How AI Is Bridging the Gap Between Grassroots and Professional Sports Sponsorships

As you already know from our previous articles, sponsorships are not only considered massive financial support but also a profitable strategic partnership for both parties. For major brands this is an opportunity to expand their influence, straighten their reputation, and establish solid contact with new audiences. But what’s in for the grassroots?

AI in sports sponsorship opens new doors for those who seek to be noticed. AI analytics and AI-driven solutions like Entyx enable measuring the success of campaigns, and collaborations, calculating engagement levels, and proving the efficiency of cooperation even for sports teams. However online broadcasts make them even more attractive in terms of profits for advertisers. We will tell you how this works below in the article. Time to spill the beans!

What Are Grassroots Sports?

Grassroots sports are half-professional sports initiatives or simply put, highly motivated amateurs striving to become professional sportsmen. Among the grassroots are children’s and youth teams, school leagues, local teams, local competitions, and neighborhood football. They follow the main goal - to get as many people into sports as possible with no priority on achieving professional results. Therefore, they have a beautiful goal but a significant lack of financial support, limited marketing opportunities, and dependence on volunteers or sponsors. But grassroots sports play an important role in developing young talents and popularizing sports at the regional level.

The Challenges Grassroots Sports Face

Challenges for grassroots sports include a limited network, sports funding issues, absence of marketing experience, and even a lack of data analysis to showcase their value to potential sponsors. Finding support, partnerships, and sponsorships without a strong PR team (or professional sports marketing team) and a successful professional background is really a tough task.

The absence of marketing resources makes grassroots almost invisible to advertisers. For example, football teams can’t afford to boost their content on social media or hire professional marketers because their audience’s reach is low.

Another sponsorship barrier is that they can’t demonstrate ROI to their potential sponsors who expect a high amount of fans coming to watch their game. For the same reason, even eSports grassroots teams are also struggling to get out of the shade. No financial support - no opportunity for development. This used to be an indefinite circle situation until Artificial Intelligence stepped into the game…

How AI Connects Grassroots Teams with Major Brands

AI algorithms analyze fans’ engagement by collecting data on visiting matches, social media activity, and content interaction. This helps grassroots teams show their value to potential investors.

Platforms with sponsorship AI tools automate the search for sponsors by connecting brands and teams whose marketing goals align with the audience of a concrete grassroots club. For instance, a grassroots football team can attract a sponsor interested in promoting its products among local fans.

To give you an idea of how it works, AI in grassroots sports can help small football leagues attract sponsorships from national brands by analyzing data on their digital reach. AI is applicable and effective at any scale, from local events to professional teams.

Why Brands Should Support Grassroots eSports

The grassroots players of today are the pro players of tomorrow, so it's really important to focus on them and help foster that community.

There are loads of great opportunities and a lot of value, but at the moment some brands may not see that value because the grassroots tournaments might have only a few hundred, a few thousand, or tens of thousands of viewers as opposed to hundreds of thousands or millions from the top end.

If you're a sponsor coming in looking to test the water, the grassroots is the ideal sector because you don't have to throw millions at the top level, you'll be paying less and if it's a really exciting event that showcases the talent of the future, your brand is going to be associated with that. And at the grassroots level, the community is so passionate and dedicated. Brands can sponsor the tournaments themselves, there are the players, and various companies are being set up now.

We kindly invite you to watch our YouTube video dedicated to Sponsorships Opportunities AI gives to Small Teams | Entyx AI-powered Platform.

Benefits of AI for Both Grassroots and Sponsors

If you think that AI benefits solely grassroots sports, you’re mistaken. Advertisers also profit from AI by making their sponsorships more transparent and efficient.

There’s mutual value for both parties as AI opens access to data like the audience's activity on social media, frequency of match visits, and fan engagement in real-time. This helps grassroots teams show the real value of marketing campaigns with them.

Advertisers have a great opportunity to find teams with highly engaged fans thanks to AI tools. This increases ROI which is essential in any partnership. AI-driven solutions like Entyx enable advertisers to evaluate in detail their sponsorship success: analyze the reach, and track audience interactions during sports streams at a minimum. These features help marketers develop personalized ad strategies for advertisers. For example, if a streamer showcases matches of a local team and unites active viewers, Entyx helps advertisers define how valuable this investment in their content will be, calculate Media Value, and use smart banners to attract even more viewers.

This results in mutual benefits such as new partners for grassroots sports teams, transparent ROI data, and access to loyal audiences for advertisers.

The Future of AI in Sports Sponsorships

Nothing will stop the development of AI technology in sports marketing. On the contrary, it will keep transforming every sphere. Sports Sponsorships will eventually become even more accurate in terms of partner choice, automated, and personalized. The direction of future AI-driven sponsorship is still in data analytics: from fan behavior to ad campaign efficiency. 

One key direction will also be automating sponsor selection. For now, Entyx offers a selection of streamers who can help advertisers reach their target audiences. On top of that, Entyx enables advertisers to add dynamic banner ads during live streams. But AI will also help advertisers find teams and events with the maximal potential.

Another AI trend in sports is the increase of virtual ads. Entyx offers Smart Banners, Multibanners and Catch the Drop banners to share ad messaging in real time for various audiences. Another thing AI empowers sponsorships with leading VR events where they can sponsor digitally branded equipment for players of their teams.

Final Word

Artificial Intelligence is definitely bridging the gap between grassroots and famous brands. It opens new opportunities for partnerships that grassroots couldn’t have before. Thanks to AI, sports teams, find partners, and advertisers invest in reasonable collaborations. 
Entyx helps analyze the efficiency of advertisers' collaborations, measure their impact, and ROI, and even drive more sales through collaborations with streamers.

Don’t miss out on the technology that conquers the world. Own it and find your best partners, sponsors, and fans. Sign up to Entyx for more information about sponsorship innovations and the AI world.