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- The Seattle Seahawks Find an Additional $500K in Value for Lumen Field with Trajektory's Holistic Sponsorship Reporting Platform
By: Camryn Henry
Dear Faithful Readers,
We are in playoffs for two important national leagues in the industry, the NHL and NBA; who will make it to the finals? At the NSF, we are only a month out from the Virtual Spring Summit on May 17, 2023. In this edition of our “Selling it…”, we discover how the Seattle Seahawks find an additional $500k in value for Lumen Field with the power of sponsorship data! Enjoy the read!
Warm Regards,
Melody Forstie
Sr. Manager, Marketing & Communications
melody@sports-forum.com
Description:
Storytelling is an important part of sports. It’s a tool we use to create meaningful experiences for our fans and community, but it goes beyond just fan engagement. It also plays a big role in sports sponsorship. With the right data and insights, teams can formulate stories that demonstrate their value and uniqueness to current and potential partners. The Seattle Seahawks were quick to realize the significance of providing real-time partnership value and impact data to partners and were one of the first to leverage advanced sponsorship insights with Trajektory — a technology and analytics platform that helps the world’s biggest teams, leagues, and brands evaluate their sponsorship value and impact in real-time. Prior to using this platform, and despite using multiple third-party vendors to evaluate the performance of their sponsorships, there were blind spots in their data reporting – slow data turnaround, inconsistent reporting metrics, varying methodologies, and lack of information on holistic valuations or insights on the majority of partner assets.
The Seahawks are able to gain insights across their entire sponsorship portfolio of partners and assets. While most vendors in the space report on 1-2 assets (typically social or television), the Trajektory platform is able to report on upwards of 18 unique asset types, delivering an unrivaled offering of insights and values to clubs and organizations. The team is able to evaluate its sponsorship value in real-time and see how it compares to other teams in the league. This platform cleans and organizes data across all partners and takes a deep dive into each individual asset. The Seahawks receive notifications with real-time updates and can download their data to share with their partners at any moment. Alex Kerr, CEO of Trajektory (formerly of Monumental Sports), explained how holistic insights could be beneficial to a team, saying, “We tie the full portfolio of sponsorship assets and partners together for our clients. By providing the full data picture and empowering groups to report in near real-time, groups like the Seahawks can make better-informed decisions about how they demonstrate exceptional value to current partners, or how they pitch and story tell to prospective ones.” The Seahawks also use advanced features around social media to better assess market competition with the competitor analysis tool, earned media social function to track value outside of their owned channels, and market demographics. Using all of this rich data, the team can provide proof of return on each of their partners’ investments and use it to pitch new sponsorship prospects.
Objectives:
When searching for a new partner, Peter Bach, Director of Revenue Analytics at the Seattle Seahawks, explained exactly what they were looking for, he said, “Our goal was to find a third- party vendor to evaluate all aspects of each deal so that we could efficiently provide valuation and prove ROI for each of our partners’ investment in our organization.” He also mentioned that the Seahawks wanted a partner who could provide an all-in-one platform so that they wouldn’t have to jump around from one platform to the next — as they had done once before. Having a third-party resource who, as Peter explained, “doesn’t necessarily have skin in the game…and is somebody who has created a formula that is consistent across all brands, leagues, and teams,” was an important quality that they were looking for in a partner. With the main initiative to begin providing efficient monthly overviews of sponsorship that were quick, but told an impactful story, the Seahawks wanted a platform that was user-friendly and could provide overviews of important information worth sharing with their partners on a consistent basis.
Partnership:
The Seattle Seahawks and Trajektory began their partnership nearly two years ago, as early adopters of the platform. “We are very appreciative of having an early partner that was very forward-thinking and willing to try and adopt new technology,” Alex shared. The Seahawks have been able to use this platform successfully not only for the acquisition of new sponsors but also for retention and building stronger relationships with their current sponsors as well. Trajektory and the Seahawks take a communicative approach to their partnership with Trajektory ensuring that they are best serving the Seahawks by understanding what data the team is looking for and enhancing their platform to meet their needs.
Results:
Since using the Trajektory platform, the Seahawks have received phenomenal feedback from their sponsors. Over the last year, the Seahawks saw an increase in satisfaction regarding the partnership insights provided and frequency in which they were provided, from 3.6 to 4.7 on a 5-point rating, when analyzing the survey results of their partners. They also found that Lumen, their naming rights partner, was one of the top-ranked draft entitlement partners in terms of the money value of their exposure compared to other NFL partners. Through the platform’s earned media feature, they also discovered an additional $500K in value for Lumen Field and have been able to associate over 20 earned media social accounts, such as local journalist and ESPN, worth following to see how much-earned media their partners are truly generating online.
The Seahawks have also been able to compare the value of all their exposure across all team assets and use this insight to tell their partners why the Seahawks are worth investing in. “It’s really important for us to show that we are going above and beyond with our activations and providing that value to an equal or greater extent than most other teams and leagues,” Peter exclaimed. This paid off for the team as one of their partners shared that they had pulled back from other partnerships so that they could allocate and invest more into the Seahawks. The
team has also been able to scale back on some of its investments with other data vendors after partnering with Trajektory. “We focus on a ‘less is more’ approach. We want to charge premium dollars for premium assets and this platform has helped us achieve that,” Peter also mentioned.
Looking Ahead:
As the Seahawks look ahead, they plan to continue their partnership with Trajektory and continue using their platform to build new and solidify current relationships with their sponsors. Peter shared the excitement he feels as he thinks about the future, he said, “After two years of using the platform and seeing some fantastic success stories, I am very much looking forward to our future relationship with Trajektory and seeing what we can provide to our partners moving forward.” Learn more at https://www.trajektory.com/.
About the National Sports Forum
The National Sports Forum is one of the largest annual cross-gathering in North America of the top executives from leagues, teams, agencies, and properties in the sports industry, who come together and share ideas and best practices on Marketing, Business Development, Ticket Sales, Sponsorship, and Diversity & Inclusion. Visit www.sports-forum.com for more information. Join us Wednesday, May 17th for the NSF Virtual Spring Summit and enjoy everything attendees love about the NSF at your fingertips. Learn more at https://sports-forum.com/virtual-spring-summit/.
The NSF Salutes Our Partner
Tixr is a global experiential commerce leader transforming the ticket-buying experience. Born from a fan-focused frame of mind, the Tixr platform empowers large-scale facilities, teams, leagues, and events with simple solutions to highly complex ticketing and eCommerce problems. Leveraging sophisticated technology, Tixr creates products that go beyond ticketing to deliver a positive experience from the initial sale to the moment of arrival and beyond. Tixr proudly services over 500 of the most respected live entertainment brands in 40 countries, including more than 20 sports partnerships not limited to LIV Golf, Acura Long Beach Grand Prix, Riot Games, Professional Pickleball Association Tour, Fan Controlled Football, and Bell Bank Park. See upcoming events at tixr.com and learn more about Tixr at creators.tixr.com.