PHILADELPHIA, Aug. 31, 2022 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- LeagueSide, the leading community sports sponsorship platform, today announced a milestone in company growth by surpassing $20M in sponsorships. To date, LeagueSide has worked with more than 200 regional and national companies to help them achieve hyper-local marketing goals at a national scale by reaching target audiences in a meaningful way through youth sports sponsorships. On average, companies who have used the LeagueSide platform have seen a 134% increase in brand awareness and 74% increase in favorability within key markets.
LeagueSide has created a new marketing channel that is highly effective for brands and also provides much needed funding to youth sports organizations. With an omni-channel approach to reach families inside and outside their homes, companies sponsoring sports organizations through LeagueSide are featured on and off the field through athletes’ jerseys, signage prominently placed at youth sports facilities, leagues’ social media platforms, on-site activation opportunities, email marketing campaigns and more. LeagueSide’s platform includes dedicated dashboards to track metrics that include information about all of the youth sports partners sponsored, visualization of where they are located, and market research on brand favorability and sentiment.
A few clients who just concluded successful campaigns during the spring 2022 season and have renewed for fall 2022 include DIRECTV, Curative, Opendoor and Checkers and Rally’s.
- DIRECTV collaborated with LeagueSide to help support teams and families nationwide while increasing brand discoverability and supporting future sports viewership. To achieve these goals and reach their target audiences in specific regions, DIRECTV sponsored more than 550 youth sports organizations through LeagueSide to reach 430K+ families within 44 key markets.
- Opendoor, a digital real estate platform, partnered with LeagueSide to pilot youth sports sponsorships across leagues in three key Texas markets. The brand reached over 7,500 households and saw a massive increase of 302% in first choice unaided brand recall. Opendoor also increased its community support score by 50%, and families were 25% more likely to choose Opendoor after the season. After a successful pilot season in Texas, Opendoor is expanding across three additional DMAs, sponsoring over 50 leagues to reach over 25,000 households in the fall 2022 and spring 2023 sports seasons.
- Checkers and Rally’s partnered with LeagueSide to reach new customers, further demonstrate themselves as a community partner and increase lifetime value of families in key target areas. In the spring 2022 season, they collectively sponsored 11 youth sports leagues across two key markets, which earned them 5.2M impressions, supported 10K+ athletes and distributed 10K+ coupons at events.
- For the spring 2022 season, Curative partnered with LeagueSide to introduce their brand to communities and drive traffic to testing sites in key areas. To achieve this, they sponsored 31 leagues in 15 markets to reach over 28,000 families and earn 13.5M+ impressions. The sponsorship resulted in a 90% increase in community support score and 108% increase in brand favorability.
"Through our partnership with LeagueSide, Curative was able to reach our target audiences in a meaningful way,” said Miranda Gottlieb, Vice President of Marketing and Communications for Curative. “By sponsoring youth sports leagues, we could connect directly to the communities we serve for COVID-19 testing and achieve our goal of providing helpful information and messaging about our healthcare services to patients."
“Sports is at the heart of DIRECTV’s legacy connecting fans to their favorite teams and leagues, and LeagueSide gave us an opportunity to reach new audiences and household decision-makers nationwide through hyperlocal engagement with youth sports organizations,” said Vince Torres, Chief Marketing Officer at DIRECTV. “The platform also gave us the opportunity to demonstrate our commitment to and our love for sports, celebrating athletes of all ages alongside family and friends in the moments that matter.”
Through the sponsorships facilitated by LeagueSide, youth sports organizations across the country had the funds to buy new equipment, maintain their playing fields, offer scholarships to athletes that covered the cost of participation, and more. According to Havas Media Group’s 2021 Meaningful Brands report, 77% of consumers expect brands to support them and 64% of consumers prefer to buy from companies with a reputation for purpose as well as profit.
“We’re thrilled about LeagueSide's continued growth and the success of our clients’ campaigns, both of which further our mission of giving everyone the opportunity to play organized sports,” said Evan Brandoff, CEO of LeagueSide. “We now offer sponsorships for more than 20,000 sports organizations across the country, which allows us to impact the lives of young athletes while simultaneously enabling brands to achieve their local marketing goals. By making community sports sponsorships easy to execute and measure, we’re able to get kids off the sidelines and into the game and connect brands with people during the happiest moments of their week. Together, this creates a lasting, positive impression on consumers, which improves brand favorability and ultimately converts them into loyal customers.”
With about 60M children involved in youth sports across the United States, sponsoring youth sports organizations presents a large opportunity for brands to reach target demographics while making a difference. To learn more about LeagueSide, please visit: https://leagueside.com/
About LeagueSide
LeagueSide is the nation's leading community sports sponsorship platform, connecting brands with people in the happiest moments of their week. LeagueSide makes local sponsorships scalable, turnkey, and measurable. Companies including Cigna, DIRECTV and Taco Bell leverage LeagueSide to translate marketing goals into effective community sports sponsorships at 20,000+ sports organizations across the country. LeagueSide’s mission is to give everyone the opportunity to play.
