This is the second post in a series of blog posts that will highlight the many activities and practices of sponsorship management. Click here to read the first post, which provides some overall context on the topic, including an introduction to this framework:

In this post, we’ll take a quick look at Sponsorship Strategy from the Rights Holder (or Property) perspective:

One thing to remember, is that when we’re talking about strategy, we’re talking about making major decisions that will have ripple effects across the rest of the organization’s sponsorship activities.

According to Michael Porter, a Harvard professor and consulting professional who is considered a leading mind in the field of business strategy, strategic positions should have a horizon of a decade or more, not of a single planning cycle. Continuity fosters improvements and also reinforces a company's identity.

What Questions Are Rights Holders Looking to Answer?

From a sponsorship strategy standpoint, a rights holder should be looking to answer questions like:

Financial and Resource Planning:

•  Is sponsorship a revenue stream that is worth us pursuing?

•  How much should we be willing to invest in people and tools in order to drive sponsorship revenue?

Value Proposition Planning:

• What are the things that make us appealing to sponsors? In what areas are we lacking appeal?

• Which of our specific properties, programs, and channels are have strengths that make them worth associating with from a sponsor’s perspective?

Operational Priorities:

• How can we work with various business partners (e.g. venue, athletes/talent, media platforms, sports league, sports teams) to maximize our sponsorship revenues? How are we required to work with some of our business partners based on contract stipulations existing arrangement?

• What types of skillsets and tools need to be a focal point in our approach to sponsorship?

Interrelated Conclusions

Note that the answers to these questions are interrelated to a degree. Meaning these questions can’t really be answered sequentially.

For example, to understand whether sponsorship is a revenue stream worth pursuing, the most simple exercise revolves around benchmarking comparable organizations’ sponsorship revenues to get a sense of how much your organization could earn from sponsorship… But how much your organization might earn from sponsorship will, in actuality, depend on who you hire, how well you position your properties and programs to sponsors via value proposition planning, and some of the operational pillars that you prioritize.

Another example of how the answers to these questions are interrelated would be that your organization’s value proposition and appeal to sponsors might be significantly influenced by decisions that have been made around how your organization works with business partners. One example of this would be that if sponsors know they can still gain a strong association with your programs, or a strong connection to your audience, through a media buy with your media partners, it negates some of the need for them to become an official sponsor of your organization in order to achieve their objectives.

The Importance of Sponsorship Strategy Conversations

Of course, answering each of these questions can involve significant degrees of data analysis, brainstorming and workshops, and involvement from senior stakeholders and industry consultants. This can make the idea of a sponsorship strategy project a bit daunting… but when you consider that the alternative is really just a year-to-year improvisation without a north star and without established priorities, a sponsorship strategy is essential.

At PandoPartner, we help our clients through these areas of  sponsorship strategy with simple tools, surveys, and exercises that can scale up depending on the sponsorship strategy project’s budget.