Adding Value
Inaugural B2B Program Yields Positive Returns for NBA Team And Sponsors
Investment in facilitating business relationships among sponsors leads to better ROI delivery for properties.
8/16/10: The NBA New Jersey Nets have helped at least two sponsors generate incremental business as result of the Nets Chamber of Commerce, a year-old B2B networking program for sponsors and season ticket holders.
Commercial landscape management company Lawns by Yorkshire, Inc.—the Westwood, N.J.-based preferred landscape service of Nets basketball—has developed a new business relationship with Vonage Holdings Corp., while IT consulting and systems integration provider High Point Solutions, Inc. also has seen positive results.
“Has the Nets Chamber of Commerce helped generate new leads and business? Absolutely,” said Mike Mendiburu, High Point Solutions’ president.
The chamber was introduced to augment existing, if less formalized, efforts of the team to forge connections between corporate partners.
“As we are all being measured differently in this economy, this is another important way for season ticket holders and sponsors to justify their investment in Nets basketball,” said team CEO Brett Yormark upon launching the chamber in June 2009.
To incent participation in the program, the team guarantees each member company at least 10 qualified introductory meetings throughout the course of a season.
“We encourage members to identify companies they want to meet, and we facilitate that introduction to help them generate business,” said Josh Pruss, the Nets’ managing director of partnership marketing.
Chamber members have the opportunity to attend exclusive networking events. Most of last season's events were held prior to or at halftime of Nets games at the Izod Center. The team also has hosted chamber events at its nearby Nets Center training facility. For the next two seasons, the Nets will host the meetings at Newark's Prudential Center, the team’s temporary home prior to its 2012 relocation to the Barclays Center in Brooklyn.
The events typically include presentations on relevant business topics, led by professionals from team sponsors as well as outside companies. Topics have ranged from the economy to social media.
The Nets hosted five one-hour chamber events last season, and plan to host two or three more before the start of the 2010-11 season, Pruss said. Roughly 75 sponsors—the majority of the team’s B2B partners—participated in at least one event, with roughly 10 to 12 participating in every event, he said.
Outside of the events, chamber members can reach out to each other via a member directory accessed through a password-protected area of NJNets.com. The area also includes a schedule of chamber events.
In addition to providing added value to sponsors, the program has benefited the Nets in the form of new sponsorship inventory: For the program’s first year, the Nets included presenting status of the program as part of team partner Aflac Inc.’s sponsorship.
“In the first year we were trying to figure out how it would work,” Pruss said. “Moving forward, we will look to develop secondary sponsorship packages with individual chamber events.”
Presenting sponsorship included the incorporation of Aflac’s name into the Nets Chamber of Commerce logo, among other benefits.
Pruss said the team plans to enhance the chamber’s event offerings with bigger and better speakers and topics. “We tapped our internal relationships to bring in speakers, but now we’re trying to dig deeper,” he said.
Overall, Pruss is sold on the concept of forming such B2B groups. “It has definitely been a success for us, and I would recommend it to others.”
(For more information on property efforts to promote relationships among corporate partners, read “
More Sponsors Interested in Property-led B2B Networking Groups.”)
Sources
High Point Solutions, Inc., Tel: 973/940-0040
New Jersey Nets, Tel: 201/935-8888