Baseball fans know that no two teams – or their fans – are alike. We decided to use Unacast location intelligence to prove their point. We took a look at baseball stadiums and their visitors during April 2018, to see how baseball fans are alike and different. We also looked at the brands that sponsor each stadium, to determine how well each sponsor chose their audience. For ease of comparison, all stadiums are indexed against Yankee Stadium (100). This is what we discovered.
Airlines
Visitors to Fenway Park are more likely to be frequent air travelers than visitors to any of the other stadiums that we looked at. JetBlue, an airline based in New York, chose to sponsor Fenway Park in Boston. Since their sponsorship puts them in front of plenty of air travelers, that seems to be a very good choice.
Banks
PNC Bank and Citibank both sponsor fields in their home cities of Pittsburgh and New York. Both banks know their customers: visitors to PNC Park are much more likely to visit PNC Bank than visitors to every other stadium. Similarly, visitors to Citi Field are far more likely to have recently visited a Citibank location, making both brands’ sponsorships a good fit.
Beer
The biggest beer lovers attend games at Coors Field, Wrigley Field, and Fenway Park. Both Coors Field and Wrigley Field enjoy sponsorships by household beer brands Coors and Budweiser. In late 2017, the Red Sox announced that Boston-based brewer Samuel Adams would replace former sponsor Budweiser as the official beer of the team through 2025. We think that was a great decision by Boston Beer Co., the brewer behind Samuel Adams.
Spirits
Happy Hour Adventurers can be found more often at Wrigley Field, Coors Field, and Fenway Park. Visitors to these stadiums over-index for visits to bars and happy hour events, suggesting that they enjoy the occasional drink. However, spirits brand Ketel One chose to sponsor Dodger Stadium, while Jim Beam sponsors several different stadiums, including Yankee Stadium, Citi Field and PNC Park. Perhaps they know something we don’t?
Autos
Stadium visitors at Dodger Stadium and Fenway Park are more likely to be in the market for a new car than visitors to the other stadiums on our list. Lexus chose to sponsor Dodger Stadium, which makes sense because visitors to Dodger Stadium are also more likely to have recently visited a Lexus dealership. In contrast, Hyundai sponsored Citi Field, whose visitors are less likely to have visited a Hyundai dealership. We can only guess that they’re looking to grow brand awareness in the New York Metro area.
Casinos
Visitors to PNC Park and Wrigley Field are most likely to have also recently visited a casino. But the only casino on our list of major stadium sponsors, Foxwoods Casino in Connecticut, sponsors Citi Field. Since Foxwoods is also convenient to Boston, they may reach even more of their target clientele by sponsoring Fenway Park. Casinos in Pennsylvania, like the Rivers Casino or The Meadows Racetrack and Casino, might also consider a sponsorship at PNC Park in the future.
Aggregated, pseudonymous location data can tell us a lot about peoples’ interests, preferences and habits. While we’re not sure how each of these brands chose their stadium sponsorships for the 2018 baseball season, we do know that location intelligence can help every brand to choose the sponsorship that puts them in front of more of their target customers.
