There’s something strange about sports marketing.

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We spend enormous amounts of time trying to convince people to talk about our brands, but thousands of people show up already doing it for us. They wear the logo on their chest. Bring friends to games. Build weekends around schedules they had no part in creating. Teach their children the chants. Travel hundreds of miles to stand beside people they may have never met before.

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Most companies would spend millions trying to create that kind of behavior.

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Sports organizations call them fans.

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I think we should pay more attention to what that means.

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Most brands have to work incredibly hard to become part of someone's life. Sports organizations often begin with people who genuinely want the brand to matter.

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But supporters aren't simply an audience to market to, they're participants. They create traditions, songs, jokes, watch parties, flags, road trips and communities around a team. They introduce other people to it. And some of the most meaningful ways people become fans have nothing to do with marketing at all.

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Ask someone why they support a team and you're likely to hear about another person.

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My dad loved them.

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My roommate took me to a game.

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My grandfather watched every Sunday.

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My friend brought me into the supporters' section.

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There usually isn't a paid social ad in that story. There's a person.

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That's what makes supporters such an extraordinary marketing force. They can offer something organizations struggle to manufacture: trust.

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A supporter doesn't explain a team through brand pillars. They bring someone to their favorite bar before the game. They explain the rivalry. Tell them when to stand. Introduce them to the people they always sit beside. Eventually, that new person knows the chants too.

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That's marketing. It just doesn't look like marketing.

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It also means sports organizations don't completely control what their brands mean. They control the logo, official channels and campaigns but supporters create much of the culture surrounding them.

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I don't think organizations should try to control that. They should pay attention to it.

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Which traditions are developing organically? Which places matter to supporters? What language do they use when nobody from the organization is in the room? What are people already creating because they care enough to create it themselves?

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Then comes the harder part.

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Give it room.

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There is a difference between supporting fan culture and trying to turn everything supporters create into an organizational marketing asset. People can usually tell which one you're doing.

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None of this means marketing departments aren't necessary.

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I work in marketing. That would be a fairly inconvenient conclusion for me to reach.

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But maybe part of our job is recognizing that we aren't always starting from zero.

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Sometimes the strongest version of the brand is already happening in supporters' sections, bars, parking lots, family traditions and group chats.

 

Our job isn't always to invent something more interesting.

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Sometimes it's to understand what's already there, help more people find their way into it and make sure the organization remains worthy of the people willing to carry it beyond the places we can reach ourselves.

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A billboard can tell someone your team exists.

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A campaign can tell them what your brand stands for.

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But someone who loves the team can show another person what it feels like to belong to it and I'm not sure there's a more powerful form of sports marketing than that.