March saw giant US sports retailer Dick’s Sporting Goods team up with women’s sports multimedia platform Just Women’s Sport (JWS) to offer hoops fans a $150,000 grand prize – the largest first-place prize ever awarded in women’s college basketball – for the winner of the ‘2022 Just Women’s Sports x Dick’s Bracket Challenge’.
The campaign aims to leveraging the women’s NCAA March Madness tournament and aiming to drive awareness of, support for and engagement with the climax of the women’s college hoops season by making it a little more interesting and a little more lucrative.
The idea is based on the belief that once a fan fills out a bracket they become personally invested in the tournament games and the match outcomes and the activation aims to use this as a mechanic to bring more fans into the game and get more people to watch and appreciate the athleticism, skills and excitement.
To participate in the contest, fans are invited to register on Justwomenssports.com and on 13 March each participant can make their selections and picks once the tournament teams have been announced. The brackets will close on 18 March.
As well as the $150,000 grand prize, the two companies are also offering $250 Dick’s Sporting Goods gift cards for at least 10 runners up.
The 68-team bracket challenge aims to offer fans an accessible and exciting destination with news and analysis to help make predictions and compete among friends. Plus, fans can also follow an array of All-Star athletes on the bespoke JWS website as they try to walk away with a perfect bracket.
The challenge sees Dicks’ and JWS promote the challenge through the brand’s digital and social channels.
Let the madness begin #MarchMadness pic.twitter.com/WxFpC43PLc
— Just Women’s Sports (@justwsports) March 15, 2022
“We’re not interested in sponsorships from a traditional standpoint where we’re just getting media value or logo placement. We want our dollars to work toward truly benefiting athletes and changing the culture or excitement around the sport,” explained Dick’s Sporting Goods VP of Global Brand and Category Marketing Melissa Christian shared. “One of our first calls with JWS was about college basketball, and we had a shared passion around brackets. Brackets are a huge part of the culture and excitement around this specific moment, and we thought what an awesome opportunity — but it’s hard to find information about past women’s brackets because they either haven’t existed or they haven’t had the capital in terms of a prize to drive excitement around them. Together, we could change that.”
Christian adds that women’s college basketball has ‘an awesome existing fanbase’ and that the partnership seeks to further broaden it and grow it’.
“What we’re trying to do with Just Women’s Sports is challenge the way people see women’s sports. We want to go big, we want to push this space, we want to push the culture and that’s also what Dick’s Sporting Goods is about,” added Just Women’s Sports Founder and CEO Haley Rosen told FN. “They want to take big bets and big swings, and that’s what this space needs, so they’re exactly the type of partner that we want for this.”
“A big goal in everything that we do is we want to make it easy to be a women’s sports fan,” added Rosen. “It’s really easy to be a men’s sports fan. You see the game, you know the storylines and there’s a whole culture around the game. I think this bracket challenge, teaming up with Dick’s Sporting Goods, is really about the game around the game and that culture. It’s fun to follow March Madness because you see the athletes and maybe you’re in a pool, you have your bracket challenge, you’re getting together for Final Four games. Let’s build that on the women’s side.”
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While this initiative marks their first women’s college basketball bracket challenge, both Dick’s and JWS are ‘aligned in their desire for this to lead to something bigger, with the women’s game as the beneficiary’.
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