Kate Johnson worked on Visa’s long-term sponsorships with the IOC and NFL during her six-year tenure.Visa
In a signal that Google is prepared to unleash more of its vast resources on sports, the Silicon Valley giant is building a global content and sports media partnerships team.
On Jan. 6 Kate Johnson, formerly Visa’s head of global sponsorship marketing, will start at Google’s San Francisco offices. She will build a division dedicated to organizing the tech behemoth’s existing sports relationships and finding new deals across the globe, the first time the nearly $1 trillion company will have a centralized, enterprise-level sports and entertainment division. Her title is head of global partnerships, content and sports media.
Johnson emphasized she will spend much of 2020 auditing the landscape, and her intentions will likely evolve based on what she learns. But the starting point is a sense within Google that it could be getting more out of sports and cultural marketing, which to date has mostly been through commercial buys.
“Google is showing up in a lot of different spaces, but they’ve come in through the media side of the conversations,” she said. “But the question is are we getting traction with consumers, and B2B partners? Sometimes without the IP there’s only so much you can do to drive the connection.”
Johnson’s team will work within the Google Media Lab, an internal agency that handles media strategy for all ad campaigns. Over the last six years at Visa, Johnson worked on the payment processor’s long-term deals with the International Olympic Committee and NFL, which were both renewed during her tenure.
Culture and entertainment are a big part of her remit, she said. “This isn’t just sports. They really want to own cultural moments.”
Google’s sports presence includes Google Cloud sponsorships with the Golden State Warriors at Chase Center and the NCAA, a limited exclusive MLB rights package on YouTube and YouTube TV, YouTube TV sponsorships of postseason baseball and the NBA Finals, and some YouTube jersey deals and local streaming rights in MLS. Google Japan will be a third-tier domestic sponsor of the Tokyo 2020 Games in a new category: Internet-based information and navigation services.
Few, if any, companies have had the range and cash to influence sports and entertainment at the scale Google could. YouTube, Google Cloud, Google Maps, Google Home and its bread-and-butter search business could all anchor global campaigns.
Google’s parent, Alphabet, reported $121 billion in cash on hand as of Sept. 30, and had a market capitalization of $934 billion on Jan. 2. With those resources, Google could redefine the entire concept of sports strategy, blending sponsorship, advertising and content creation, or even acquiring properties outright.
