How to sponsor a local sports club in NZ, and what it should cost

Sponsoring a local sports club means paying the club a set amount, usually for a season or a single event, in return for your business's name being put in front of the club's members, their families and everybody who turns up on a Saturday. It is one of the oldest forms of small business advertising in New Zealand, and done properly it is still one of the best value.

This guide is for the business doing the sponsoring. If you are a club looking for sponsors, read how to get sponsors for your sports club instead.

Why it works when most advertising does not

A club is a community that meets in the same place every week. The same few hundred families walk past the same fence, sit in the same clubrooms and read the same team sheet twenty times a season. Nothing else you can buy for a few hundred dollars puts your name in front of the same local people that many times.

It also comes with something no other channel has: goodwill. A business whose name is on the Under 15s shirts is a business that backed the kids. People remember that when they need a plumber.

What a sponsorship package usually contains

Packages vary more than prices do, so ask for the list. A typical season package at a club includes some of:

• Your logo on the playing shirt, front or sleeve
• A sign on the fence at the home ground for the season
• Your name on the team sheet and in the club newsletter
• A mention at every prizegiving and on the club's Facebook page
• Tickets to the end of season dinner or a club event
• Your logo on the club website's sponsors page

An event package, for a tournament or a golf day, is narrower and shorter:

• Naming rights for the day ("The Smith Plumbing Saturday Tournament")
• A single hole, with your sign on the tee and a mention in the results
• A named prize: the men's winner, the women's winner, the longest drive
• A mention in the programme and at the presentation

The thing to check is not how long the list is but whether the items on it are ones your customers will see. A logo on a website nobody visits is worth less than a sign on the fence everybody walks past.

What it costs in New Zealand

Real figures move with the size of the club and the profile of the team, but the shape is consistent:

For comparison, a junior team season at $450 works out to under $10 a week, which is less than a single small newspaper insertion, and it runs for six months.

How to choose which team or event

Match the audience to the customer. A physio wants the senior teams, because injured adults book physios. A kids' swim school wants the juniors, because the people on the sideline are parents. A real estate agent wants naming rights, because everybody at the club is a homeowner or will be.

Match the timing to the trade. A tax accountant wants a winter sport, so the name is in front of people before March. A landscaper wants summer cricket or the golf club, so the name is around when people are outside looking at their sections.

Count who is actually there. Ask the club how many players, families and spectators a home game draws. A senior premier team at a big club is a different proposition from a social team at a small one, and the price should say so.

What to ask for before you pay

1. Exactly what is included, in writing. Shirt, sign, team sheet, mentions, tickets.
2. Who makes the sign or the shirt, and who pays for it. Sometimes the club does, sometimes you do, and a $600 sponsorship with a $400 sign is a $1,000 sponsorship.
3. When it runs. A season has a start and an end. A sign that goes up in round three and comes down at the end of the regular season has missed a quarter of the value.
4. Whether you are exclusive. Being one of two plumbers on the same shirt is worth less than being the only one.
5. A photo. Ask for one of the sign up or the team in the shirt. It is the thing you will show people, and it is the proof the club did what it said.

How to tell whether it worked

This is where club sponsorship has always been weak, and where it is getting better.

The old way is to ask new customers how they heard of you and count the ones who say "the rugby club". That undercounts, because people rarely remember, but it is better than nothing.

The newer way is to put a QR code on the sign or the shirt sleeve and count the scans. Clubs that list their packages on Pritty Ghood give every sponsor a QR code as part of the booking, and the sponsor can see how many people scanned it, which week, and on which sign if they have more than one. A sign that was scanned 140 times over a season is a different renewal conversation from one that "was up all year".

Whichever way you measure it, decide before the season starts what a good result looks like. Ten new customers? Two big jobs? Being recognised at the supermarket? If you cannot say, you cannot know.

Booking it without the committee meeting

The traditional route is a phone call to somebody on the committee, an email that goes unanswered for a fortnight, an invoice, and a reminder about the invoice. It works, eventually.

Some clubs now list their packages online, with the price, what you get, and which teams or holes are still available. On Pritty Ghood you pick the team or the package, ask for it, and the club has 72 hours to say yes. You pay once they have, the price on the listing is the price you pay with all fees included, and the team is yours for the season from the moment they accept. It is the same sponsorship, without the chasing.