“Sorry. That table is taken, but I can offer you one on the patio.”
This is something we often hear after arriving at a popular restaurant on a jam-packed day when we showed up without a reservation. It’s not what we wanted to learn but might end up giving us a premium we didn’t expect.
After hearing the news that Ford has entered into a sponsorship agreement that includes rights to the outdoor space around the Air Canada Centre in the heart of Toronto (Canada’s largest city and North America’s fifth largest), we wondered if this new direction had hit other forms of sponsorship as well.
Ford’s announcement, reportedly after fan objections to the automaker’s unfortunate similarity with Toronto’s controversial Mayor Rob Ford, was part of an initially announced plan to change the name of Maple Leaf Square to Ford Square. That ultimately led to Ford Fan Zone at Maple Leaf Square and that piqued our curiosity further.
It provides evidence that a corporation sees significant value in such a public-facing investment. Much like the condo market (where the air above condos is bought and sold), the air and space near major sporting venues and clubs is suddenly accruing value.
Or, perhaps it is not the space itself that has any value but the platform it provides for activation to reach a particular target market who uses that space regularly (residents of the area) or periodically (before and during NHL, NBA or MLB playoff runs).
As professors of sponsorship, we wondered if the e-textbooks of 2020 will show a sports marketing mix that includes the air and space option alongside traditional contra provisions, cash-back guarantees, interchangeable naming rights and self-liquidating variable/dynamic ticket sales promotions.
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Ford named the space around Air Canada Centre the Ford Fan Zone at Maple Leaf Square.
Photo by: JONATHAN BIELASKI / LIGHT IMAGING
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We imagine there are many others. What about sponsoring the parking spots of star players or the hangar and reception area for a team’s private airplane? How about sponsoring the physical (or digital) highway that leads from the nearest airport to the team’s stadium?
Some of those are hard to imagine but if you really think about it, these kinds of concepts make sense and reflect the evolutionary nature of sponsorship. The long-standing flexibility of this marketing tactic underpins so many strategies and revenue schemes.
Very specifically, it is getting harder to reach people in places where they are actually paying attention and to leverage them in situations where they might listen to new ideas or associate their team loyalty with future consumer behavior. Clearly, these unique (and scarce) places where high levels of activation are possible will, in our view, continue to grow in value.
Sponsorship, as many have written, is all about activation and opportunities to leverage. And what could be better than activating the space near a high-traffic sports facility where the interior of the building is nothing but restrictions? Or creating concepts that alter perceptions?
Many readers will know that one of us used to work in Sydney and perhaps the most iconic architecture in that fabled city is the Sydney Opera House. If you’ve never been to Australia you might expect the Opera House is well-illuminated at night. What might surprise you is learning that the Australians frequently stage art and light shows on the flat-surfaced sails of this spectacular building.
To that end, think about how the Ford logo dominates the roof of Ford Field in Detroit. Those aerial shots from someone’s tire or insurance blimp now give much more bang for Ford’s sponsorship buck.
Want another way of thinking about this point? Let’s do a pop quiz: What’s the first thing that comes to mind if we write the phrase “Levi’s Stadium in San Francisco”? For many it will not be about work jeans but rather a lengthy discussion about the gargantuan commitment to technology and network interconnectivity.
Not far away in Sacramento, the Kings are rapidly leveraging a “farm-to-fork” concept that reportedly will guarantee 90 percent of the team’s food and drink will be locally sourced within 150 miles of Sacramento’s new arena (opening in October 2016). That supposedly means more than 740 farmers will be producing beef, pork, poultry, cheeses, olive oil, craft beers and wines for the food and beverage patrons of the Kings’ future home.
The theme to the two examples: Contemporary sports marketers are aggressively pushing the envelope and getting better at thinking outside the traditional sponsorship circle that has long relied on signage and VIP suites.
To that end, why not think about space and spatial designs in new ways? If you go back and review the history of mathematics, you’ll learn that, at one time, zero and negative numbers didn’t exist. They were heretical (so to speak). Then someone said “zero” was possible.
Might allow us to wonder what new concepts can be shaped for sponsorship in the coming decades and whether there is air out there that is waiting to be sold.
Rick Burton (rhburton@syr.edu) is the David B. Falk Professor of Sport Management at Syracuse University. Norm O’Reilly (oreillyn@ohio.edu) is the Fox Professor of Business and chair of the Department of Sports Administration at Ohio University.
