What is Sports Marketing? (+10 Sports Marketing Examples)

Sports and marketing go hand in hand. Sports grab our attention, while marketing turns that interest into revenue. It’s a powerful relationship that’s stood the test of time and presents an excellent opportunity for small business owners.

Sports marketing builds brand awareness and makes your company more relatable to its customers. You don’t have to be a big brand to launch a sports marketing campaign. You just have to connect with the right audience and forge strong partnerships with leagues, teams, and athletes in your area.

In this post, we’ll explain what sports marketing is and then dive into a list of examples that small business owners can learn from. Then, we’ll wrap up with a few tips you can use to launch a sports marketing campaign at your business.

What is Sports Marketing?

Sports marketing is the promotion of a brand through a sports league, athlete, or sporting event. These campaigns include ads, sponsorships, and partnerships between brands and professional or amateur sports leagues.

When we think about sports marketing, most of us jump to the NFL or another professional sports league. But it isn’t just limited to the pros; your small business can also leverage sports marketing within your local community. While it might not have the same reach as a Super Bowl ad, it will definitely build brand awareness in your area.

Let’s look at a few examples of sports marketing campaigns and what small business owners can learn from them.

Sports Marketing Examples

Here are 10 examples of successful sports marketing campaigns that were launched in the last few years. We’ll review each one and what you can learn from them in the sections below.

1. Gold for Every Moment – Video Ad

Corona aired a timely Olympic marketing campaign that captured the key moments from the Paris games and combined them with big moments people have outside sports. The ad starts with an image of Jamaican sprinter, Elain Thompson-Herah, then flashes to a man who is running the same way but toward a beach instead. The message behind this ad is that “gold moments” exist everywhere, not just at the Olympics, and Corona is a great way to celebrate those moments.

What we can learn from this:

This ad is very powerful. While most of us aren’t Olympians, we can all relate to the feelings and moments depicted in the video. It’s timely and captures our attention with recent and relevant events.

As a small business owner, your ads shouldn’t just sell products. They should invoke emotions like this one does to grab your audience’s attention.

2. Jordan’s Furniture Red Sox Giveaway – Contest

Jordan’s Furniture has been running this contest since the early 2000s, and every New Englander can remember hearing, “If the Sox throw a no-hitter, your furniture is free!”

The contest has evolved over the years, but the principle remains the same. If the Red Sox achieve an incredible milestone, Jordan’s Furniture will give away furniture for free. The catch? You must purchase your furniture before the season starts to be eligible for the contest. That way, Jordan Furniture makes money if the Sox don’t reach the benchmark they’ve set.

What we can learn from this:

This contest does a great job of grabbing people’s attention – after all, who doesn’t want free stuff?

It also favors Jordan’s Furniture because the company gets to make the rules each year. It can change the benchmark to match the team’s expectations, so if the team is good, the goal is harder to reach. This caveat creates a better chance that the company will profit, and it comes at no additional cost to its customers. They were buying furniture anyway, but now they get to join in the local fun of rooting for the Sox with the hope that their purchase will be free.

3. The Savannah Bananas – Event

If you haven’t heard of the Savannah Bananas, they’re an amateur baseball team that has become an overnight sensation for baseball fans. They created “Banana Ball,” which is the club’s take on modern baseball: They’ve made up their own rules, found new ways to engage fans, and have been touring the U.S. as a sold-out show ever since.

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What we can learn from this:

The Savannah Bananas are an excellent example of event marketing done well. They took amateur baseball, which has a niche audience, and gave it widespread appeal. Now, families, kids, and people with no interest in baseball flock to these games because the athletes entertain and engage attendees in ways professional sports can’t. (If it sounds familiar, that’s because you may have heard of the Harlem Globetrotters, which did something similar with basketball.)

Small businesses can learn a lot from this approach. Like the Savannah Bananas, find ways to engage your audience and make them feel like they are a part of your event – no matter what your industry is. Not only will that help you give customers a memorable experience, but it will also boost your word-of-mouth marketing.

4. Breaking 50 – YouTube Channel

Bryson Dechambeau is a professional golfer and a YouTube influencer. He’s started a series called “Breaking 50,” which documents him playing with other celebrities from the shortest tees on the course. In the videos, Dechambeau interviews his guests and has really interesting conversations about golf and their careers.

What we can learn from this:

Anyone can start a YouTube channel, but creating content that people will watch is tricky. Creating content that shows a low-stakes challenge, like this one does, is an effective way to gain your followers’ attention because it creates suspense, and you can document the story until you achieve your goal. If Dechambeau and his partner don’t shoot a score under 50 strokes, he can try again in another video, leading to more content for his channel. That keeps his followers interested and gives him plenty of content marketing to work with.

5. Red Bull Cliff Diving Series – Event

Red Bull is no stranger to sports marketing. It has dominated the extreme sports category for years, with events like this one featuring cliff-diving in different countries. These events align perfectly with the slogan “Red Bull gives you wings,” and capture the attention of thrill-seekers worldwide.

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What we can learn from this:

Red Bull’s events are successful because they’re on-brand for the business. The company sells energy drinks, so its events should be energetic and intense. Red Bull wants to associate these adrenaline-inducing activities with its products and advertisements. Your company can try something similar by studying your customers and creating events that fit your brand’s persona.

6. La Compil des Bleues – Commercial

Before we break this one down, go ahead and watch this ad.

