HS Sports Marketing and Sponsorship

My high school alma mater, Springs Valley High School (also the alma mater of NBA legend Larry Bird) was admittedly stuck in a very conservative position. The idea of keeping fields and courts free of banners and advertisements always plagued the athletics budget, even during my time as a football athlete. While it can be admirable, it eventually causes your program to lose the "arms race" that was discussed daily throughout my Sport Management journey at Ball State and Indiana.

My first initiative as the Assistant Athletic Director was creating a proposal for sponsorships. This ranged from banners in athletic facilities, branding on team and fan apparel, announcements over the PA, tailgates for football games, and more. While there was a lot of push back from the school board, I was able to garner support from local businesses who were willing to speak on my behalf and agree to the proposed terms in my proposal. Once the money was there, the school board began to 'sing a different tune'.

I oversaw all the implementation for the sponsorships. Visiting clients, discussing terms, visualizing and designing print materials, delivering materials to appropriate recipients, promoting the tailgates and apparel sales through the website, print materials, and social media.

Side note: Second biggest accomplishment was securing a deal with Nike to outfit our teams and sell fan apparel!

As a result, we were able to raise over $5,000 during my year there for athletics, and we even saw an uptick in overall ticket sales and fan attendance. While the $5,000 may be a modest amount, for a public class 1A school it was a difference maker for a lot of kids. The sponsorships continue to this day.