When selling sports sponsorships there are basic guidelines that apply no matter what level of sports you are selling. However, there are numerous differences in selling college sports sponsorships and selling professional sports sponsorships deals We dive into this topic, discussing the differences in resoruces, inventory, and much, much more.
“I think a big part of working in sponsorship, at least from my perspective, is not just who you’re working for, the organization, the team, the college, it's also what opportunity, especially in a sales role,” Sarra Barnes said.
Types of resources
The main difference when it comes to selling sponsorships in college compared to professional sports is the amount of recourses that are available. Pro teams have many more recourses at their disposal. An example of this is the data. Professional sports rely heavily on data and analytics to help understand their fan base. Pro teams have acesss to data about their teams, but also data on similar markets that help them to pinpoint their key audience and find sponsors that would best fit them.
Likewise, professional sports also have more staff to aid the sales department. This is drastically different than in college athletics where many sales representatives wear numerous hats in getting the deal done. One area specifically that pro sports has at its fingertips is the partnership engagement or partnership activation team. Their job is to ensure that what we promise in a contract, happens. Many pro teams also have a partnership solution team, they are responsible for the creative approach of a sales presentation.
Client relationships and gifts
At any level of selling sponsorships, it's crucial to have a good relationship with your partners. It is important to listen and understand the people you are working with and for. Show them you care.
“Typically, you do look at the deal size and investment and the ass mix and you have a bit of that, or at least gives you the flexibility to have really strong relationships with your partners,” Barnes said.
Another difference between selling in college sports versus selling in professional sports is gifting tickets. In the pros, it's simple. They don't have to ask permission to give those tickets to clients. But in the college world, they have set budget you can use for gifting to your client, so you must get permission to use part of it.
Types of deals and third parties
One similarity between college and professional is that they both expected to drive sponsorship revenue. However, while both are expected to drive revenue, there are still different limitations and restrictions that apply to them. Hard and soft costs of inventory come into play here. In pro sports, teams can sign numerous types of deals.
An example of this is largely hospitality-driven deals. These types of deals offer more hard costs for the team. They're not ideal, but still doable because it is still revenue at the end of the month. Whereas with college teams, the soft costs need to outweigh the hard costs when putting a deal together. So hospitality-driven deals that consist of mainly tickets and suites are harder to get done. Additionally, in professional sports, there is no third party that tells them what can or cannot be part of a sponsorship. Whereas in college sports third parties such as Learfield would not allow these types of deals because there would not be as much revenue that would be coming in as a well-rounded sponsorship deal.
“The biggest difference between the professional sports model and the college sports model is just the ownership piece and how there’s not a third party,” Brandon Parks said.
Inventory
Types of inventory also differ in college sponsorships and pro sports sponsorships. In college, social and digital assets are one of the top inventory pieces. For pro sports, all of the teams' highly viable elements such as logo patches on uniforms and logos that will appear on TV are the higher-priced inventory pieces. Another example of inventory differences in college and pro sports is the radio factor. Radio is huge in college sports because fans will listen to games on the radio. In pro sports, radio isn't as popular because it depends on the market. Some pro sports have fanbases that are radio-heavy, and some do not.
Selling sponsorships in professional sports compared to college sports are almost completely different. From what things can be included in a sponsorship to the way that you say thank you or give gifts are different in these two settings.
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