflect the unique culture of their home city; an LAFC soccer fan, for example, isn’t going to behave the same way as an Inter Miami CF fan.
Diamond View works with both Tampa Bay sports teams and those beyond our home state, like the New York Giants, Philadelphia Eagles, WWE, NASCAR and Atlanta Braves, among others. Every team and fanbase varies between each sport, city and brand. Our creative department collaborates with each team, bringing an outside perspective with a common end goal to produce content that encourages the audience to action.
Above: Diamond View worked with NASCAR to celebrate the 75th anniversary of the sport.
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For instance, we worked with NASCAR to create a series celebrating its 75th anniversary. The goal of the project was to provide fans with a new perspective on some of the most memorable moments in NASCAR history, as well as to bring those moments back to life.
Game highlights, trick shots and fan reactions go viral at any time, so speed is more important today than it ever was.
We thought it was important to transport the drivers, pit crews, broadcasters and historians back to these moments to relive them. In doing so, we wanted them to provide insight and, hopefully, gain a new perspective on what this moment meant to them, as well as to NASCAR as a whole. To do this, we shot in a massive LED Volume and played the moments back for all to witness. This inspired authentic conversations and insight into the magnitude of these 'Photo Finish Moments'.
Superfans lead the UGC pack
And, speaking of engaging superfans, user generated content (UGC) is engaging, shareable, often heartfelt and can absolutely go viral. Said users also skew younger on the whole, targeting other young audiences who are more accustomed to watching live streams as entertainment. Sure, as a production company, we could wait for an organic moment to happen during a game – a home run, a hat trick – and try to capture that visual for an ad, but seeing a broadcast spot with an amazing win doesn’t replace being in the stadium the moment it happens.
Game highlights, trick shots and fan reactions go viral at any time, so speed is more important today than it ever was. Reach out to superfans and engage influencers to capture on-the-ground playmaking moments, and propagate those moments to hungry fans and curious viewers in real time.
Above: Levi's utilised UGC and social media to collaborate in a sporting moment around a family's love for the San Francisco 49ers.
UGC can bring fans along for the ride well before a massive sports moment. Levi’s pulled off an amazing collaboration with the Aguilars, a family who posts content to TikTok and became famous for their voracious love for the San Francisco 49ers.
Meta Quest and Apple Vision Pro are piquing audience interest in XR once more.
Levi's connected with Natalie Aguilar to surprise her father, arguably the biggest fan of the bunch, with Super Bowl LVIII tickets. Just the inaugural video, out of a handful for the campaign, earned 7.2M views, 1M likes, a ripple effect of engagement across multiple platforms and media outlets, and lasting brand love for both Levi’s and The 49ers. It proved that sports moments are now nationwide, cultural moments for many audiences across ages, genders and other benchmarks, and that brands can insert themselves into sports beyond the pricey broadcast buy or on-site activation.
Yes, that means XR
Diamond View started a separate company called Vū (pronounced view) Technologies, focused on virtual production to address the growing need for immersive, large-scale brand projects, the harbinger of a slowly emerging trend back toward interactive experiences for fans using XR.
After a quiet few years in the extended reality [XR] realm, where virtual reality settled into gaming, and augmented reality into social media filters, innovations through the Meta Quest and Apple Vision Pro (as two of many examples) are piquing audience interest in XR once more and it is no longer relegated simply to gaming, with immersive business, enterprise and live entertainment integrating it into society. What felt like a long-shot world just last year is looming closer by the day, as spatial entertainment is rapidly growing.
Above: Viewing sport on the Apple Vision Pro offers a whole new experience for fans.
Now, Apple Vision Pro offers a viewing experience for some sports, like football and basketball, that puts audiences courtside without having to leave their couch, with bespoke information and graphics users can enjoy. As fans know, users can actively 'play' sports in the Meta Quest headset. Both are ripe for brand activation and partnership for the savvy marketer, either during specific games or as an activation at IRL major events. We can’t ignore that XR has made a big comeback and looks, to many, like a platform with some sticking power.
Sport, from gigantic global face-offs to the rise of interest in women’s sports, is a growing topic of conversation in advertising.
Sport, from gigantic global face-offs to the rise of interest in women’s sports, is a growing topic of conversation in advertising. Brands that can’t – or won’t – think of ways to attach themselves to the conversation are going to miss a pretty broad target for positive marketing moments.
Despite this, any advertising conversation should come with an authentic idea and path forward, created alongside sports marketing experts, to see great creative ideas come to fruition.
