Spotlight on: Championships

Before I get into today’s content, I’d love your help!

This project started earlier this year as a way for me to scratch the research itch that was left after I completed my PhD. It’s 100% researched and written by me in my spare time. That means the content to-date has largely been based on what can fit into my schedule and has caught my eye on any given day.

But I want to make sure I’m giving you the content you’re interested in! So as we wrap up the 2024 Formula 1 season and start looking ahead to 2025, I’ve created a short survey that I’d love you to take a minute or two to complete. I promise it is short, and it’s a chance for you to tell me what you want to see more of, or less of, or just to provide any other feedback you think may be useful!

Thank you!!

In 2018, my favourite hockey team won the Stanley Cup. The Washington Capitals (often referred to as the Loves of My Life) beat the Las Vegas Golden Knights in Game Six of the finals. They were playing across the world from me in Vegas, but as I watched live from my couch in Sydney, I cried and cried and cried.

Yesterday saw Vegas witness the crowning of another championship: Mr Max Verstappen crossed the line ahead of Lando Norris at the Las Vegas Grand Prix, which was enough to secure him his fourth straight title.

While the stakes to secure his victory were a bit lower than what we often see across sport, it was still an exciting moment for Max and Red Bull, and just as importantly, for their fans.

So, why do fans care about a championship, and how can we best leverage their emotion to engage (and convert into sales)?

A core part of my work is discussing the fact that sports fandom is a personal relationship more than it is anything else. When you move from being a viewer to having a casual interest to then picking your favourite team and athlete, you are moving down the funnel of “this has caught my eye” to “liking this is now a core part of who I am”. I didn’t cry when the Caps won the cup because I enjoy watching hockey, I cried because I cared about them so much it felt like I was on the ice winning myself.

If you’ve ever done any reading on social identity and sports, you may have encountered a concept known as Basking In Reflected Glory (BIRGing). As the name suggests, BIRGing is the act of celebrating the success of a sports team as though it was your own. It’s saying, I picked this team, I’ve been there with them through the ups and downs, and now I get to enjoy the outcome. It’s one of the reasons we get so emotional, so borderline irrational, so hopeful to the point it makes us feel ill. We are no longer just a fan, we are part of something bigger than ourselves that helps to give our life meaning.

But importantly, all of this happens without input from the team or athletes themselves.

So, while your fans are celebrating with each other, you need to make sure you pull them back to you as the official center of their universe. In the short term, this is best managed through behind-the-scenes insights and access, and merchandise sales.

So using yesterday’s win as our example, let’s have a bit of a deeper look at this in action.

Behind The Scenes Access

When you win a championship, time is of the essence. Fans are locked in at that moment, and they want to know everything that is happening as the celebrations unfold. This is where you have the upper hand: fans can be in group chats and on social media celebrating and engaging with each other, but you are the only one with access to what is happening behind the scenes. And fans want nothing more than this access.

Social Media

The obvious place to share this content is social media, and both Max’s update account and the Red Bull Racing account were posting at a rate of knots.

Fans couldn't be on the grid or at the parties, but they wanted to feel as though they were, and the teams came through for them.

I also loved that the Verstappencom account highlighted fans who were visiting their in-store celebration. This furthers a connection to their community, extends the celebration past Vegas, and acts as a reminder to fans that the store exists.

Other Comms

Max has a fan app which was celebration central when I opened it up this morning. I don’t have notifications turned on for the app, but I can only imagine they were going wild last night.

The app feed included a mix of merch, Instagram posts, and mini news stories from key people in Max’s life. This is an effective mix of content as it draws you into the wider world of Max, and reminds you that while Max is the individual champion, there is a whole team of excited people behind him. While a non-Max fan may not care about seeing quotes from Max’s manager, the app understands its audience and captures their attention with the deeper content they are looking for.

On the team side, Red Bull shared their newsletter within two hours of Max being crowned champion.

The newsletter included a link to the merch pre-sale, quotes from key staff, and phone wallpapers for those who wanted to immediately update their content.

While most fans wouldn’t have been waiting on the email to see the news or to engage with championship content, it’s still an important touchpoint in the overall engagement ecosystem.

Merchandise

Now, a championship is the one time where pushing merchandise should be your top priority. Yes, I know that most organisations think that pushing merch should always be the top priority, but when we’re thinking long-term relationship building and fan engagement, that’s not the case (I have a long post on merch expanding on this coming one of these days!).

When you win a championship (or achieve another significant milestone or victory), merchandise should be priority Number One because your fans are never more ready to hit purchase than they are in that moment.

This is for a few reasons:

1. Fans want to be able to celebrate the moment with the team. The best example of this is the “official” celebration merch that is worn by team members and often by the winners themselves. I know my “official locker room” range hat and shirt are still my favourite pieces from the Caps win*! As soon as Max won, we saw the Red Bull team in matching shirts, and fans want in on the fun.

   

2. Merchandise is also a way for fans to signal to others that they are fans, and in this case, that they were fans at an important moment. It becomes a marker of status to be able to say, “I was around for that, and have the shirt to prove it”.

3. Fans get caught up in the excitement of the moment and want to buy during the hype. You’re excited now, not next week when there’s a whole other race to engage with.

   

   I am not a Max fan so I wasn’t attempting to buy merch last night, but from chatter on social media the queue in the above screenshot was up to almost 100,000 straight after the win. That’s pretty incredible (and amazing 10/10 user design!).

Takeaways

None of this is particularly groundbreaking, but it is always useful to see how brands can leverage a moment that is often as much about an individual fan’s emotions as it is the team/athlete themselves.

Your priority in these high-emotion moments is to ask, “what can I give to the fans that they can’t get from the fan community/anywhere else”, and then turn the dial up to 10 in your delivery.

I’m very openly not a fan of Max** or Red Bull, but they’ve done a great job at engaging their fans over the past 24hrs. Although, I guess they’ve had some time to perfect their approach, given this is their fourth win in a row!

*If you’re a parkrunner and ever find yourself in Sydney at a harbourside parkrun event and spot someone wearing a Caps championship cap, say hi because it’s probably me!

**And very open about why: In 2020 he used two slurs that are extremely offensive to people with Down Syndrome. Instead of immediately apologising, he said it “wasn’t [his] problem” if people were offended. He later apologised after significant international pressure, but as the proud sister of someone with Down Syndrome, the damage was done in my eyes. I cannot support anyone who has those words in their vocabulary, regardless of how well they drive a car.