Interact directly with families of grassroots sports

Clubspaces' unique online platform allows professional sports teams and corporate sponsors to interact directly with members and families of local youth sports organizations who go online every day to organize play. Our platform enables partners to sponsor an entire suite of Web 2.0 tools for local youth sports organizations. Participants and their families access the platform to sign up to play, register for clinics, view schedules, and get directions to games and events while interacting with the sponsor’s merchandise and marketing programs side by side.

Case Study: LA Galaxy

LA Galaxy wanted to use the web to directly interact with families of local youth sports organizations to sell tickets, merchandise and promote their programs. At the same time they wanted to be seen as a valued supporter and benefactor of local youth sports within their community.

The Solution:
Working with Clubspaces, LA Galaxy now provides local clubs and leagues a free service to create websites, register their members, form teams and post schedules all integrated to an online box office for group tickets and merchandise sales that also includes:

• Video training center
• Game day experience offer
• Online box office
• Personal messaging
• Behind the scenes blog
• Merchandise promotions
• Community programs
• Sponsor inventory

Over one hundred clubs and leagues representing over 100,000 families have exclusive access to tools and promotions driving ticket sales and a true sense of support and partnership with the Galaxy Team.

How it works

When a company sponsors a network of clubs and leagues they enjoy exclusive access to the thousands of players, fans, parents, coaches and officials who are the heart of a local sports community. They can directly interact with families of grass roots youth sports organizations to sell tickets, merchandise and promote their programs. At the same time they are seen as a valued supporter and benefactor of grass roots youth sports within their community.

Example: Promoting Ticket Sales for Professional Sports Teams

A great example of grass roots marketing is enabling ticket sales for professional sports teams. Ticket sales teams are consumed with the administrative challenges of group sales, following up on orders and chasing down fulfillments. Often they do not have the time to build effective ticket channels with local youth groups and organizations. Instead of creating programs and monitoring sales by organization, sales teams are emailing and calling coaches and volunteers, hoping they pass on a ticket promotion to parents.

With Clubspaces, a professional team provides local youth sports groups a free service for managing their organization. At the same time, the professional team can directly interact with players and families. Through an integrated micro site that’s incorporated within every club's website, a professional team provides a video training center, inside news, merchandise as well as special ticket offers and group tickets. The professional team builds a relationship with youth players and their families. This drives ticket sales and fan support along with merchandise and ancillary sales, while at the same time providing much needed support to youth sport groups.

Sponsor Dashboard

Within a few weeks the first clubs are up and running (we already have thousands today to work with) and merchandise or ticket sales managers can then log into the micro site’s dashboard which is integrated with all the individual clubs and groups in their territory. They review new orders and confirm sales as needed. They can adjust the day’s club specific welcome message and send a thank you to all the families that attended the last game. Following a club’s ‘Game Night’, they upload the pictures they took of families and youth at the game. Finally, they add the new group that joined their program by sending them a widget to host on their site and upload their profile to the dashboard. The next time this group views this site their parents, coaches and players will receive a personalized experience. It’s all managed from a grass roots dashboard with reports, modules and custom messaging. Their next task is to call and visit another local group and offer them a free website that manages their members, schedules and provides access to online training featuring the professional team’s own coaches and players. They’ll explain it’s integrated to an online box office for special group ticket and merchandise sales.

Return on Investment

The Clubspaces platform includes programs for sponsors to:

• Drive fundraising $$ through affiliate fees generated by local clubs
• Provide an online training academy for parents, coaches and players
• Build one-on-one relationships with key club staff
• Enable tickets and team merchandise sales 24/7
• Provide behind the ropes access to sponsor news, info and views
• Provide Club members with direct link to the sponsor’s promotions
• Efficiently drive single and group ticket sales
• Deliver the grassroots family market to corporate sponsors
• Target marketing spend right where customers interact

The platform is designed, built, hosted and managed by Clubspaces with an online “dashboard” to manage the network of clubs and leagues with specific content, ticket and merchandise tools and messaging. The program is simple to operate and is maintained online and locally at the sponsor’s facilities.

The platform is offered free to local Clubs courtesy of the sponsor. The club receives a free suite of online Web 2.0 tools enabling them to run and operate their club more efficiently. In just under 3 years, Clubspaces has built a network of thousands of clubs and leagues representing millions of families and is growing everyday.

Summary

Clubspaces grass roots marketing programs provide a platform to build a long term online grassroots network that will drive merchandise, ancillary sales and brand loyalty, while at the same time providing much needed and valuable support to youth sport groups. Hundreds of thousands of members is just the beginning.