With major sporting events happening throughout the year, like March Madness, the NFL Draft, MLB Opening Day, there are TONS of opportunities for brands to leverage professional athletes in their marketing campaigns. We bring in OpenSponsorship Account Manager, Matt Hochberg, to discuss some campaigns he's helping brands run around major sporting events + the results they have seen so far.

2:50 - How can advertisers target specific regional markets? Jason and Matt discuss Quip’s campaign with professional baseball players and their children around Opening Day.

6:30 - Matt breaks down Isopure’s March Madness campaign with both NBA players and athletes who are just basketball fans.

9:20 -Matt discusses Jordan Burrough’s product giveaway with health food app, HowUDish, as it is happening! HowUdish got 500+ entries, 18k+ views, and 5k+ likes within ONE HOUR. Matt also speaks to how creative content can drive maximum engagement.

Russell Wilde Jr, COO of Front Office Sports (@RussWildeJr on Twitter), joins us today for the latest episode of Tackling Sports Sponsorship. Front Office Sports plays a unique and hugely important role as a digital publisher at the intersection of sports and business. They're publishing UNBELIEVABLE content on a daily basis, including content around athlete sponsorship deals, college sports, eSports, marketing/digital media and even new jobs available in the sports industry.

1:11 - Russ describes Front Office Sports and the backstory on how a Caesar salad was the reason behind the start of the company

3:01 - Russ explains what he defines as a "good story" and how he continues to find stories to grow the FOS audience

4:50 - Russ talks to how Front Office Sports covers EVERY news story under the sports business umbrella

6:26 - Russ tells the story of when it all "clicked" for Front Office Sports and they really began to take off

8:27 - Russ explains why Front Office Sports is not just a digital publisher, and hosts events like the Huddle Series & the Front Office Sports Rising 25 award

11:30 - Russ talks about the growth of eSports

14:39 - Where will Front Office Sports be in 5 years? Will Adam White (CEO of Front Office Sports) and Russ run for President & Vice President?

16:02 - Russ puts his sales hat on and explains why brands should run ads on Front Office Sports to attract a new and engaging audience

Is there a difference in working with athletes and traditional influencers? Jason and Maggie dive into the MANY reasons why working with athletes is a lot more effective than working with influencers in every facet of marketing.

2:25: Jason talks about how athletes can tell authentic stories about how and WHY they use products that help them improve their performance as a professional athlete. Jason dives into a specific deal between a CBD brand and MMA athlete completed on OpenSponsorship.

4:01: Maggie talks about how important authenticity is in marketing. Influencer's first job is to post ads. Athletes first job is to be a professional athlete and aren't just paid to post to make a living.

5:25: Maggie talks about how important it is to reuse content that athlete's create and how that can amplify other marketing campaigns you're running

6:17: Jason talks about how athletes can help brands at appearances

8:10: Maggie talks about how athletes have such strong regional social media followings from the fanbases they play for. She talks about Boston (obviously)and how athletes on Boston teams (Red Sox/Patriots) have so many followers from the Boston area.

10:17: Jason talks about how using athletes helps you improve your PR

Professional athlete, business owner, killer content creator and most importantly, OpenSponsorship athlete (who closed 50+ deals on our platform) shares why he has seen so much success closing marketing deals with brands. He shares insights into his specific deals including ones with Vitamin Shoppe & Draftkings, while providing tips to other pro athletes out there looking to grow their own personal brand using social media. Bill has been an OpenSponsorship athlete for the last two years, where he saw his social media following grow from 11k to over 50k followers!

1:32 - Bill shares his background of how he became a professional athlete

3:41 - Bill explains why it's important to build your own brand as an athlete and how he approaches marketing deals with brands. Spoiler alert... he always OVER delivers!

