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Sports Sponsorships for Health Care Organizations

By Alan Shoebridge posted 05-31-2019 12:20 PM

  

Smart Play or Risky Bet?

Deciding whether a sports sponsorship makes sense is always a tough call. Upping the stakes, this decision often needs to be made under pressure from a senior leader who strongly supports the idea.

Entering into sports sponsorships seems to be the rule rather than the exception today .In fact, three organizations where I’ve worked have agreed to significant sponsorships with professional franchises and sports arenas. If your health system is considering a sports sponsorship here are two reasons to go for it and four reasons to pass.


Go for it

#1: You lack name recognition
In this scenario, your organization might be entering a new market or undertaking a significant rebrand. This happened when ODS Health Plans – where I worked from 2001-2007 – rebranded as Moda Health. The company went from decent name awareness to almost zero name recognition overnight when they made the change in 2013.

To help build awareness Moda entered into a very visible partnership with the local NBA franchise, the Portland Trailblazers. The partnership included renaming the Rose Garden arena as the Moda Center as part of a 10-year, $40 million naming deal. Instantly, the rebranded company received a tremendous amount of brand exposure – from media stories to year-long advertising – as every major attraction from Taylor Swift to World Wrestling Entertainment, Inc. to the NBA promoted the location. Two people in business attire are standing at a press conference, holding up a Moda Center jersey between them.

#2: You’re going beyond visibility

While I was working at Providence Health & Services in 2014, the company began talking with a Major League Soccer franchise, the Portland Timbers, about sponsoring the team, renaming the historic city stadium as Providence Park and integrating a sports care clinic on site.Providence Park logo

Because Providence had tremendous name recognition and strong market share, I was somewhat skeptical of the possible deal given the cost. However, our leadership had a vision of the sponsorship being a true partnership to promote health and wellness in the community. They backed it up by allocating resources – staffing and funding – to deliver on that vision. 


Take a pass

#1: You can’t afford it
This seems obvious, but many organizations have had to embarrassingly back out of deals. These agreements, especially arena/stadium sponsorships are expensive and typically run for at least a decade. If your organization encounters tough financial times the sports sponsorship is going to be the most obvious target for cost-cutting and your decision will be painfully public.

#2: You can’t defend it

Your customers, partners and employees are going to question the wisdom of doing this. Every dollar spent on a sports sponsorship will be argued as money that could be used to lower costs or pay employees more. Economists also send out worrying signals about trying to tie sports sponsorships to increased profitability. In other words, you need to understand why you’re pursuing the sponsorship and rooting it in trying to directly drive business may not be the way to go.

#3: You can’t measure it

Measuring results for sponsorships is difficult, but not impossible. If you’re going for brand awareness and preference, set a baseline before entering any deals. If you’re trying to develop community partnerships or drive health and wellness initiatives, make sure you have solid goals and objectives to measure. If increasing patient volumes for services like sports medicine is the goal, try new patient surveys to see how the partnership affected their choice.
Without some type of measurement plan in place, you will have little ability to evaluate the commitment when the contract comes up for renewal.

#4: FOMO

Fear of missing out (FOMO) is my least favorite reason to do anything. This is especially true when you are spending a lot of money and making a visible, public commitment.

When a sports sponsorship opportunity comes up, you need to carefully establish your reasons to pursue it and ensure that you aren’t falling into the common traps above.

By Alan Shoebridge
Director of Marketing
Salinas Valley Memorial Healthcare System
Salinas, California

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