5 Key Reasons Youth Sports Sponsors Aren’t Renewing: How to Fix It
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A quick look at the five most common reasons your youth sports sponsors aren’t renewing and how to fix it.
With the cost of youth sports on the rise, more and more organizations are turning to sponsorships to aid their fundraising efforts. This may seem like a staple in the youth sports community. But, sponsorships look vastly different in today’s youth sports landscape.
Sports teams and organizations no longer have to rely solely on local businesses, community connections, or parents of the team to raise needed funds. Those are still an important resource, yes, but not the only solution available.
In today’s digital age, it’s reasonable to connect with larger brands (even national ones). Working with a larger brand can lead to bigger sponsorship payouts, better brand recognition, and other creative ways to support your organization (like events or discounts).
However, bigger sponsorship packages usually mean heightened expectations. Youth sports sponsors need to show value, community, and results from their investment. This rings true for local business sponsors as well.
And putting myself in the shoes of a sponsorship coordinator, it seems like a lot of work. Keeping sponsors happy and getting them to renew their contracts every season requires effort. As an Account Manager Lead at TeamSnap, I’ve spent years closely managing brand relationships and understanding the ins and outs of building rewarding sponsorship relationships. So let’s take a look at five reasons your youth sponsors aren’t renewing and what we can do to fix it.
5 Key Reasons Youth Sports Sponsors Aren’t Renewing
Sponsors are looking for a turnkey campaign package
It’s much easier for sponsors to validate their investment if the partnership requires a standard level of effort on their part. Sponsors are hesitant about situations where they’ll be required to go above and beyond. They prefer to work with sports organizations that can execute sponsorship assets with minimal involvement.
Building comprehensive sponsorship package options and considering every detail will help develop a long-term relationship between your sports organization and the brand. That could include any kind of branding materials your organization can offer including things like branded jerseys, sponsor field banners, branded equipment, sponsor spotlight communication via emails or social media posts, and more. This requires a level of preparation for sports organizations and their sponsorship staff/volunteers but helps reduce burdens on both parties throughout the sponsorship relationship.
Sponsors want to see verification photos/proof of purchase
This may be the most important item on the list. Think about it. Yes, brands want to sponsor your sports organization because they see value in the audience they’re reaching. But beyond that, there’s a level of community (even at the national level) that these sponsors are after. That’s why they picked your youth sports organization!
Sponsors want to see verification of their assets for many reasons. First, they want to ensure their investment is being properly utilized. This helps with verifying the effectiveness of a new partnership. Second, they want to use this collateral internally and externally. From both an investment and community standpoint.
When signing up with new sponsorship partners, have a plan to provide detailed reporting of the partnership. That can include photos, examples of sponsored materials, or a document tracking social and other digital touchpoints.
They don’t see ROI
We’ve talked about this in a couple of different ways, but it’s helpful to be straightforward. Youth sports sponsors are looking for a return on investment (ROI). If they aren’t seeing enough results to justify spending, it’s unlikely they continue with the partnership. Clear communication, verification, and tracking can help dissuade any concerns of ROI.
It’s also a good idea to establish key indicators of performance and what your new sponsorship partner will be measuring for success.
Sponsorship results and metrics aren’t clear
This idea is connected directly to ROI. Sponsors will have to justify their spending both internally and externally, and without proper indicators, that’s not possible. When starting new relationships with sponsorship partners, a sports organization should confirm what reporting needs to be done to justify their spending. This could be the number of families in your organization, estimated foot traffic at your facilities, email and social media metrics, sponsorship impact regarding how your organization uses the funds, website traffic data, or any other brand visibility metrics.
Sponsors’ priorities change.
It’s worth noting that sometimes a sponsor moving on from your organization is out of your hands. Sometimes, priorities within a brand’s marketing strategy change. They may decide that youth sports isn’t their preferred target audience anymore, or budgeting has shifted around.
In this scenario, I’d advise you to stay connected with sponsors who leave because of priority changes. Regular communication will keep your team or club on a sponsor’s radar should priorities re-shift in the future.
TeamSnap Sponsorship Helps Manage Sponsor Relationships
I’m not going to sugarcoat it. Managing a sponsorship relationship on top of the countless tasks for youth sports administrators and staff members, can be a lot of work. Fortunately, TeamSnap has a solution to take all of this work and effort off of your plate. Seriously.
TeamSnap Sponsorship works for you. No more running around the local community trying to reach sponsorship quotas. With one application, we’ll do the matching for you. TeamSnap for Business customers are given priority access to our matching process.
Aside from money in your organization’s pocket, TeamSnap Sponsorship makes the process easy. Get time and energy back into your daily schedule by working with TeamSnap Sponsorship.
Managing a single sponsorship relationship comes with a never-ending list of tasks. That includes (but is not limited to):
- The fine details of activating your sponsors (usually a combination of merchandise, in-person, and digital fulfillment)
- The process of calculating ROI (return on investment) for your new partners
- The communication and messages to keep your sponsors in the loop or answer outstanding questions
- The creation of any promotional materials in partnership with your partners (banners, jerseys, etc.)
- And much more…
Not only will the TeamSnap Sponsorship support team handle this laundry list of tasks for you, but our team is also always a quick phone call, email, or chat away should you have questions or need additional support!
Click here to learn more about TeamSnap Sponsorship
Nancy Benda-Pierce works as an Account Manager Team Lead on TeamSnap Brand Solutions, spending 3+ years in account management and 7+ years in client-facing roles focused on education, client success, and strategic planning. Passionate about building strong client relationships and helping brands achieve their goals through strategic sports marketing campaigns, Nancy empowers brands to create authentic relationships with families through the power of youth sports. An avid tennis player and professional tennis fan, Nancy is known around TeamSnap for her competitive spirit and can be found competing in local USTA league tennis from time to time.