How independent agencies grow their sports practices
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The latest surge of interest around sports media has independent media agencies seeking — and finding — ways to keep up with client needs through new practices to work with brands and athletes in more integrated ways.
From an Olympics that generated strong ratings and consumer interest, to a renewed investment in women’s sports and their leading athletes, agencies are increasing their opportunities across social media, brand partnerships and streaming.
For example, PMG created a dedicated sports marketing practice in July to expand existing capabilities with the growing customer demands in sports marketing expertise across industries. Led by Dan Conti, head of sports marketing, in a new role, the division has a full-service sports offering, ranging from strategy to experiential marketing — alongside partnerships with rights holders, broadcasters, publishers and talent. After all, PMG is the media agency for Nike.
“We’re building a sports practice inside a dynamic and full-service media company, which is kind of the first piece of the pie,” said Conti, who joined last month. “As sports continues to diversify and become more important and more integrated with new platforms and opportunities, it has to be a modern-day sports offering that is connected to all of the pieces of the puzzle — and not feel like sports or sponsorships have a separate place.”
Data and personalization will play a major role across sports engagement as streaming has grown rapidly — from Amazon’s portion of NBA rights to Apple’s MLB deal. While this adds a new level of targeting and scale to sports media, working with tech giants will be a wholly different dynamic and culture compared to working with cable companies.
“I think about the new ability to leverage those platforms … [and] how partnering with technology companies is different from partnering with traditional linear cable companies,” he said. “There’s a lot in that that we’re going to start to unpack for our clients — how we can really customize campaigns, monetize and track and optimize the partnership in sports, versus it only being about the scale that sports deliver.”
Conti comes from a sports and marketing background, having previously, among other publisher and athlete management roles, led the sports and live practice at GroupM media agency Wavemaker. At PMG, Conti will report to PMG president Jon Dupuis and collaborate with client strategy leads to support sports marketing across brands and verticals.
PMG will also leverage its data and technology capabilities through Alli, its marketing intelligence and automation platform, as it expands its sports services. PMG already has sports experience working with TurboTax and Carl’s Jr. on Super Bowl media, as well as other projects with the PGA Tour and ServiceNow’s NHL partnership through linear TV investments for the Stanley Cup playoffs.
Harnessing speed
Another independent, L.A.’s full-service shop Zambezi, is trying to build off its recent success with sports clients through an integrated approach. The mid-size agency has a full-service production studio, Fin, media agency Scale and a dedicated social and content unit School, giving it a leg up in developing both sports and B2B expertise — with speed and scale to keep up with incoming sports business. These services helped the agency score recent wins as the media AOR (and develop other projects) for clients including Bose, ESPN, NFL Flag Football and the United States Tennis Association.
The agency’s flexibility to tailor its integrated services gives it more range and adaptability, Jean Freeman, president and CEO of Zambezi, explained. “We work with clients who prioritize different aspects — some are production-focused, like ESPN, while others emphasize media, like Google,” Freeman said.
Its media agency, Scale, and production arm, Fin Studios, saw almost 20% revenue growth in the last year, according to the company, without providing exact growth metrics. For example, Zambezi’s teams quickly turned around projects for Bose and NFL through combining Fin and Scale capabilities. Together, they took a creative idea through a streamlined production process in a tennis campaign with Bose earbuds and American player Coco Gauff, and also created content for NFL Flag Football featuring NFL’s Justin Herbert, CeeDee Lamb and content creator @ishowspeed to showcase young players and influencers in the growing game.
A sports playbook
Since health and pharmaceutical advertising continues to be a mainstay of linear TV, even healthcare-related agencies are turning to sports. WPP’s health-focused CMI Media Group recently launched a new health care-focused Sports Marketing Center of Excellence aiming to build on recent work with the NHL, Nascar and The Pickleball Slam.
CMI Media Group’s 2024/25 Media Vitals research found that among patients and caregivers, two in three regularly engage with sports content, including TV, podcasts, magazines or radio. Younger generations are even more interested in sports, with 78% of millennials and 73% of Gen Z regularly engaging with sporting content. Additionally, a high percentage of healthcare professionals have a strong affinity for sports, with 72% regularly following at least one sport or league, per CMI.
“Obviously sports is having a moment,” said Kelly Morrison, group svp of engagement strategy at CMI Media. “I think it’s very cool what has happened with the NFL and Taylor Swift [whose presence at Kansas City Chiefs games was showcased often] and building off of that … It’s creating those moments that wouldn’t have necessarily happened previously, and I think that is lending itself to more emphasis on sports in general.”
Led by Morrison, the center aims to build a sports playbook of all its offerings, as well as create partnerships and tailor its best practices with different leagues to leverage custom engagements in health care marketing. From sports podcasts to cultural moments, Morrison contends that various marketing channels are still growing as brands figure out how to capitalize on sports content to engage fans in different ways.
“You’re watching people that are performing at the pinnacle of their athletic fitness, and so it does lend itself to some element of health and wellness,” Morrison told Digiday. “I think we’ve been able to tap into a lot of stories of athletes and their impact with different disease states and how they have been influenced by it, whether it be a family member from somebody on the team that has endured cancer – those are stories that have a lot of impact.”
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