5 Social Media Sponsorship Scenes We Love

At Blinkfire, we love the great work organizations, leagues, and teams do to stay connected with their fans. We also love when we see successful sponsorship activations. In honor of Valentine’s Day, we highlighted five branded social media scenes from traditional sports and esports that have stolen our hearts.

Player Arrivals

The player arrival is a highly anticipated event — for the athletes, fans and reporters. It’s an athletes time to show off their personalty and style through their fashion. The NBA has built the playbook on how to do player arrivals, as stars show up to the stadium dressed in their nicest suits, coolest hats, and trendiest shades. Over the last four years, player arrival posts have become one of the most popular pieces of content. Fans love to see what their favorite players wear, and teams have realized this, which is why many teams’ player arrival posts included sponsors. Some sponsors of player arrival content are Rakuten, Jet Blue, Michelob Ultra, and Tissot.

• Passive Brand Exposure: Brands appear on a player’s clothing, tunnel, carpet, or wall (like the Golden State Warriors x Oracle)
• Active Brand Exposure: Brand digital overlays are included in the image (like the Lakers x Hennessy example)
• Combination of active and passive brand exposure

Behind the scenes

Fans want to feel close to their favorite athletes — whether that means viewing a training session, a home meal, or a game day prep. And when it comes to behind-the-scenes, a teams’ locker room is the pinnacle. That’s where players celebrate after a victory, come together after a defeat, hear pep talks at halftime, and so much more. This is why we love videos and images preparing players’ uniforms before an important game, candid, fun interviews with players, and teams celebrating wins.

Stats

The Oakland Athletics‘ “moneyball” strategy helped them see how statistics can be a differential factor when signing players and developing teams. At Blinkfire, we know data helps make better decisions and enhances the fan experience. That’s why the stats scene is popular on social media, including player’s stats and infographics.

When highlighting player or game stats, there are many options: heat maps, shots on goal, and career milestones. Here are a few examples that any stat nerd (like us!) would love!

Game Preview

Preparing fans for an upcoming game is a perfect piece of content on social media and a scene we call “game preview” posts. Fans want to arrive at the game well-informed. Previewing matches provides gameday information and builds up hype around the event. Let’s face it, we like to show our knowledge of our favorite teams, and that’s why these posts are some of our favorites. Nottingham Forrest‘s game preview, in partnership with Eon Energy, will often include photos of players during games which gives exposure to kit sponsors Kappa, Carabao, and UNHCR ACNUR.

Esports-Specific Scenes

When putting brands in social media posts, whether actively or passively, the social media and content teams want both brand and content to be a natural integration that tells the right story. The Giants have worked with us for several years, and the team is an example of how sponsored posts can be playful and eye-catching. Check out these posts featuring one of the team’s jersey sponsors, Chupa Chups.

Blinkfire is your destination for news, data, and stories on sports, sponsorship, technology, and marketing. Interested in learning more about Blinkfire? Contact us today!