When the pandemic hit, one of the biggest concerns in the sports world was how teams and leagues would make up for their lost revenue.
As fans are now beginning to attend games again at limited capacity, Andy Clark's Sports Sponsorship class teamed up with Paragon Marketing Group, to research and reevaluate the signage make-goods that are being offered to sponsors, as well as what other signage is being added for TV viewing.
Clark is the director of sports business programs at DePaul's Driehaus College of Business.
Paragon's Senior Vice President Matt Waitz and Senior Account Executive Michael Miller created a project brief that the students worked together on to execute the project deliverables.
"We're the middle man," Waitz said. "We're the agency hired by our clients to give them our expertise and this was a great project for us to have someone outside of our circle and everyday conversations to give a perspective on what's working and what's not. So a fresh perspective was very valuable for us to be able to move forward with recommendations for our clients."
"Coming out of COVID, it's crucial for an agency like Paragon to understand which new assets provide the most value for our clients going into the next season," Miller said. "We were impressed with the depth of research and creativity we saw from both the undergraduate and graduate students."
The students were divided into five person teams to build an all-encompassing SWOT analysis for one of these four leagues -- NBA, MLB, NFL and NHL.
Each team also had to provide a point of view on which signage opportunities should or should not continue in the future and come up with effective ways to reach a target demographic during this time.
MLB Team
NHL Team
NBA Team
NFL Team
"I found it very interesting to be able to work with an outside agency through a course," DePaul marketing graduate student Jackson Byers said. "This was something I never had the opportunity to do while getting my undergraduate degree."
Another marketing graduate student, Derek Arguello, was thankful for this experience.
"I work in media and often collaborate with sports marketing agencies on behalf of my client," Arguello said. "However, I never really understood what they did. This class gave me the background of the landscape and tools that are directly applicable to my profession."
Undergraduate student Javiera Antonia Zamorano Espana never thought she'd have the opportunity to work on this project as an undergrad student, especially since she is an exchange student from Chile.
"I find it amazing that we got an inside look at what marketing professionals do and what the process is, while also having the chance to collaborate with them," Zamorano said. "I just hope that the insights we gave them become useful to their work."
While students were appreciative of this experience with Paragon, the feeling was mutual on Paragon's end as well.
"It was a great project," Waitz said. "It was great to see how it started and how much progress was made by the time the presentations came around. Not only with the data and information but visually. The decks looked so much better than I think we had imagined from the start so that was really impressive.”