Los Angeles Football Club has found a creative way to market its brand even though its future home in Exposition Park has yet to be built.
The team started presenting virtual reality tours of its under-construction $350 million soccer stadium last month to potential sponsors and players as a way to help them imagine their place within the Major League Soccer expansion team.
So far, LAFC has given more than 30 virtual reality walkthroughs of its stadium using HTC Vive headsets, a process its leadership said should help jumpstart business deals.
“We don’t have a finished space to sell, and this is another pathway to sell it,” said Benny Tran, LAFC’s senior vice president of development and strategy. “I think it’s critical for us, especially because we don’t have a building.”
The franchise is aiming to use virtual reality to cut out a slice of a steadily growing market for sponsorships – a global industry projected to rise 4.5 percent this year to $62.8 billion, according to Chicago consultancy ESP Properties.
The team signed a $100 million, 15-year stadium naming-rights deal with Banc of California last year. Some of its other corporate partners include IBM, Sherwin-Williams Co., Delta Air Lines Inc., Aeromexico and Panasonic Corp.
Virtual reality is part of a larger effort by LAFC to use cutting-edge technology throughout the organization. Its stadium will include Wi-Fi, electric car-charging ports in the parking lot and 15,000 square feet of LED video signage.
“Technology shortens the distance between the players and fans, artists and audiences,” said Peter Guber, LAFC’s exec chairman. “You’re looking at tools that can engage and heighten the connection to improve the fan experience and engagement.”
Visualizing future
When potential jersey sponsors receive a virtual reality tour of Banc of California Stadium, they start out in a 3-D rendering of LAFC’s locker room, where executives can see their company’s logo printed on a team shirt hanging from a locker door. The franchise has also shown two potential soccer players their names printed on virtual jerseys as part of recruitment efforts, said James Guin, the club’s senior vice president of corporate partnerships.
Commercials from prospective sponsors are played on virtual televisions as the tour winds through a digital version of the clubhouse. At the end of the experience, viewers step onto a virtual field and are prompted to kick a soccer ball.
“Everything we are trying to do is to capture the hearts and minds, not only of the fans, but all the partners,” said Guin. “There is a little bit of an emotional experience.”
He said potential sponsors that have seen the presentation have yet to sign up, noting the sponsorship sales cycle typically takes 10 months or more. But, he’s confident the technology will ultimately help close deals.
The use of virtual reality in sales presentations could become the standard for sponsorship pitches, said Matt Balvanz, senior vice president of analytics with Navigate Research of Chicago, a firm that analyzes the value of sports sponsorships.
“It has to be a more accurate way of visualizing and experiencing sponsorship than anything that can be done in a presentation or in two dimensions,” he said. “If they have success with it, I’m sure other teams will opt in and do it as well.”
