The love affair between advertising and sports has been long and fruitful, even among companies that are not in any way directly related to sports. Take a look at Coca Cola and Pepsi, who have sponsored major events (and hired a number of athletes for endorsers). Or even at the luxury market, like cars and watches, or lifestyle products like mobile phones. Even financial institutions have invested heavily in sports marketing, even if the only numbers that are flashed during the game are on the scoreboards.

Why Sports is a Good Advertising Vehicle

So what is it about sweat, screaming crowds, and a very slippery ball that can get advertisers to open their wallets and say, “I’m in”? First of all, it’s the wide demographic. Sports events attract a cross-section of society, people who would otherwise have nothing in common. It doesn’t matter how old you are, how much money you make, or where you live in the world: you can be interested in sports, watch the major events, and follow the ups and downs of a favorite team from the first game of the season to the championship game.

Sports has mass reach, and it has loyalty—two components that can make it a potentially powerful advertising vehicle. Advertisers, understandably, want to reach the greatest number of people in the quickest possible way. To talk to the kind of market that will congregate at a football stadium would probably require multiple placements in several magazines. But sponsor the scoreboards, or distribute fans with printed logos, and they get tremendous brand awareness at half the effort.

The fact that the sports market has loyalty (meaning, people will not just watch one game, but several games in the season) also creates the opportunity for an entire advertising campaign. The company can create, and repeat, key messages and eventually stick into that market’s consciousness. You don’t get that from advertising in a monthly glossy, whose readership is notoriously fickle and can either buy another title the next month, if they bother to buy one at all. Yet talk to a sports fan, and the end of one game initiates the anticipation for the next. “How will my favorite team fare next time? Who will reach the playoffs? Who will win the tournament?” It’s addictive.

Sports is also associated with key values that many advertisers hope will be associated with their product: energy, excitement, youthfulness, dynamism, and the ever-elusive “cool factor”. For example, a financial institution would typically be viewed as something very dry, cold, obsessed with money and the bottom line. That’s all very good when you’re talking to investors, but as most brand experts tell you, you’ve got to connect to your market on an emotional level. Sponsoring a sports event does that for you. You’re seen as a company that’s ready to dive into the action, participate in the community, battle it out with the competitors and emerge, sweaty but victorious. You’re seen as a company “with a face”, or “with a heart”.  That kind of brand equity could give you the edge over the other players in your field (pun intended), who have the same products and services but not the brand personality or brand recall.

Why Online Sports Websites are your Best Option

The only problem with sponsoring a sports event is that it involves millions of dollars—and most companies simply don’t have that kind of advertising budget.

Fortunately, they can achieve the same kind of reach for a mere fraction of the cost, by advertising in online sports websites.

For sports buffs, watching the game isn’t enough. They want statistics, player profiles, commentaries by experts, blow-by-blow accounts, videos replaying the key moments of the game, interviews, game analyses, team comparisons—the works. They won’t get this from the game proper, but they will get it from the many sports sites on the Internet. Best of all, they get it for free, and at their own convenience.

So they head for the Internet, and as advertisers, you meet them there: as imbedded links, pop ups, banner ads, video ads, logo placements, section sponsorships.  All of these advertising efforts create visibility and brand awareness among the same people who watch sports events, with one added dimension: interactivity.

In traditional events, all advertisers can do is flash an ad. On the internet, the ads can be customized in the format that adapts to the reader’s interests and attention levels. For example, you can place a link in an editorial feature (or within your own advertorial) making your material look less like an ad and more like valid information. Another popular option is for you to sponsor a video segment that will only run after they’ve viewed your ad.

In both cases, you’ve achieved something that even a multi-million dollar TV advertising campaign would not give: the viewer’s complete attention. The barrage of messages available today have desensitized consumers to most advertising material: if it looks like it’s selling something, it’s not worth reading. They change the channels during commercial breaks; they throw away direct mail before even opening the envelopes. But Internet advertising allows you to completely reformat your advertising material to blend into the sports feature. Even pop-ups, though by nature disruptive, have that opportunity to hold the web user’s attention simply by their location. They can’t get to the feature without reading you. Ignoring you doesn’t work: you’re in the center of the screen. Before they’ve even reached for their mouse to click the close button, you’ve made your point.

Internet Advertising: The New Face of Cool

Advertising on the Internet also gives you access to one of the most desirable market segments, especially when using broadband technology: tech-savvy men and women in their twenties to thirties with spending power. The fact that they can afford that kind of Internet connection, and have the awareness and inclination to invest in broadband, clearly indicate their openness to trying new brands and new things.  For them, broadband is cool—and you, as an advertiser, are equally hip to be part of that new media wave. As the other companies who have advertised in sports have learned, it’s all about being in the game.