Sports Illustrated Tickets, the iconic US publication’s ticketing platform, has announced a new deal with Kraft Sports and Entertainment, the sports and events arm of the Kraft Group conglomerate, to sponsor a range of its teams and properties.
Through a multi-year tie-up, Sports Illustrated Tickets becomes the official fan experience sponsor of the New England Patriots American football team of the NFL, the New England Revolution soccer outfit of MLS, and also of Gillette Stadium, the home venue of both those sides.
In this role, Sports Illustrated Tickets aims to revolutionize the fan experience at Gillette Stadium, offering interactive digital and physical touchpoints through which Patriots and Revolution fans and customers can interact with both the Sports Illustrated brand, and their own teams.
Furthermore, Sports Illustrated’s parent company Authentic Brands Group will sponsor the North End Zone concourse hospitality space at the stadium, now rechristened as the Sports Illustrated Pavilion.
Sports Illustrated Pavilion will operate year-round across Patriots and Revolution fixtures, as well as for concerts and other live events, presenting in-person activities and engagements to promote Sports Illustrated Tickets and capitalize on its association with the Sports Illustrated brand.
David Lane, the chief executive of Sports Illustrated Tickets, has spoken to Sportcal about how fan focused partnerships such as this new Kraft deal are the way forward for the Sports Illustrated Tickets brand.
He said: “The opportunity for us to work with the individual teams here in the US is really where we can start to help improve the fan experience. We can do things that normal ticketing companies would not, because of our 70-year history.”
Adding that Sports Illustrated Tickets is in conversation with a number of other NFL franchises, Lane explained what Kraft Sports brings to the table as a partner, adding: “Any pro team partnership is going to give that partner access to the fan base, and that's what's important.
“[In growing] awareness to the fan bases, we need help from the teams to reach their audiences and their fan bases, especially in this case, in the Boston marketplace.
“The Kraft family is a premier ownership family in the world. The organization is top class, the best in class. And so for us to be able to work with that team that has accomplished so much, it will help us really create an opportunity going forward where we can reach Patriots fans, Revolution fans, and then fans in Boston, not just for sports, but for concerts and for theater.
"That's our goal, helping find ways to create awareness to the fan bases through relationships like Kraft Sports and Entertainment.”
Sports Illustrated Tickets's partnership with Kraft Sports and Entertainment follows the brand being announced as one of the NFL’s officially licensed sale channels on the NFL Ticket Network.
Although Sports Illustrated is primarily known as a major media brand in the US, as opposed to a ticketing platform, it is its long history with the American consumer that Lane says helps it differentiate from rivals in the ticketing marketplace.
“We think that fans, more than ever, are looking for another marketplace to buy tickets from, loyalty to our competitors is challenging. [We offer] trust and credibility, iconic, we're globally recognized, we have two and a half billion of inventory, same seats to the same events, no transaction fees, fully transparent pricing, and we think that for fans when they're looking for their next event, we present a great option from a trusted ecosystem.
"We think that fans are looking for other marketplaces to buy from than our competitors. We're not here to disrupt, we're here to compete.”
Beyond the Kraft sponsorship, Lane also touched on the future for Sports Illustrated Tickets and emphasized “global expansion” over the next 24 months as a primary target.
He said such expansion "includes naming rights, stadium, primary opportunities, secondary opportunities. We are in conversations with venues around the world right now to become their partner, not their vendor, and I think as we step into those conversations, we have some great value that we can bring to our partners.
That value, in Lane’s eyes, includes Sports Illustrated's primary and secondary market ticketing solutions, its foundations on the digital blockchain, its competitiveness relative to other industry players, and most importantly, that the brand name evokes consumer trust.
He concluded: “Our focus is to follow what the leaders in the space have done over the past decades, find the partners like Kraft Sports and Entertainment that see the opportunity, and work with them. Take over the ticketing, take over the partnerships where we can do better for them, and make that experience better for the fan.”