Did your jaw drop, too? Mine sure did, and so did thousands of others when it aired.

If you’re a little short on time to watch videos, this one features moments from French soccer players in the last few years. But here’s the catch. While the first minute shows you clips of incredible plays made by male athletes, the final minute unveils the curtain and shows how they superimposed male faces over female athletes. So, the clips you saw in the first minute were actually women from the French team.

What we can learn from this:

This commercial demonstrates how a little creativity can go a long way in advertising. While your business might not have the same resources, you can still match the ingenuity of this campaign. Think about ad ideas that can focus on something that will inspire your audience to buy from you – rather than what you sell and how much it costs.

7. One Jets Drive – Docuseries

A docuseries is a group of videos that provides an inside look into a person, team, event, or organization. In this case, the New York Jets created a docuseries that gives viewers a behind-the-scenes look at the team’s training camp. The videos include interviews with players and snapshots of key moments of the preseason.

What we can learn from this:

People love a good story, and that’s what a docuseries provides. It’s reality TV that viewers can follow for their favorite sports team. And in your case, you could document your journey as a small business owner. Social media accounts like this one are dedicated to sharing stories from entrepreneurs about growth and things they’ve learned in their careers.

8. Favorite Olympic Team – Social Media

Social media is one of the best places to leverage sports marketing for your business. Sports are timely, and there are major news stories about them nearly every day. That provides a perfect opportunity to connect with your followers like this account did during the Olympics. Notice how they ask viewers to comment on their favorite basketball team, creating more engagement and interactivity with the post.

What we can learn from this:

Social media might be the most cost-effective option for sports marketing. Content like this will interest your audience and familiarize them with your brand. Then, when it comes to buying something, you’ll be more relevant because buyers have engaged with you online.

9. HOT-N-READY Giveaways & Getaways – Contest

As part of its “HOT-N-READY Giveaways & Getaways” campaign, Little Ceasars is giving away a one-of-a-kind NFL fan experience to a few lucky customers this year. To enroll, customers have to submit a Little Caesars receipt before the deadline, and the company picks the winners for all the prizes. Aside from the NFL experience, participants can also win pizzas, appetizers, and company swag like a “It’s Hot-N-Ready® Somewhere” clock.

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What we can learn from this:

Giveaways are a great marketing strategy for small businesses. You just need to pick a prize your customers will get excited about. Tickets to a game, meet-and-greets, and autographed apparel are perfect for sports fans who shop at your business.

10. The Orange Carpet – Partnership

Bumble recently announced a partnership with the WNBA and will sponsor the Orange Carpet this year. The Orange Carpet is an annual event that celebrates WNBA players by providing them with stylists who help show off their personal styles and fashion on a public stage. It’s great for social media and helps build awareness for the league.

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What we can learn from this:

Partnerships are an effective way to attach your brand to a league or athlete. Not only will Bumble generate a lot of marketing content from this partnership, but its logo will also be placed all over WNBA events like this one. It serves as a constant reminder to fans that Bumble is synonymous with the WNBA. And, while you may not have the budget of a major dating app, start local and see if there are events nearby where you could consider a similar partnership.

Before we wrap up, let’s look at how you can apply these examples and get your business into sports marketing.

How to Get into Sports Marketing

Here are a few tips for starting a sports marketing campaign at your business.

Research your customers.

The first step is researching your customers to see what sports they like and which ones they follow on TV and social media. Facebook is a great place to start. You can use the “audience insights” tab to see which pages your customers will likely follow based on likes on your Facebook page.

Here’s an example:

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Look for a sports team in your area. It could also be a local country club or a recreational league in your town. These are almost better partners for your business because you know their audience is local and potentially familiar with your brand.

Sponsor recreational sports leagues.

You don’t have to sign a multi-million dollar deal to get into sports marketing. There are likely plenty of amateur and recreational sports leagues in your area that your business can sponsor. Little League is one example, but there are also bowling leagues, hunting clubs, dance teams, and more that will partner with you, too.

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Partner with a local club or team.

Sporting clubs are almost as popular as sports teams. Take country clubs, for example. People spend thousands of dollars hanging out at exclusive clubs and using their facilities.

Country clubs will often partner with local businesses to bring in more revenue. They’ll sell ad placements on their golf course or driving range like this one. Or, they’ll host a contest to see who can drive the ball the farthest or get it closest to the hole. The winner gets a prize like a free round of golf paid for by the company.

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Another option is to partner with a local sports team. For example, the Tampa Rowdies are a soccer team that partnered with a hometown pizza restaurant called Colony Grill. Now Colony Grill is the official pizza of the Rowdies and can launch marketing campaigns related to the team.

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Work with a rising star.

Amateur athletes are always looking for new sponsors, and now that college athletes can get paid, there are plenty of rising stars that you can partner with to market your business.

You can also look for athletes who might be local celebrities. For example, a star player on the local high school football name might not be a national household name, but is likely well-known locally and would be recognizable in advertisements. These are great spokespeople for your business because they’re trusted figures in your community and can motivate people to buy your products and services.

The Marketing of Sports

Sports are like movies or music. They’re a form of entertainment that you know your customers are paying attention to. If you want your marketing campaign to succeed, you have to understand their fandom and care about the sport as much as they do. Use these examples to inspire your sports marketing campaigns and follow the tips above to fine-tune your efforts over time.