Avant Scores With New MLS Partnership

Key Takeaways:

• Excel Analytics is frequently asked about the value of intellectual property (IP) in sports partnerships.
• Avant’s new MLS partnership shows how companies can leverage IP to drive revenue in ways that are distinct to the sports industry.

Determining the revenue and brand impact that comes from licensing the marks, logos, likenesses, or images of a league, team, athlete, or event is a question Excel Analytics often receives from its clients. Examining Avant’s new MLS partnership and Bud Light’s previous partnership with the NFL highlights Excel Analytics’ approach to answering this question.

More specifically, one key component of valuation is to analyze the expected lifts in top-line revenues in partnerships focused on leveraging IP. Bud Light has used NFL team logos on its cans since the beginning of its relationship with the league in 2015. That?season, “A-B saw volume increases of 3.8 percent…in markets where Bud Light was sold in cans featuring local team logos” as compared to the prior year when no logos were featured on the cans.

Bud Light has generated consistent value from local team logos in following seasons as well. The NFL-licensed cans have?become?“its most powerful ROI driver” for the brand overall (and not solely from its sports partnerships).

This is particularly notable because this impact on?revenue?is occurring even as Bud Light operates in a market with large competitors where brand differentiation is critical but difficult to achieve. Consumers will often not change consumption patterns and / or see relatively little differences in product quality between competitors.

Having NFL-licensed cans enables Bud Light to have a clear point of differentiation with its competitors in ways that also drive lifts in brand sentiment, engagement, and awareness. This is important because Excel Analytics’ proprietary research has discovered a strong correlation between lifts in these brand metrics and positive changes in revenue growth. Our?Corporate Asset Valuation Model?(CAV) incorporates this research to determine the tangible value of using IP from both revenue and brand metrics.

Avant’s partnership with MLS seems to follow similar strategic considerations as the Bud Light deal with the NFL. Avant was founded as a company with the goal of “improving the borrowing experience for middle-income consumers.” More recently, the company has looked to grow its consumer base to also include higher-income consumers while also providing new products to its current consumers.?

The opportunity to partner with MLS to achieve these goals became available when Wells Fargo chose not to renew its all-encompassing financial services category partnership following the 2021 season.[DN1]? MLS provided Avant with the unique capability for Avant to engage with a much larger and more diverse audience that incorporated more consumer types than the company has reached on its own. In addition, MLS enabled Avant to create a co-branded card for 21 out of 28 clubs in the league in a similar way to Bud Light’s “beer with your team on it” campaigns.

Having teams involved in league-wide deals is critical to achieving consumer adoption of branded products. More specifically, fans can have higher levels of the affinity for specific teams rather than the league as whole. MLS provides Avant with the sole opportunity for the league’s fans to have a “card with your team on it” in proven ways that drive revenue for a consumer-facing product.

Avant’s recent announcement focused on MLS-branded credit cards highlights the importance of using sports IP for products to differentiate a company in a competitive market. It is also one clear way that sports partnerships can add tangible value to companies in ways that are difficult for other industries to replicate.