The next NBA jersey sponsorship signed for the upcoming 2017-18 season sees the Atlanta Hawks link up with the city-based health company Sharecare.
The sponsorship deal will see the Sharecare logo adorn the hoops’ team’s jerseys for the next five years.
To promote the new partnership, Sharecare, an Atlanta-based company founded by WebMD creator Jeff Arnold and television personality Dr Mehmet Oz, has linked with the Hawks for what it claims is a health project rather than a marketing campaign.
The initiative, titled “More Than A Patch: It’s A Movement”, aims to ‘make Atlanta one of the healthiest cities in the US’.
It is spearheaded by a hero spot launched on 17 August,
supported by social content across both team and brand channels including Instagram,
Facebook,
and Twitter.
More than a patch. @sharecareinc is a movement: pic.twitter.com/keoVOo9dtu
— Atlanta Hawks (@ATLHawks) August 17, 2017
#ICYMI, we've partnered with @SharecareInc on an innovative health movement. Details: https://t.co/U24rAJbAqh#TrueToAtlanta
— Atlanta Hawks (@ATLHawks) August 18, 2017
"What is @Sharecareinc?"
Funny you should ask: pic.twitter.com/0k1w7EMduO
— Atlanta Hawks (@ATLHawks) August 19, 2017
We're honored to begin our partnership w/ @ATLHawks. As Grant Hill said: "It's more than a patch. It's a movement." #SharecareMovement pic.twitter.com/ZVr4bnMeVn
— Dr. Mehmet Oz (@DrOz) August 17, 2017
“It was vital that our partner be Atlanta-based and one that shared our vision”
More on @SharecareInc
via @USATODAY https://t.co/4mZe59v76Y— Atlanta Hawks (@ATLHawks) August 20, 2017
"It's more than a patch. It's a movement." – @realgranthill33 #SharecareMovement #TrueToAtlanta pic.twitter.com/C9IgJiM3HB
— Sharecare (@SharecareInc) August 17, 2017
“Every team has had their own strategy with regard to patch partners,” says Hawks executive vice president and chief revenue officer Andrew Saltzman.
“But ours is very clear: true to Atlanta and making this a component of a much larger and fully integrated partnership that benefits our fan base, Atlanta as a whole and certainly our partner and ourselves.”
Comment:
A city-based partnership with a city-based objective – this deal is yet another example of how the new NBA patch partnerships are developing along local lines rather than global ones.
The Hawks are just the latest NBA franchise to unveil a jersey patch partnerships for the 2017-18 campaign and almost all of them to date have been based around local city synergies.
Jersey sponsorships were approved as part of a three-year pilot program by the NBA Board of Governors in April 2016 and will make their official on-court debuts when the 2017-18 NBA season starts on 20 October.
NBA sides are permitted to sell a small (2½-by-2½-inch) patch on the jersey’s left shoulder: a move that industry experts speculate could be worth between US$5m and US$10m per year.
Revenue from the new NBA shirt sponsorships will be split in three ways: the team retains 25%, the league’s revenue sharing pool nets 25% and 50% goes to the players under the terms of the league’s collective bargaining agreement.
The Bucks become the 12th NBA team to agree a jersey patch sponsorship ahead of the new season.
The other 11 teams that have already filled the position are the Philadelphia 76ers (StubHub), Boston Celtics (General Electric), Sacramento Kings (Blue Diamond Growers), Orlando Magic (Disney), Cleveland Cavaliers (Goodyear), Minnesota Timberwolves (Fitbit), Utah Jazz (Qualtrics), Brooklyn Nets (Infor), Toronto Raptors (Sun Life Assurance Company), Detroit Pistons (Flagstar Bank) and the Denver Nuggets (Western Union).
Unlike other sports leagues around the world – most notably the Premier League (where a recent SportQuake study found that on average only 11.5% of a Premier League club’s social following are based in the UK) – this first wave of NBA jersey sponsorship deals have been dominated by alliances between teams and locally-based US businesses.
In addition to the Hawks/Sharecare tie-up, other examples of this local market led approach include the Cleveland Cavaliers and Goodyear (see case study) and the Orlando Magic and Disney (see case study).
Thus, despite the league recent global marketing efforts and overseas games series, this revenue reflects the more domestic nature of the NBA compared to global reach of the Premier League.
Links:
Atlanta Hawks
https://www.youtube.com/user/OfficialAtlantaHawks
https://www.facebook.com/hawks
https://www.instagram.com/atlhawks/#
Sharecare
https://twitter.com/SharecareInc
