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The Impact of a Name
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Source: The NY Times
If you haven’t heard already, the world is changing. One area, in particular, is the name of sports franchises. In recent memory, we’ve seen the Washington Redskins become the Washington Football Team, the Edmonton Eskimos to Elks, and now the Cleveland Indians are the Guardians. With many areas to consider, we’ll solely try and look at this topic from a sports marketing angle.
There’s a number of things that come to mind immediately, when looking at this name change from our angle: merchandise, sponsorship and public relations.
First, when looking at merchandise it’s clear when a team changes their name, branding, or jersey, there’s an influx of merchandise dollars. Don’t believe us? Think back to the time your favourite team changed their jersey, how many seasons did it take for the whole stadium to be wearing the new threads? From experience, we noticed 2-3. So that’s the first major impact.
The second is sponsorships. We’ve seen this in numerous situations whether it’s with athletes or clubs, brands want to be attached to assets that represent their values. With that, you can be sure that sponsorship dollars played a major role in this name change because at the end of the day sponsorship dollars make the sports world go round.
Lastly, let’s look at PR. The way fans, the community or even society look at a sports organization is ever-changing based on their actions. The sentiment an audience has towards an organization plays a major factor in the value of their assets, this is why communications and PR are so important in sports. In simpler terms, if your club is viewed in positive sentiment, you can charge higher rates for items such as sponsorships, as it plays a factor in consumer behaviour. This is where the trickle-down effect takes place:
Positive sentiment = More $
More $ = Improved team operations
Improved team operations = More on field success
More on field success = Larger fan base
Larger fan base = More assets being sold at a higher rate (merchandise, sponsorships, tickets, media rights, etc.)
This effect also acts in reverse with a negative sentiment which gives you a better idea of why teams are now changing their names after they said they would never. It’s an unfortunate realization but money talks. As a young JB and Jaden Smith once said ‘Never Say Never’.
Published: July 30th, 2021 - Issue 2 of The Sport Marketeer