Hangar Event Celebrates United Airlines Deal With GS Warriors, Chase Center & Boys & Girls Clubs (SF)

The official airline of the Golden State Warriors celebrates it relationship and leverages the new NBA season with an initiative that blends the team tie-up with a multi-year sponsorship of its future Chase Center home and increased support for the Boys & Girls Clubs of San Francisco.

Essentially the airline ensured that a sponsorship announcement become a piece of activation itself that blended a branded space and PR push with an employee and player participation event and a cause campaign.

The announcement in question was a tripartite initiative between United Airlines, GSW Arena LLC and the Golden State Warriors that sees a new multi-year relationship ensuring the carrier is not just the Warrior’s official airline, but that it also becomes a founding partner for the yet-to-be-built Chase Center and add further travel support to the Boys & Girls Clubs of San Francisco’s basketball team.

This state-of-the-art sports and entertainment Chase Center complex is being constructed in San Francisco’s Mission Bay area that will become the NBA franchises new home.

To celebrate the deal, United staff were joined by Warriors stars Shaun Livingston, James Michael McAdoo and Zaza Pachulia, as well as team president and COO Rick Welts and Julia Haywood and members of the Boys & Girls Club trumpeted the new relationship with a news conference event in a giant aircraft hangar at United’s maintenance base in San Francisco.

United transformed the hangar into a fully functioning, full-sized, co-branded basketball court.

And the event saw United employees, Boys & Girls members and Warriors players compete in a basketball shooting game.

The event was filmed and posted on YouTube on 21 October

and amplified across the airline’s social networks.

We’re now the official airline of the @warriors! Find out about our sponsorship and how we’re helping the @BGCSF: https://t.co/7OtsCgyg4s pic.twitter.com/sfYNHOrkfT

— United (@united) October 20, 2016

We celebrated our new sponsorship with the @warriors, see all the fun we had with our new team and the @BGCSF. pic.twitter.com/ZBeMFT6AxB

— United (@united) October 21, 2016

Today was nothin’ but net, thanks to all who joined us. We look forward to taking off with the @warriors and @BGCSF in this new venture. pic.twitter.com/31mkWDPYV9

— United (@united) October 21, 2016

The new deal means United will begin its Warriors partnership for the 2016-17 season at current Oracle Arena and then continue the partnership when the team relocates to Chase Center.

United also announced it was expanding its relationship with the Boys & Girls Clubs of San Francisco (which inspires young people from disadvantaged circumstances to realize their full potential) with $60,000 in travel funds that will be used to fly its Rebels basketball team to Amateur Athletic Union basketball tournaments around the USA.

The new team and stadium deal sees United acquire a set of Warriors rights that arrange from radio, online and social media space, player time, image and mark access, as well as in-arena messaging at Oracle Arena and, later, at Chase Center.

The sponsorship also includes a loyalty scheme strand which sees United offer its MileagePlus members a chance to redeem their miles for access to seats, VIP experiences and autographed Warriors merchandise.

Plus, United will also have a brand presence at Chase Center’s East Side Club.

‘As the official airline of the Warriors, United solidifies its leadership and commitment to the San Francisco and Bay Area communities,’ explains United EVP and CCO Julia Haywood.

‘San Francisco is a key market for United, and this relationship demonstrates further investment in our employees and our customers.’

‘Adding United Airlines as a Founding Partner of Chase Center continues to show our commitment to building and operating a world-class sports and entertainment facility in San Francisco,’ claimed Rick Welts.

‘Chase Center will be the best destination in the world and adding United Airlines as a Founding Partner is integral in getting this privately financed venue built.’

Comment

This is just one of several airline campaigns activating basketball sponsorships to leverage the new NBA season: another example is Delta’s TipOff Or TakeOff sweepstakes – a competition to win LA Lakers away game tickets and trips.

But with two consecutive NBA Finals appearances and several of the biggest basketball stars on the planet in the line-up, not to mention the prospect of moving to a new $1bn arena, the USA’s third-largest commercial passenger carrier’s multi-year deal aims to leverage the enhanced standing and excitement around possibly the most attractive and high profile team in the league.

United aren’t the only brand to be keen to associate themselves with the glamour team of the NBA.

Since the team’s 2015 NBA championship win, it has signed several new deals: American Express’ recent partnership sees the credit card brand logo carried on courtside seating, while a storage area has been converted into the new Effen Vodka Penthouse (for new partner Beam Suntory), while JPMorgan Chase has signed on as the new naming rights sponsor for the team’s new stadium.

In total, the Warrior’s sponsorship revenue has climbed 20% season-over-season (according to Street & Smith’s Sports Business Journal) with $10m in new deals and $10m in renewals.

And that’s still without signing a deal to place a corporate logos on the team jerseys (a new three-year experiment green lit by the league this year)

Thus far, only the Philadelphia 76ers, which back in May penned a $5m-a-year deal with ticket reseller StubHub (see case study), and the Sacramento Kings which signed up with Blue Diamond Growers have announced jersey patch deals.

The Warriors, with their star-studded team and title ambitions would be hoping to raise significantly more from their own shirt deal.

United is one of the US airline industry’s most active sponsors with a portfolio that includes the US Olympic Team as well as properties in golf (PGA Tour), American Football (Chicago Bears, Cleveland Browns, Denver Broncos, Houston Texans, Kansas City Chiefs, New York Giants, San Francisco 49ers, Tampa Bay Buccaneers and Washington Redskins) and fitness/running (TCS NYC Marathon, NYC Half and a partnership with the New York Road Runners).

According to United’s marketing manager Mark Krolick, these three property sectors ‘over-index United’s primary sponsorship target – high-frequency business travelers’.

The airline focuses on relationships, rights and activations that span mainstream advertising (see our US Olympic Team case study), offer the chance to create exclusive content to distribute across digital and social media and to offer unique experiences (typically available through United’s loyalty membership scheme points).

As well as engaging key customers by connecting through their interests and passions, United also used sponsorship to deliver positive media value.

Links

United YouTube:

https://www.youtube.com/user/united

United Twitter

https://twitter.com/united

United Instagram:

https://www.instagram.com/united/

United Facebook:

https://www.facebook.com/UnitedUKIE/?brand_redir=199504650087085

United Google+:

https://plus.google.com/u/1/+united/videos