Someone also wrote a decent article on Mass (league sponsorship) vs. Niche (team/player sponorship) advertising that could relate to this.

You should check out this website:

http://inspiredideas.org/archives/mass-vs-niche/

I guess my argument is somewhat the same as the one that Seth makes. Are we looking for a large number of interactions, or a smaller number of engaged and passionate conversations with fans?

Granted, you may not be able to communicate outside the 50km radius if you have a team deal, but that’s probably where the majority of passionate team fans live.

On a side note, I think the sports league that is doing it right (and has a passionate fans for the brand) is the UFC.

It’s not that simple. For one if you wanted to run a national campaign you would require league rights. Each team has a marketing radius of 50 – 75 km depending on the league; thus even if you had deals with all the teams you wouldn’t be able to run something national or even province/state wide.

In your example of PM if you tried to sponsor him you would also need a deal with his team along with the league in order to be able to use “Super Bowl” as that’s a league run event.

Nobody cheers for a league I agree, they do however cheer for the sport. They are passionate about the sport and that’s where the league comes into play. The league represents the sport.

The deals that you’re seeing with SS is likely also part of a broadcast deal that they have which is a whole other ballgame.