If you go to your favourite sports team recently, you’ll notice many of them have injury lawyers as sponsors. Across all leagues and teams lawyers and more importantly injury lawyers are sponsoring more and more teams. What is driving this? And should your law firm be considering a sports partnership? In this blog post, I will explain why many injury lawyers are going the sports sponsorship route and what you should consider.
How Hot is Injury Law for Sports Teams?
Many NHL teams now feature a partnership with an injury lawyer; this category is a growing part of the NHL’s sponsorship portfolio. For 2022-2023 season, there were 15 new deals between an NHL team and a law firm, per Adam Seaborn of Playmaker. That was the NHL’s largest increase in deals for any individual category. For Canadians, this shouldn’t come as a surprise as many NHL teams have had personal injury partnerships for years. However, the length and renewal of these agreements show that they are working.
The NHL as a league is excellent at working together and sharing best practices. As soon as something works in one market, you can rest assured they’ll try it in another. Thus, when personal injury lawyers started sponsoring their local NHL team and seeing results, there’s no doubt the business development representatives for the NHL started sharing this success. If an NHL team didn’t have an injury lawyer on their sponsorship roster, then the sponsorship salesperson for the team certainly canvassed his market’s big players. Surprisingly, 15 of their markets now have an injury lawyer advertising to their fanbases. So to answer the question, injury law is white hot for sports teams.
Why is Sports Marketing Taking Off For Injury Lawyers?
It’s taking off for a few reasons. The first reason is the demise of traditional media. Personal injury lawyers are some of the largest traditional media advertisers in their local markets. So they have healthy budgets; however, for a long time, they had other channels that they had to be in. Channels such as Yellowpages and printed newspapers. That has changed, and while the marketing mix of injury lawyers was slow to change, it now has. The industry is slowly dropping other traditional channels that are losing effectiveness in their markets. However, injury lawyers are loyal, which makes them great business partners and marketers. They are willing to commit and see something through. However, sometimes, the industry stays too long and is forced to stop advertising because the media entity goes out of business or changes its delivery method. Nevertheless, the reason sports is taking off first and foremost is that injury lawyers have marketing budget available from other channels that for one reason or another they’ve stopped doing.
Another reason it is taking off is because in regions across Canada and the United States the number one program now in many markets is the sports team’s games. Thus, even as a broad-reach vehicle, sports has taken the role of Seinfeld, CSI, or This is Us and is now routinely the number one program in a given market. This wasn’t always the case, and thus, it just wasn’t as justifiable to advertise with a sports team’s regional games when you could advertise on a scripted program for less money.
Also, the seasonality of many sports fits injury law perfectly. Take basketball and hockey, for example. Their seasons run from October to April, which is the best time for an injury lawyer to be in the market. As discussed previously, the fall is a great time for an injury lawyer to market, and then when the season gets really compelling in the second half and ratings increase, it’s the critical winter months for an injury lawyer. From a seasonality perspective, you can’t beat it.
Aren’t Sports Sponsorships Expensive?
Yes. There’s no getting around the cost of sports sponsorships. It is some of the most expensive inventory available today. To have an official partnership with the team bestows great brand affinity on your injury law firm. The teams know this and they charge for it. Tying your brand to something a potential client loves has value and thus should cost money. However, you can negotiate to get the inventory you want and the teams, in my experience, will work with you to carve out a deal that works for everyone. It is no good for them if you commit 75% of your budget to the team and it doesn’t generate results because your marketing mix is flawed. They’d rather have 20% of your marketing mix for 10 years than 75% for 2 years. It is worthwhile to consider sponsoring a team and seeing what it actually costs to partner versus ruling it out because of a perceived high price.
You Can Reach Sports Fans Without Having a Team Partnership
The recent secret in Canadian sports marketing is that you don’t need to have an official partnership with the team to reach their fans. In the case of many Canadian teams, Rogers Sports and Media can sell you a team’s television inventory, and Bell Media can do the same for some of their regional deals. Thus, you can reach the team’s fans and get the reach without the costly official team partner inventory. Additionally, most category exclusivity agreements are only for inside the arena and don’t count for television or radio assets. Thus, it is worthwhile to reach out to a Rogers or Bell Media representative depending on your market and buy the inventory through them versus the team. If you are interested in conducting a media buy in sports, consider contacting Rock Bound Marketing to negotiate the agreement or help advise on the best approach.
What About Sports Marketing in Smaller Markets?
I referenced NHL agreements and large cities here mostly. However, this also makes sense for markets with CHL teams or minor sports. The fan interest is the same or higher. Most of the assets for minor league sports are in the arena so it’s a different approach and justification. Nevertheless, the benefits of tying your brand to something your potential clients love hold true. Additionally, if your market is large enough to have a CBC affiliate, you can advertise with Hockey Night in Canada in your market and still reach passionate hockey fans. Contact us today if you are in a non-NHL market and want to explore sports marketing.
If you are in a smaller market that doesn’t have a minor sports team, and doesn’t have a CBC affiliate that’s ok as well. There are lots of shoulder programming and targeted means to align your brand with sports. Contact Rock Bound Marketing today to discuss your options to align with sports in smaller markets.
Is Sports Marketing a Fit for my Injury Law Firm?
Generally, I would say yes. Sports reach a wide variety of people. However, specifically in Canada, you reach an audience of great value for injury lawyers. Canadian sports fans have employment, drive cars, and unfortunately, get into motor vehicle collisions. Additionally, sports is one of the few pieces of inventory out there that people watch live and don’t skip commercials. Furthermore, people are invested and paying attention when they consume sports content. Aligning your brand with sports or a specific team is a great way to reach an audience and have effective marketing.
Want To Get Started With Sports?
If you want to add sports to your injury law marketing mix, contact Rock Bound Marketing. We have experience integrating sports sponsorship and marketing into your mix and can drive results for your business. Find out why other lawyers have gravitated to sports as a means to reach their target audience and how it can work for you today.
