The sports and marketing lingo isn’t all there is in sports marketing. If it were so, there was no reason for brands worth multi-millions, involved in selling educational services or producing dairy to get associated with sportspersons and sports sponsorship. Or for former sports stars to be featured in credit card portal’s commercials. This only makes it evident that one plus one isn’t two in sports marketing. Neither is it eleven, in most of the cases.
Directing a sponsorship towards the best-suited athlete takes a lot of brainstorming behind the scene. Bringing two parties on the same page, while taking care of the goodwill of both and ensuring that both are benefitted is what it takes to crack a deal.
As a sportsperson, getting into touch with brands and negotiating deals oneself might not be a good idea. Neither is it the best practice for brands to call on an athlete or their manager. The reasons involve miscommunications that happen often and mismatch in interest, along with no surety of the returns (for both the parties involved).
“Communication is a key point in sports marketing,” said the CEO of FWT Consulting Kavita. “By communication, we mean to see a reason for an association and to convince another party into seeing the same reason, and be ready to invest into it.”
Agreed that most of the information in the world is just a click away. One can easily gather information on sports marketing through numerous blogs and articles available online. But to think that’s enough to find sponsorship for oneself is as good an idea as self-prescribing medicines because you studied biology in class ninth.
Getting a sponsorship all by oneself might be flex to some, but they’d still be unaware of the deal was good as per market standards. Or if they could have made more bucks out of it. Or if their inexperience could be turned into a USP and be branded in the form of a hashtag.
“We, at FWT Consulting, often come across people who question the need of a ‘someone else’ to look after their sponsorships and nurture contracts,” Kavita elaborated. “The question however is, if one’s really into sports, why would one want to get into anything other than that? Especially in a process that involves legal procedures, good communication and maintaining relationships as much as it involves various other technicalities.”
Not mean to pull your motivation down, but if you do wish to be a do-it-all person, chances are you’d be better at making Instagram reels, than at sports marketing.
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