Sponsorship is a billion dollar industry. But data on sponsorships, such as who sponsors whom, can be difficult to come by because of the different forms they take – and the channels through which that sponsorship takes place (think not just websites and social media posts, but also physical signage and even jerseys of sports teams). ). The lack of data is a challenge for both brands and sponsorship recipients. Brands don’t always know how much to charge sponsors, while sponsors aren’t constantly aware of current sponsorship deals.
Frustrated with the opacity of the sponsorship space, Bob Lynch, the former VP of corporate partnerships for the Miami Dolphins, founded in 2017 SponsorUnited, a software-as-a-service platform that provides analytics on the sponsorship industry. SponsorUnited claims to track over one million sponsorships from 250,000 brands, including every US-based major league sports team.
“When I joined the Miami Dolphins after ten years in the media, I immediately realized that there was significant complexity and a lack of transparency and standardization within sponsorship, making it difficult for brands and teams to work together optimally Lynch told businessroundups.org in an email interview. “Noticing a similar trend in the NBA and arena events while with the Brooklyn Nets made me realize that if you could democratize access to previously inaccessible sponsorship data, the entire industry would want access to it .”
Lynch says SponsorUnited serves approximately 2,900 brands and properties, including Fortune 500 companies, talent and brand agencies, and media companies — and investors seem pleased with the growth so far. SponsorUnited today closed a $35 million Series A funding round led by Spectrum Equity at a postmoney valuation “north of” $100 million. Combined with previous investments from Milwaukee Bucks owner Marc Lasry and San Diego Padres co-owner Ron Fowler, the infusion brings the startup’s total cash to $38.6 million.
“Until now, SponsorUnited had raised minimal capital and preferred to stay lean as we built our data capture infrastructure and platform,” said Lynch. “But as we gained critical mass beyond properties (e.g. teams and events) through brands, media, agencies and international expansion, we saw an opportunity to further accelerate growth by automating and scaling valuable data. “
Lynch describes SponsorUnited as “the Bloomberg terminal of marketing partnerships.” It’s essentially a search layer on top of a database of deals, brands, and properties for sports, esports, music, entertainment, and media sponsorships. SponsorUnited obtains all data directly without tapping outside sources, and serves it in a way that allows companies to combine it with other sponsorship data, including internal spend, return on investment, and engagement.
A cursory Google search reveals that several companies are trying to solve the same problem as SponsorUnited. There’s GlobalData, the sports-focused SportBusiness and SponsorPitch, just to name a few. When asked about these and other rivals, Lynch pointed out that SponsorUnited tracks more sponsorship categories than most and has invested heavily in its tech stack, which uses both automated and manual methods to collect sponsorship data.
“We’ve cultivated, innovated and expanded a massive repository of information — more than five million data points on more than 500 types of assets,” Lynch said. “We continue to invest in technology to scale and replicate sponsorship data tracking processes.”
What does the future hold for SponsorUnited? Lynch says he follows trends such as sponsorships in the metaverse (if they’re anything), deals for college athletes made possible by last year’s Supreme Court decision, and TikTok’s growing reach with a younger audience. The pandemic has been and continues to be a boon for SponsorUnited, he says, as marketing organizations try to keep up with how deals shift from live events to digital.
In potentially good news for SponsorUnited, a 2021 questionnaire from Caravel Marketing found that 52% of companies planned to increase their budget for sports team sponsorships in 2022, while only 16% expect a reduction in spending. Lynch argues that these publishers will be inclined to subscribe to SponsorUnited’s services even if the economy eventually takes a dip; when budgets get tighter, it becomes imperative to discover the right partnerships and “optimize” current sponsorships, he argues.
“The complexity and number of marketing assets and platforms being bought and sold in this industry is increasing exponentially,” said Lynch. “Our data provides valuable insights not just for IT, but for the entire C-suite — chief marketing officers, chief revenue officers, chief customer officers, and others.”
Stamford, Connecticut-based SponsorUnited — which is not disclosing revenue figures — expects to have 100 employees by the end of the year, Lynch added.
