Canadian bobsleigh and skeleton fans heading to Vancouver next February for the Winter Games will now have Tour Packages available as a result of the exclusive agreement. Bobsleigh Canada Skeleton (BCS) has announced a sponsorship deal with Ludus Tours in time for the Games.

Ludus plans to create packages that cater specifically to Canadian bobsleigh and skeleton enthusiasts in Vancouver that will include hotel accommodations, airport transfers, hospitality at the Ludus Lounge/banquet dinner as well as tour guide/concierge assistance during their stay.

Now you will ask yourself what the hell this has to do with online sport marketing…

Sponsor and Sport Organisation have already decided that it is in their mutual interest to associate themselves with each other’s brand.

Let’s dig in to find the huge additional value that a sponsor will receive from a strong, interactive and engaged Sport Organisation’s online presence.

First of all, a web presence like the one just described, guarantees:
1) Higher number of visits
2) Longer time spent on the site
3) Audience heavily interested and connected with the brand and the website itself, not just “passers by”.

Just the 3 elements mentioned above would support the choice by the Sport Organisation to display the Sponsor’s (or both’s) logo(s) and advertise the partnership on the site, with some smart call to action.

But this would leverage only a minimal part of the potential!

Courtesy of www.vancouver2010.com

A vibrant and cutting edge online presence gives several other monetisation opportunities to Sport Organisations, which can then tailor them as needed.

In this case I can also see a lot of relevance with:

- Deeper knowledge of fan base, giving more accurate targeting opportunities, online and offline.
- Relationships and networking effects.
- Availability of an active community, increasing potential success for online events and promotions.
- Increased viral impact of online initiatives.

Let’s think of Bobsleigh Canada Skeleton and the strategy behind the Ludus Tours deal “to cater specifically to enthusiast fans” and apply it to what mentioned before.

An online prize draw i.e. involving a free trip to the Olympics could be launched with multiple benefits:
a) Attracting offline fans to the website where the interaction with both brands is more direct and personalized.
b) Having people to sign up for the prize draw would mean data collection, which would mean widening the Organisation’s database but also the possibility of collecting specific preferences of the Bobsleigh and Skeleton fans related to travel and tourism.
c) Enhancing the sponsorship by being able in the future to leverage the data collected via more accurate targeting and personalised offers, emails, etc.

The list of other initiatives could be very long, from viral videos involving athletes to online discount for travel packages to the Vancouver Olympics bought via the website (again, data collection opportunity and future enhanced targeting capabilities), to search & display online advertising campaigns targeting people located in the area and interested in winter sports and/or travel.

The reality is, a strategic web presence generates a virtuous cycle that opens never ending direct and indirect monetisation opportunities with much higher ROI than most of other media and that has only one limit: the limit of creativity.

Alessandro De Zanche