Sport’s most ambitious clubs, franchises, and organisations are increasingly aware that betting sponsorships can provide much more than merely a financial boost to their commercial portfolios.
Indeed, in the engagement stakes, research shows that the combination of betting on and watching sport is a powerful and mutually beneficial proposition for both sectors.
For instance, 70 per cent of Americans are more likely to watch a game if they have bet on it, while someone who watches sport in the US is 72 per cent more likely than an average adult to be interested in betting, according to the most recent studies.
This unique relationship creates an opportunity for rights-holders to work with their betting partners to create engagement opportunities. In a primarily digital-first space, the driving force behind such growth is technology. Enter Sportradar ad:s.
Sports data and technology DNA
At the core of its ad:s marketing services, Sportradar has built a multi-channel marketing platform focused on supporting clients to more effectively engage, acquire and retain customers.
With a bespoke iGaming demand-side platform and industry-leading personalisation and customisation technology, Sportradar ad:s has already established itself as a trusted partner of leading sportsbooks worldwide.
Combining this ad tech with its global sponsorship expertise has allowed Sportradar to also support the digital activation of global sports betting partnerships – a growing need.
Addressing the challenge
As standard, rights-holder digital inventory is built into most betting sponsorships. However, leaving a positive impression on the end user, the fan – let alone acquiring them as a customer – is not always guaranteed.
Traditionally, creative assets are often static, devoid of live data or odds, lacking contextual relevance, and are supported by inefficient or infrequent updates. To compound this, poor data feedback can make it difficult for both the rights-holder and their betting partner to understand the performance of a particular product or campaign.
This potential missed opportunity can and should be addressed.
Providing Solutions
Addressing this need, tech-driven solutions like Sportradar’s ad:s Publisher Products have become increasingly important, boosting ad conversion by matching website content with dynamic advertisements featuring contextually relevant insights powered by live data.
Featuring real-time and engaging content is quite simply about ensuring a better experience on a rights-holder’s digital platform.
This has already had a tangible impact in cases like the National Hockey League’s collaboration with betting operator OlyBet, for example. The partnership, which was facilitated by Sportradar and announced last year, has enabled both parties to grow their respective businesses and followings in the Baltic states.
During the 2022 Stanley Cup finals, NHL integrated ad:s Publisher Products to serve contextually relevant and dynamic advertisements across NHL.com, targeted to OlyBet’s core markets, with click-through rates exceeding the previous benchmark more than twofold.
An advanced reporting suite also helped all parties to understand the optimisation strategies more effectively and make recommendations for further improvements for the upcoming NHL season.
Status quo
Applying technology to solve such a need is increasingly important in today’s consumer habit world and market economy.
Everyone will be well aware of the shift in audience and customer expectations, with sports enthusiasts now demanding more from rights-holders and operators than ever before. Quite simply, fans want the most relevant content, tailored to their interests, and delivered on their favourite platforms at the right time – or they will look elsewhere.
In an economic landscape that also demands ever-greater scrutiny on marketing spend, sports betting companies are putting greater pressure on the performance of their brand partnerships. Building awareness and affinity is no longer enough. Operators want to see the ROI.
Carefully curated digital campaign activations can therefore be used to better demonstrate the true value of a sponsorship – helping ensure sponsorships remain a key part of a varied and effective sports marketing strategy.
Sponsorship is still a key part of any marketing mix as there is nothing quite like it. To be able to tap into the passion points of a highly engaged and relevant target audience is unique. The challenge today is to ensure there is less wastage of rights and ensure a more efficient use of the ones acquired. This is what we are working to support our clients achieve.
Shifting set-ups?
Incentivising the rights-holder to deliver on digital activation performance has made its way into the set-up of partnerships across the industry.
Whilst most rights-holders continue to, understandably, demand an up-front guarantee for the use of their IP, a performance-oriented model with variables linked to the sponsor ROI, such as the number of converted customers, is becoming increasingly prevalent across certain markets.
This sort of arrangement is facilitated due to the unique nature of betting sponsorships compared to other sponsor categories. The opportunity to trigger such incentives has led forward-thinking rights-holders to take a proactive approach by investing in technology in order to better leverage their fan data and digital activation capabilities across their platforms – from websites, apps and social to OTT.
Natural extension
As a business that operates on the intersection of sports data and technology, applying its solutions to the global sponsorship marketplace represents a natural extension of Sportradar’s overall and ever-evolving service portfolio.
We want to continue to create unique partnerships between ambitious companies and rights-holders worldwide.
Arguably even more important, however, is to ensure the partnership delivers. If we can play a role in that through applying our technology, we will.
Hampus Lofkvist is Sportradar’s Global Sponsorship Sales Director. Hampus has 15 years of experience in the sports marketing industry and joined Sportradar in 2018. In his role he has built up the company’s sponsorship business and unit as part of the ad:s division. Hampus leads a global sales team working with Sportradar’s rights-holder and brand network to create new brand partnerships across sports. The team is also integrating Sportradar data-driven tools and ad tech to improve the efficiency of digital sponsorship activation. Previously Hampus spent two years at MP & Silva as director of sponsorship, Europe. Hampus started off his career in sports marketing at Uefa in Switzerland where he spent nine years in the marketing division across different roles. As sponsorship and licensing manager, Hampus was responsible for managing the commercial programmes for Uefa’s top competitions including the Uefa Europa League and Uefa Champions League. Hampus holds a Bachelor’s degree from the University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia, USA. He is based in London and is a keen football and tennis player.