Athlete Sponsorships and How Much They're Worth
Latest Player in the Hydration Space. Missed Opportunity at CPL Draft. The Answer Athletes and Brands Need to Know.
On Today’s Agenda:
How Prime Will Compete with Gatorade
What Could’ve Been with Joao Felix and the CPL
The Answer Both Athletes and Brands Need To Know
Prime Hydration: The New Player in the Hydration Space
How They Will Compete with Gatorade
DrinkPrime / Instagram
KSI & Logan Paul, two of the biggest YouTubers/ Entertainers in recent memory have partnered up to create the latest hydration drink. The biggest difference between themselves and their competitors like, Gatorade, is they’re positioning themselves as not just a sports drink but a lifestyle drink to fuel your day-to-day life.
This is an interesting angle to take as Gatorade, Powerade, BioSteel, and Body Armor have all primarily positioned themselves as sports drinks. Comparatively, Prime is going after you and me, first, rather than Ovi and Sid. As a result of this, they have already amassed more than 700k followers on Instagram, which double Body Armor and more than half of Gatorade’s following, after only a month. Obviously, with their founders being two of the biggest social media moguls they’re able to leverage their audiences to reach the masses.
This is a fantastic strategy as we’ve seen Nike’s co-founder Bill Bowerman state that Nike serves billions of athletes as they believe if you have a body, you’re an athlete. Allowing both Nike, and potentially Prime, to increase their consumer pool and scale from there. Within the hydration space, I view this as the path of least resistance with all things considered. You’re getting your product in the hands of teachers, kids, accountants, etc. first. Meaning you’re equipping all the village people with a sword. Once equipped all the village people to storm the castle to dethrone the King.
This is when I expect Prime to go after the sports drink space. I believe their positioning will stay the same as they don’t want to begin marketing their product as a drink you only consume when performing physical activity, as the others have. Instead, they will begin de-arming their competition. At this stage, is when I’d predict major partnerships will develop with top leagues to increase their market share. However, until then, I expect Prime to continue taking the path of least resistance and the greatest return. I view them as a brand that will look to partner with budding categories such as Esports, the digital space, and even creators to increase their market share until it’s time to face the King.
Where do you see Prime going next and will they ever partner with your favourite sport?
The CPL Draft’s Missed Opportunity
What Could’ve Been with Joao Felix and the CPL
Chant Photo/ CPL
Last night, the 8 teams in the Canadian Premier League selected 1 player in each of the 2 rounds from Canadian university athletics, in the annual USports draft. We for sure learned our lesson regarding mock drafts - don’t trust them. We read three and the top pick in each one didn’t get picked…
With that, 16 new players were put in the spotlight to enter Canada’s top soccer ranks and fight for a professional career - to view selections click the link below:
https://canpl.ca/article/2022-cpl-u-sports-draft-view-all-16-picks-here
This is The Sport Marketeer, a white whale mktg newsletter, therefore we know you didn’t come to this article to read some draft analysis. So let’s begin… Last night, to announce José Cunha, a Portuguese product, getting drafted first overall to Atlético Ottawa, they went into their bag of tricks and called parent company Atlético de Madrid for a favour. The result? Who else other than Portuguese phenom and Atleti star João Félix. His message was sent from one capital in Spain to Canada’s capital in Ottawa.
Love it! Fernando, or whoever, at Atleti that came up with the idea, props to you. The ripple effects of this gesture I’m sure will pay dividends for the club and league going forward. The issue? Their dividend yield is approximately 5%, pretty good! But, they could’ve had 8.1% (a whole lot of finance being dropped in this week’s issue). Their collaborated Instagram did well as their social media received more than 110 likes within the first 10 minutes, which is impressive considering their audience size. We hope actions like these continue to take place as it will do wonders for the league and their club.
Unfortunately, staying on the Portuguese talent train - all good things come to an end, as Nelly Furtado says. The athletes drafted last night came up short. Half the battle of marketing is being timely and relevant. Yesterday was the perfect opportunity for these blossoming stars to capitalize on the spotlight but they didn’t. Not only did the league not tag all players on their draft post, but some players also had NO SOCIAL MEDIA! Are you kidding me? What’s worse than no social media, you may ask? It’s PRIVATE. What a joke. Frankly, we’re disappointed in Canada’s latest round of professional soccer players but more so on the CPL and USports.
These athletes are your greatest assets and the faces of your brand. To not prepare them, nor educate them on the potential social media has is saddening. The CPL and USports have tremendous talent that often gets overlooked and at white whale mktg we’re going to do our best to help future athletes not end up in the same position as they did in this year’s draft. The CPL, USports, and other Canadian athletes should expect to hear from us in the near future.
The reason we’re so passionate about what took place last night is the potential it could have had. Using a sports analogy, bases were loaded, down one run, no outs, up on the pitch count and you’re thinking about what condiments you want on your hot dog. Thus, you strikeout.
For all parties involved, I’m sure you’ll be seeing ghosts for the next little bit. Don’t worry, next time, don’t call Ghostbusters, call white whale mktg, we’ll hook you up.
What Is An Athlete Partnership Worth?
The Answer Both Athletes and Brands Need To Know
Jeremy Caplan
Slap your left cheek, then your right and ask yourself how much? And when? Each night before you go to bed, you’ll always remember the price of a dollar. These are some of the great words that I’ll never forget from one of my finance professors in the university. The reason I’m sharing this memory is so we can reapply this tactic to the worth of an athlete partnership. Slap yourself twice and say it’s not all about the followers – then go to sleep.
Now that your cheeks are a little red and the message has sunk in, let’s continue. The unfortunate reality is – you don’t know what you don’t know. This is applicable to everyone in the sports world and not just athletes, which is why the need to know your worth is the ultimate priority. If you, or your team, aren’t sure what your assets are worth then you’ll be lost when company x offers you $50k. Sure, that’s a good chunk of change but is it fair value?
Here are some real numbers that I’ve tracked on Instagram: one account had 30k followers while another had 3k followers. The account with 30k followers made a post and received 100 likes whilst the 3k account made a post and received 1.5k likes. With that, the respected social values for each are as follows: the 30k account’s post was worth about $90, while the 3k account’s post was worth $1.4k.
Now from experience, I know a lot of brands would’ve cut initial interest-based off followers. On many occasions, I have brands’ first responses to my emails be “how many followers do they have?”, or “fill out this form” – which essentially just asked for the number of followers. But since we know our athletes’ brands and their respective metrics which formulate their worth, we’re confident enough to question these statements. This keeps potential partners within our funnel rather than exiting at an earlier stage due to our sports marketing expertise.
To conclude, to be like Cuba Gooding Jr. in Jerry McGuire and start saying “show me the money”, you must know how much money that’ll be. If you’re an athlete, agent, brand, or even professional team looking to learn more – book an appointment with us at white whale mktg.
