Rough Weekend for Sports Sponsorships
With perhaps the greatest sporting event in the world taking front stage this week, more bad press this weekend on sports sponsorships.
In case you missed it, here are a couple links:
Companies shed sports sponsorships
It would be nice to see a few more stories on what strategies sports org's and properties in general are employing to overcome the situation we're in. We know what's going on - what are we going to do about it? One interesting point to consider as is pointed out in the first article is that sports sponsorships tend to over react to economic conditions (a steeper decline in times of distress, but also a sharper recovery than the overall economy). I'm still convinced that we will look back on the present time as an incredible buying opportunity for "healthy" brands to negotiate favorable deals and steal market share from their rivals. Finally, while sports is getting slammed, don't think that arts, entertainment and everything else won't or isn't feeling the heat as well. While consumers want marketers to shift to cause marketing according to a recent study, many charities benefit in a big way from sports-affiliated properties/sponsorships to begin with. Bottom line: the cause and effect relationship will reverberate far beyond your local sports team.
On a side note, we spent the weekend fixing up a few things. Here's a list in case you're interested:
- You must now fill out a property description to get placed in the Newest Pitches section of the homepage
- Incorporated some new (much more aeshetic!) ad creative
- Opened up blog access (you don't need a beta invite)
- Tweaked dates and locations section (you must now fill in a specific location, nationwide is no longer an option)
- Worked to improve load times
- Cleaned up some text and graphics
Thanks again for all of your support as we're getting ready to take this to the next level. Get ready!
