10 steps to establish a club-based business network
Regardless of the competition level, there will always be a place for local sponsorship and business connections in sports.
Locally, with a heavy reliance on grant funding, trust funding and in some cases government and council support, football clubs should ensure a diversification of revenue streams and have a revenue plan in place for each area.
Considering the variety of levels the game takes place in around the world, football club revenues can be divided into five general categories, with some limitations in amateur football.
* Broadcasting
* Matchday and ticketing
* Commercial and sponsorship
* Transfer market
* Competition prize money
Particularly in an amateur football system, where sponsorship dollars are even harder to come by, a key focus for club executives should be to establish a compelling plan of action for creating a club-based business network using the 10 steps I have outlined.
Step 1: Define your club’s Vision and Values
This particular step is mentioned in most of my articles as often this drives behaviour in key areas of the club. Defining your vision and values should provide a strong foundation for determining the direction in which you will take your business network. It will also steer you towards potential partners or causes that resonate with the values of your club.
For example, if you follow Forest Green Rovers FC or Lewes FC, based on the values of the clubs, you likely have a picture in your mind of the types of organisations or causes the club works with. There is a clear pattern if you view the partners that the clubs have allegiances with:
Step 2: Develop your Strategy and Tactics
Once the club has completed Step 1, the Club Executives will need to determine both the Strategy (the what) and the Tactics (the how) for creating their business network. This should be comprehensive and comprise both long-term goals for the club and short-term objectives that will assist in growing both club revenues and relationships.
Within this, you should be able to determine the areas in most need of support and how you will prioritise the business network across the club. The club may choose to prioritise youth football, women’s football, community football and so on. It may stagger the priorities over a number of seasons, which will lead you to approach businesses with a particular profile and mission that aligns with these priority areas.
Step 3: Craft your Professional Brand
Companies will be drawn to clubs that have developed a strong professional and recognisable brand. You will need to create a public perception that is attractive to potential sponsors and partners. This may require engaging the assistance of an external organisation if you do not have the internal expertise, but time in this area will be well spent.
Creating a recognisable and value-based brand identity will help organisations understand any potential alignments and opportunities to collaborate. Your brand should be consistent across all external communication channels and should remain a priority to ensure you continue to widen and deepen recognition with audiences over time.
Brands that have stood out for me this year include those of Oakland Roots (USL Championship) and Oakland Soul (USL W-League), based in the United States of America. Check them out here to see why!
Step 4: Identify Target Sponsors
The Club Executives should work through an exercise of identifying potential sponsors and business partners who align with the club’s vision, values and target audience. This is to ensure that you approach and seek out business sponsors whose products or services resonate with your club members and local football community.
A helpful exercise would be to create a list of all the properties and services that you have within the organisation and correlate this with a list of all the sponsors and businesses that you think could fit together. Next, identify individuals within these businesses who you believe would be the person to talk to in order to establish a relationship.
Step 5: Create Sponsorship Packages
Using much of the information that you have created using this guide so far, the club should also develop a range of sponsorship packages that are available for businesses and partner organisations to select from. Keep in mind that sponsorship is a mutually beneficial relationship between two parties; the business and the club. The packages should therefore be well-balanced and fair and should include information about your club, background, history, mission and why you play a crucial role in developing your community.
You should clearly outline the benefits that sponsor organisations will receive, such as logo placements, exposure and any other engagement. As noted in Step 3 above, this should be use professionally on brand and exciting aesthetics, compelling stories and statistics, emotive language and relatable imagery, all with the intention of creating resonance with your desired audience.
There is an example locally from Oratia United Football Club, who have uploaded this Sponsorship Proposal document to their website.
Step 6: Engage with Local Businesses
Fostering relationships with local businesses, above more established national and international businesses, will help leverage the community and a strong local community. Local support can be a significant asset for a football club.
What organisations are close to your club? You can create a map and determine a plan of action on how you could approach these businesses. They could also help reduce a number of operational costs for the club each year if you are able to secure business partnerships with the appropriate organisations.
Step 7: Utilise Social Media and Online Platforms
Leverage your existing platforms to show off your club and become attractive to local businesses. A strong online presence with an engaged audience will enhance your appeal to sponsors. To maximise the value to sponsors, all website content, email newsletters or social media posts should include a ‘call to action’ and a reason to encourage people to click on the link to the sponsor’s website.
Work with your sponsors to create offers and reasons for your audience to go to their website as often a logo alone is not enough. Making the offer relevant to your club community is a good start, as well as using football language to connect the goods and services provided by the sponsor directly back to the club.
Step 8: Host Events and Activities
This is an important step in creating belonging and connection which are foundational building blocks for long-term, enjoyable and mutually beneficial relationships between the club and its sponsors.
Ensure the format of the event attracts the right demographic and helps support your sponsor. These could be in the form of match day events, business breakfasts, corporate activations or even to the extent of gala dinners and more formal occasions.
To see what is possible, check out ‘Victory in Business’ from Melbourne Victory Football Club, which has created one of the largest corporate sporting corporate groups in Australia.
You create value by facilitating business connections between other organisations within the context of their common interest in your club.
Step 9: Prioritise Relationship Building
Club Executives should maintain a focus on building strong ongoing relationships with their sponsors. Regular communication, updates on club achievements and recognition of sponsors' contributions can strengthen these connections and ensure expectations remain well maintained.
Sponsors and businesses can become advocates for other potential businesses too, so keep this in mind as one of the ongoing benefits that maintaining these strong relationships will have for your club.
Step 10: Regularly Evaluate and Adjust
Continuously evaluate the effectiveness of your business network. This should be a standing item on the club committee agenda, enabling you to make any necessary adjustments along the way. Following ongoing feedback, you can adjust your approach based on expected performance measures and any other agreed performance metrics that were in place to ensure you service your businesses and partner organisations.
The Club Executives should not only monitor these relationships throughout the season but pay particular attention at the end. The Club Committee should provide a public summary of how the year went for the club (player/team achievements, committee achievements, club facility changes, events or funds raised) and ensure that the business network is firmly referenced and credited.
As part of your reporting back to sponsors, as well as acknowledging their impact, you can provide a table or summary of the contract requirements and whether these were achieved. These may help you understand the impact that the businesses have had on your Strategy (Step 2) and help you determine if appropriate value had been attributed throughout the season.
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