The Canadian Football League’s New League-Wide Sponsorship Tracking System
“By elevating league-wide inventory tracking and overall sales analytics, PandoPartner is helping the CFL to unify and modernize its partnerships business. The platform is helping the league to embrace a data-driven approach at the league office and across its clubs.” - Michele Vella, Director of Commercial Operations
The Situation
In early 2022, the Canadian Football League (CFL) was undergoing a major change in the way the league managed, tracked, and sold nationally-relevant sponsorship assets across the league.
A new approach to sponsorship had been designed by the league’s leadership, in collaboration with the clubs and with new league partner, Genius Sports. The intention behind the new approach was that more consistent asset pricing and a more collaborative approach to sponsorship sales - with the league office and clubs working together - would maximize league-wide sponsorship revenues.
The change, however, would require a league-wide sponsorship tracking system that could:
Identify sold and unsold asset inventory in real-time, across all games and media platforms, based on every club’s latest sponsorship sales in their local markets.
Track revenues and sales conversations across the league in order to be more strategic and coordinated with business development efforts.
Ensure proper alignment on the trafficking, reporting, and measurement of sponsorship deliverables for league and club partners.
To achieve this, the CFL worked with PandoPartner to implement its state-of-the-art cloud-based sponsorship tracking platform.
Pictured: Several CFL sponsorship assets that are tracked through the PandoPartner platform:
The Implementation Process
PandoPartner’s work began first by gaining a thorough understanding of the relevant sponsorship assets and agreements across each club’s stadiums and digital platforms. As part of this initial learning, it was important to fully understand the details of how the league’s games and fan engagement platforms operated, and how assets were sold - in what quantities, and with what rate card values.
Then, after a temporary internal tool was utilized as a pilot, PandoPartner’s software platform was set up to administer all of the necessary workflows, collaborations, analytics, and reminders required to properly roll out an optimized sponsorship tracking approach across the league.
In order for the new solution to drive the intended results, PandoPartner led the charge in educating, training, and listening to partnership personnel across the league and nine clubs, so that everyone involved felt comfortable with the new processes and tools. PandoPartner played a lead role in developing training videos, administering group and individual training sessions, and corresponding to email inquiries throughout the roll-out.
Michele Vella - Director, Commercial Operations
“They produced a road map for implementation, including weekly touchpoints and actively encouraged end-user feedback, which was promptly acted upon. In our case, the implementation was not only for the league, but each of the nine clubs as well, requiring a more 1:1 approach customized to how each operates.
The team at Pando has done an excellent job of navigating the unique challenges of each group of end-users, while also making sure I have continued visibility to the overall implementation to make sure our core processes remain consistent.“
Outcomes and Momentum
Ultimately, by implementing the new sponsorship tracking system, the CFL has been able to successfully operationalize their new commercial model for the league and clubs.
The league now ensures that assets are not discounted from their proper market value, and it can more easily work with clubs to sell unsold inventory to national partners and advertisers. Additionally, more sophisticated and automated sales and pipeline reporting allows for better alignment on national partnership opportunities - by identifying partners and prospects that are a fit across club and league properties.
From a fulfillment and reporting perspective, there is a more seamless link between sold quantities for a particular asset and the progress being made in delivering against those quantities throughout the year. This tracking helps the league and clubs to proactively and strategically manage digital and media asset banks throughout the calendar year.
Through improved efficiency, readily-available analytics and better collaboration, the CFL and its clubs look forward to a new era of commercial growth!