The Star in Frisco Shines as Fan Attraction

 Advent partnered up with America’s football team to create interactive attractions fans couldn’t miss out on!

By: Chris Reik

Click the Image Above to Visit the Cowboys website 

Editor’s Note

Dear Faithful Readers,

Happy Holidays! Leaving October in the rear view, I can’t wait for the upcoming Holiday Season! With Thanksgiving right around the corner, it’s now the time of year that everyone is in the mood for some football. The Dallas Cowboys wanted to make sure their fans got everything they wanted and more, so they hired Advent to create the ultimate hands-on fan experience. The partnership focused on creating a fan attraction at The Star, which would evolve into a multi-use district centered around the team’s World Headquarters and training facilities.

On this edition of the Selling It feature, we will look at the partnership between Advent and The Dallas Cowboys and see how together they created a statement in the world of NFL fan engagement.

Best,

Carlie Dawson
Marketing & Communications Coordinator
carlie@sports-forum.com

P.S. – Don’t forget to stay engaged with us on social media! Follow @NatlSportsForum on Twitter, Instagram, Linkedin and like us on Facebook!

PROGRAM TITLE

The Star in Frisco Shines as Fan Attraction

OBJECTIVES

When The Dallas Cowboys began planning for The Star, the only certainty was that the headquarters and training facility would be moving to Frisco. With a 91-acre plot of land, talks progressed to include what the brand should mean at The Star and how the brand might be created in ways that fans could interact with it. The finished project reflects the end vision to provide a fan experience for Cowboys fans 365 days/year. It was unprecedented. No team had envisioned creating a non-gameday mecca away from the actual stadium that was a major attraction for fans.

PROGRAM DESCRIPTION

Anchored by The Ford Center, a 12,000-seat practice facility, the campus is surrounded by fan experiences that are specific to the team. Surrounding the practice facility is a Ring of Honor walk, a full-sized football field surrounded by interactive, motion-sensory games, and a Cowboys-branded gym, Cowboys Fit. There are elements of practicality. The multi-use district also includes retail, restaurants and a hotel. Former Cowboys QB Roger Staubach is even planning a luxury high-rise apartment development in the heart of The Star campus, which will include membership to Cowboys Fit. But the initial vision was to focus on the fan experience.

Click Here to Watch a Video About the Interactive Attractions

 

PARTNERSHIP

During the brainstorming process, the Cowboys developed a relationship with Advent, a Nashville-based design thinking and experience creation firm. Along with branding throughout the campus of The Star, Advent would also lead the team in creating fan-centric sponsor inventory. To sell brand partners on the vision for The Star, Advent would sketch ideas for opportunities where brands could benefit. And they bought in. “After we built AT&T Stadium, we created an expectation around what we would build and what that experience would be,” said Chad Estis, Executive VP of Business Operations for the Cowboys. “It had to live up to what was done at AT&T Stadium. There was also pressure to figure out how to monetize what we were doing because it had never been done before. There were super high expectations on quality, experience, and ultimately revenue, and Advent delivered on all three.”

RESULTS

Because monetizing this experience was a point of interest, Advent commissioned a study analyzing sponsor ROI on the sponsored elements the firm created. The study focused on brand awareness and likelihood to purchase product after engaging with sponsored inventory. The study was completed in 2018, two years after the project had been installed, analyzing a food, beverage and automotive brand, all three of which are sponsors. Just by visiting The Star, the sponsors saw the following brand equity increases: Automotive brand: 27.5% Beverage brand: 10.1% Snack brand: 9.5% Advent CEO John Roberson noted, “Sponsor success is governed by the fan, so the activation experiences must be created for the fan. The Cowboys have excelled in giving fans a reason to come back, and the experience at The Star is a shining example of that. That’s the reason they’re the most valuable sports franchise in the world, because the fan always wants more.”

LOOKING AHEAD

The Cowboys continue to develop The Star as a multi-use district and fan destination. As many teams look at developing multi-use districts around stadiums, there are monetization opportunities away from the stadium, 365 days/year. What the Cowboys have done is lay a blueprint to how this can be done.

CONTACT

For more information on the partnership between the Cowboys and Advent to ideate The Star as a fan attraction, contact Brewer Owen, Content Marketing & PR Specialist at brewer.owen@adventmovespeople.com

To see more details on this project, visit https://adventmovespeople.com/projects/dallas-cowboys

To watch a video about the interactive attractions, visit https://vimeo.com/233996041

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THE NSF SALUTES OUR PARTNER

Founded in 1999, Advent Creates Experiences That Move People®. The Nashville-based firm partners with collegiate athletic programs, professional sports teams, universities and more, offering an array of creative services from consulting to design/build to digital experiences. Advent’s collaborative process focuses on design thinking, co-creating with clients and innovative problem solving which empowers partners to engage audiences through experiential moments and storytelling spaces. Advent has delivered more than 2,000 projects including The Star in Frisco – Dallas Cowboys World Headquarters, The University of Texas Athletics Hall of Fame and the Stanford Home of Champions. Learn more at www.adventmovespeople.com.