Last spring, Conference USA had the idea of executing an athlete marketing campaign surrounding its conference basketball tournament. It took content from the league office and asked alumni to share it on social. It worked, though not having a concrete method in place to execute the campaign was a challenge. For that reason, they decided to contact opendorse, a leading athlete marketing platform.
Conversations that began in the fall developed into a partnership between the two sides. C-USA is now the first conference to use opendorse to help build the brands of current student-athletes and member institutions on social media.
opendorse works with a great number of professional athletes, but its true roots lie in collegiate sports. Founded by two former Nebraska football players, Blake Lawrence and Adi Kunalic, bringing opendorse to the college ranks means more to them than you might think.
“While there is a strong connection between pro athletes, their team, the league they play in and the fan base, they’re not locked in to that team and in that league forever,” Lawrence said. “At the collegiate level, every athlete — whether they play one game, compete in one event, or they are an All-American — they’re connected and tied to that institution, that conference and that fan base forever. You can do a lot of things with that in terms of building brands and connections that last a lifetime.”
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An example of the connections opendorse creates is the work it did with the University of Alabama at Birmingham, a C-USA member institution — prior to partnering with the entire conference. The Blazers had their football program cut in 2014, only to be revived three years later. opendorse helped UAB distribute content to some of their notable alumni like Jordan Howard, Roddy White and Joe Webb in order to stoke excitement surrounding the program.
Excited to see what my brothers are going to do this season for @UAB_FB. Ever Faithful, Ever Loyal. #theReturn pic.twitter.com/Ulbv8RebZ4
— Jordan Howard (@JHowardx24) July 19, 2017
By no means is this a platform exclusive to revenue sports, either.
“This is for athletes in all sports,” Lawrence said. “That’s what’s exciting about the vision that C-USA has and that we’ve been able to work with them in imagining. Every athlete throughout each phase of their career — from their first day on campus to the day they’re inducted into the college hall of fame — has content and they’re creating content and they don’t need to be revenue-driving sports to have that photo that can really encapsulate their personality and brand.”
The C-USA-opendorse partnership will kick off with the promotion of the 2018 C-USA Basketball Championship. Schools will use opendorse tools to create excitement around the conference tournament.
Lawrence says opendorse is already in talks with other conferences, but is very excited about C-USA being the first that they roll out.
“We fully realize the power of the social space for all involved, and the high engagement opportunities presented by our coaches, administrators, student-athletes and alumni,” C-USA commissioner Judy MacLeod said in a statement. “opendorse is at the forefront of social space mobilization, and we are proud to create this landmark partnership with them for our member schools.”