6:39 - Bill shares tips on how to move from a one-off post with a brand into a more long-term relationship (specifically with Vitamin Shoppe)

9:37 - Bill discusses how important creating good content is and why every athlete should focus on creating high-quality content to set you apart

12:10 - Bill talks about how he decides on which brands to work with

14:26 - Bill tells us about his favorite deal that he has ever closed on OpenSponsorship

17:32 - Bill explains why EVERY athlete should be signed up to OpenSponsorship!

19:56 - Jason reads off Bill O'Brien's first application on OpenSponsorship from over two years ago, setting him up for years of success

Valentine's Day is coming up and you want to run a Campaign to target all of those people buying gifts for their loved ones. What type of marketing campaign are you going to run to separate yourself from the competition? Listen to learn 4 ways to use professional athletes in marketing campaigns to reach your target demographic, with a Valentine's Day theme.

3:15 - Jason talks about how you can see 3x the results with a product giveaway on social media around Valentine's Day

4:49 - Maggie talks about how you can have athletes talk about gifting your product to their husband and/or wife, if you are looking for direct response marketing ideas

6:51 - Jason talks about using humor to receive higher engagement on social media posts to build trust with your target consumers

10:48 - Maggie talks about reusing athlete's content in blogs and email marketing to help those content marketers out there

You want to run ads around the Super Bowl, but don't have the budget to spend on a TV ad. I mean, who does? So, that's where we come in - why not work with athletes who are actually playing in the game?! Work with 30+ athletes on OpenSponsorship who are either on the New England Patriots or Los Angeles Rams today before the biggest game of their lives!

2:50 - Maggie discusses how (and why) to work with Rob "GRONK" Gronkowski

4:42 - Jason discusses how (and why) to work with Aaron Donald

6:31 - Maggie discusses how (and why) to work with Sony Michel

8:30 - Jason discusses how (and why) to work with Johnny Hekker

Scared to work with professional athletes in your marketing because you're not sure what the ROI looks like? Listen to learn more about 2 case studies we dive into including one with Pittsburgh Steeler Bud Dupree & another with NFL All Pro Todd Gurley.

1:22: Maggie talks about her deal with SLEEFS and how they partnered with Bud Dupree to see a huge increase in website traffic, conversion rate and pages per session

6:01: Jason talks about his deal with Neptune Ice and why they partnered with Todd Gurley to build brand awareness, increase website traffic, and differentiate themselves from other brands in their product category.

How to repurpose sponsored content from a professional athlete? After an athlete posts about my brand, how can I maximize my ROI? We give our 5 best tips on how to do this!

1. Re-post on your own social media channels to increase social media engagement (1:01)

2. Use in your next digital ad campaign to increase click-through rate (2:25)

3. Use in email marketing to increase open rate (4:16)

4. Use on your website to increase purchase rate (5:53)

5. Write a blog post to increase SEO (8:05)

Hi! Welcome to episode 11 of Tackling Sport Sponsorship with host Jason Bergman from NYC startup OpenSponsorship, the #1 marketplace for sport sponsorship.

This episode describes how companies can use OpenSponsorship to start having athlete promote their products and become brand ambassadors. Jason reviews how OpenSponsorship actually allows professional athletes to find your brand and connect with you directly through our Campaign feature. He also notes that in future episodes he will be interviewing both brands & athletes to review specific case studies.

Thanks for tuning in and hope you enjoy :)

All episodes are also available in audio format on SoundCloud & Apple Podcasts (more platforms coming soon).

Join us at www.opensponsorship.com

Instagram & Twitter: @opensponsorship

Hi! Welcome to episode 10 of Tackling Sport Sponsorship with host Alex Fabian and very special guest Ishveen Anand from NYC startup OpenSponsorship, the #1 marketplace for sport sponsorship.

Find out more about the vision behind OpenSponsiorship and how it came about in this interview with Founder & CEO Ishveen Anand.

Thanks for tuning in and hope you enjoy :)

All episodes are also available in audio format on YouTube and iTunes.

Join us at www.opensponsorship.com

Instagram & Twitter: @opensponsorship