Leagues & Teams
Our Leagues & Teams Services Include:
Why Leagues and Teams Choose Navigate
When it really matters — when opportunity calls and there are millions at stake, or the future of a property hangs in the balance — leagues and teams work with Navigate.
From Major League Baseball to the National Basketball Association, we’ve spent the better part of two decades as a trusted advisor to the biggest names in professional sports, including each of the five major North American leagues. With our data-driven approach to sports consulting, we help clients strategize franchise relocations, partnership renewals, fan engagement, retention and more.
But we don’t just create and aggregate research. Navigate merges the art and science of data, translating analytics into actionable insights and recommendations built for ownership and commissioner-level presentations. Leveraging our experience and leadership in the sports industry, we inform your decision-making at every opportunity.
We’re here for the moments that matter.
The big deal, be it naming rights or media rights. The big presentation, when you unveil your new marketing strategy or your new ticketing plan. The big move, when it’s time to plan for a new stadium, facility or arena.
At Navigate, we know the toughest decisions rely on information, but data only gets you so far. That’s why we won’t just provide the numbers or conduct rudimentary surveys. We help clients understand the whole story, connecting the dots between analytics and key business initiatives.
Sponsorship Valuation
We understand that sponsorship is one of the most important revenue streams for any professional sports organization. At Navigate, we help you learn more about your biggest deals to ensure you’re not leaving money on the table.
Our proprietary valuation methodology is the gold standard in the industry, trusted by Fortune 500 brands and sports teams in every major league. We produce a Fair Market Value that is an accurate appraisal of the sponsorship within the context of the marketplace. Think of us as the Kelly Blue Book of sponsorship valuation — your go-to source of clarity and confidence.
Extending beyond the Fair Market Value, we layer on insights about why your sponsorship is valuable and how certain variables could push it up or down.
Through white space analysis, Navigate helps you understand your sponsorship gaps and unlock the value potential of your sponsorable assets. But we don’t just identify the possibilities. We build a package around those assets to demonstrate exactly how they would optimize revenue.
Sponsorship Impact
By combining our Fair Market Value assessment and ROI results, we deliver you answers to two of your most important sponsorship questions:
- Are we getting a good deal?
- And is it working?
Our proprietary impact methodology is the most trusted evaluation of sponsorship ROI in the sports industry and beyond. Using data generated by our custom market research team, we measure whether you can attribute KPI lifts back to the deal.
For the savviest sports organizations and brands in the business, we take this work a step further. We measure return on investment to determine if the sponsorship is truly impacting the bottom line. And if it’s not? We’re there in your corner to help your organization choose the best course of action.
Naming Rights and Jersey Deals
There’s no better time to leverage the power of information than when you’re negotiating an eight- or nine-figure sponsorship. We help clients take the guesswork out of naming rights and jersey deals, ensuring they understand every facet of the package from top to bottom.
Having consulted on over 40 major naming rights deals with the world’s top sports teams and leagues, we know there’s nothing simple about the process. When the ball’s in your court, it pays to have someone who’s seen and done it all before.
More than your trusted advisor, think of us as an indispensable teammate. Big deals like these only come around once in a career, which is why it pays to have an experienced veteran on your side guiding your way through the process.
For a brand’s largest partnerships, we start with valuation, but continue to provide support through to the finish. This includes evaluating the property’s proposal, providing guidance on assets and value trade-offs, creating a decision tree, developing the negotiation strategy and advising on the final contract.
Let us do the heavy lifting behind the scenes while you focus on day-to-day operations and leading the negotiations.
Ticketing
Ticketing data retention, secondary market activity, historical analysis — the list goes on. From fan surveys to dynamic pricing models, we deliver quantitative and qualitative data to help our clients optimize ticketing strategies (and, ultimately, revenue).
We touch all aspects of what drives a successful ticketing strategy. This includes price-demand elasticity studies; analyses to inform the right quantity and mix of premium seating and experiences; diving into the motivators and barriers for each level of ticket buyer, including season-tickets and alternative ticket-buying packages; and research to inform marketing strategies aimed at each segment of your fanbase.
Media Rights
When a team has to make a once-in-a-decade decision within a rapidly changing landscape, and when that decision will have massive ramifications on the team’s revenue and exposure to fans for years to come, it pays to have the best data and support possible.
We bring together primary research, secondary research, and sports industry expertise to map out your media rights options and chart your path to success. Our tailor-made predictive insights help you secure a deal that is optimal now, and will hold up years into the future.
Our consultants have advised major franchises on their DTC strategy, and have informed significant media rights deals for properties and networks alike.
Fans
Professional sports have a unique ability to bring together diverse groups of people in support of a common cause — their team. This comes with a challenge: How do you keep fans engaged?
At Navigate, we know fans are trending more towards individual fandoms than they are their favorite team. Let us help you tackle this challenge. We help you understand your fanbase — and the next generation of fans — to create a roadmap for your marketing, ticketing, guest experience and partnership groups.
Engaging your fanbase, both in-venue and out-of-venue, is how you cultivate fans that love the entire organization as much as they love the players. But doing it effectively? That’s when it pays to have Navigate in your corner.