The gasoline that keeps a good portion of the sports machine running is sponsorship. I’m using the gasoline analogy today because there has been a high profile sponsorship dispute going on in the world of auto racing and I think it’s instructive to any of us who sell or buy pretty much anything.
You’ve probably heard of Danica Patrick, NASCAR‘s only female driver in its top-level series, The Monster Energy Cup. She drives for Stewart-Haas Racing (SHR), who sold the rights to sponsor her car in 2016 for several years. Somewhere along the line things went south and Nature’s Bakery terminated what was a three-year deal after the first year, claiming that SHR “did nothing other than collect Nature Bakery’s money”. An additional issue was that Danica personally endorsed a competing product (albeit one with no visibility on the car or around the races). SHR sued to recover the agreed-upon payments. As it turns out, Nature’s Bakery will sponsor four cars during this season, split between SHR’s drivers, as part of a settlement.
I spent a lot of years selling sports sponsorships and I know first-hand how hard it is sometimes not to over promise in your zealous pursuit of the sale. In this case, Nature’s Bakery was told to expect a 4-to-1 return on investment. The reality was there was no significant increase in sales. That could have been due to any number of reasons, including some that had to do with logistics and not with awareness, but it points to a core issue.
When you’re selling anything, setting expectations and agreeing on how performance is going to be measured is key. In this case, many of the measures of awareness did rise significantly, but if the client’s goal was sales then the buyer and seller seem misaligned. Keeping expectations of both parties on the same page and in alignment must be the goal of all parties, and the documents shouldn’t be signed until that goal is reached.
There also seems to be some inexperience in sports sponsorship at work here. A team that has Coke as a sponsor might very well have athletes who endorse Pepsi. An arena with Mastercard as a building sponsor might see an athlete who plays in that building in an American Express commercial. Danica is one of NASCAR’s most visible drivers and her personal endorsements should have been identified to the buyers (even though anyone could find them easily on her personal website). Always remember that a good seller sits on the same side of the desk (figuratively speaking) as their buyer since you’re both trying to accomplish the same thing.
Aligned expectations, appropriate measures of reaching goals, and transparency are how sports sponsorships (and others too!) get done and stay on track. You with me?
Consult Keith 