Sponsoring an event or stadium? Don’t make this critical mistake

Event sponsorship remains an effective tool for businesses of all sizes to get their branding in front of a large number of energized people. And these days, with pandemic shutdowns firmly in the rearview mirror, sponsorships are as popular as ever. In their 2022 global sports marketing report, Nielsen Sports reveals that sports sponsorships were up 107% in 2021. Importantly, those sponsorships had a tangible impact on sales and revenue: increasing fan purchase intent by 10%.

So if your business has signed the dotted line and secured a sponsorship, there’s good reason to be optimistic. But finalizing a sponsorship is in many ways just the beginning — and not only because of the obvious activities like property rights usage, relationship management, and attribution tracking. An often-overlooked aspect of sports and event sponsorships involves the tickets that are part of the deal. If your business isn’t prepared to deal with the sudden influx of sports tickets, then managing and allocating those tickets can quickly become more of a headache than they’re worth. Here’s why: Ticket requests and approvals need a clearly defined process When you’re holding the best tickets in the venue, you don't want those seats going to whoever requests them first. Similarly, you don’t want just any employee taking more than their fair share – treating their friends and family to a free event just because they can. To avoid anyone taking advantage of your sponsorship tickets, and to ensure the right people are in the right seats, you’ll need a clearly defined ticket request and approval process. Creating and running this process can be a full-time job, so it’s important to use the tools and technology that’s available for this explicit purpose: like the TicketOS ticket management system. Event communication needs to be quick and seamless We’ve all had event plans change at the last minute, from covid-related delays, to pop stars canceling their tours, to games being moved out due to bad weather. When tickets have been allocated to employees, clients, or other business stakeholders, your business is responsible for updating them as soon as possible. This can be incredibly time consuming and resource-intensive if updates need to be manually sent out to tens or hundreds of people every week. As such, it’s important to have a ticket management system in place that automates relevant communication to ticket holders. Executives need to understand ticket utilization and ROI While the C-suite doesn't need to know the mundane details of who’s getting which ticket and when, they should have a clear overview of ticket utilization and value generated. Reporting at this level requires accurate tracking of the entire ticket lifecycle, across the entire company, which is impossible at scale without the right ticket management software. For example, TicketOS reporting tools include pre-built reporting templates that highlight key performance metrics, with extensive customization to extract the data and insights you’re looking for. Manage your sports tickets better, with TicketOS TicketOS allows you to manage your entire corporate ticket program in one, centralized location. From basic workflows like managing who can see and request which tickets, to approval customization and automatic fulfillment, our intuitive application is fast and easy to use. TicketOS is a ticket management platform that allows you to measure the ROI of your company’s sports & entertainment tickets, with clear reporting and tracking of the entire ticket lifecycle. If you’d like to see what TicketOS can do for your organization, click here to schedule a personalized demo.