Usually held the first weekend in May, the Kentucky Derby has been viewed as the unofficial start of the summer season and the U.S. Open on Labor Day weekend has been a fitting bookend to this season. This year, due to COVID, sports fans will have the opportunity to enjoy these events which transcend their respective sport at the same time. Both mainstream cultural phenomena will be held with zero spectators this year, however the U.S. Open made the decision early on to go spectator free and their partners have planned accordingly.
Fifteen years ago, I first met today’s interviewee, Frank Nakano, while pitching the Breeders’ Cup as the perfect sponsorship for his client, American Express. Needless to say, that partnership never came to fruition, but a good friendship ensued. Over the years, Frank has been a valuable resource willing to share his professional perspective on understanding the motivations of a brand for wanting to engage with sports and lifestyle investment as a business platform since he has worked both for various brands and agencies as well as different sports properties (NHL and NBA).
Frank Nakano is currently the Managing Director of the Sports and Entertainment team at JP Morgan Chase who is responsible for working to cross firms aligning with the Chase brand with sports, entertainment and culturally-relevant properties that reflect the passion of customers. His team maintains a particular focus on the business outcomes of sponsorship and integrating various lines of business as appropriate for each relationship.
The JPMC portfolio is primarily focused on multi-purpose venues that attract fans 200+ times a year. Anchored by the longstanding partnership with the U.S. Open (USTA), the Madison Square Garden Company (Radio City Music Hall, Chicago Theater, Beacon Theatre and the Forum in Los Angeles), JP Morgan Corporate Challenge, Chase Field, Amelie Arena / Tampa Bay Lightning and the newly opened Chase Center that made its long-awaited debut in September of 2019), JPMorgan Chase was named Sponsor of the Year in 2017 by the Sports Business Journal.
Prior to joining JPMC, Frank was Vice President of Marketing Partnerships at the National Basketball Association managing development and relationships with national brands including Nike, HP, Cisco, Taco Bell, Southwest Airlines and others in addition to overseeing the League’s partnership strategy and sales of the U.S. National Team program leading up to the 2008 Beijing Olympics. Prior to his role at the NBA, he served as the Vice President at Momentum Worldwide working as agency partner for American Express and Verizon Wireless after having worked nine years with the National Hockey League in the International Business Development Group.
CC: Do you have a favorite horse racing memory?
FN: Six years ago, we were somewhere outside of Dallas and a bunch of the guys I grew up with just happened to be in town. We went to the track because one of my friends enjoyed racing. The rest of us had no idea what we were doing. I asked what the most significant payout would be and they said, “You’ve got to pick the trifecta.” I picked based on favorite numbers and the names of the horses. I put 20 bucks down, and then didn’t pay attention as the race came up. As the horses finished, unbelievably, it came up in that sequence. So I won the trifecta for about four seconds, and then there was an announcement that there was an inquiry on the track. I asked my friend what that meant and he said,”that means you’re not going to win.”
CC: Why do you think sponsorship of venues, events and sports are an important element to a company’s marketing portfolio?
FN: For JPMorgan, sponsorship is really about being able to engage with customers in moments of passion. It’s a main reason as to why we focus on venues as they are the location where the memories happen. A lot of our competitors have developed terrific access programs at the point of sale, like the first to buy ticketing. Although we’ve done some of that, our premise is that we want to be present at that moment when you can experience and are engaged with your passion point.
Through this multipurpose venue strategy, we also learn a lot about our customers because every time they swipe their card, we know what kinds of events they were attending and what engages them with our brand, and we can hopefully eventually push the right kind of offer moving forward that is tied to their interests.
CC: Are there other benefits to being a sponsor that you don’t have with other forms of branding or traditional media efforts?
FN: Yes, definitely. I think sponsorship allows you to get deeper. Although it’s not as wide as advertising, you can go deeper into the personalization where your customer can immerse themselves between your brand and what engages them. This is very valuable as a brand, especially for us as a financial services institution, because it creates an emotional connection between us and our customers. It really gives us an opportunity to change a customer’s interaction with Chase and make their relationship not so transactional, because frankly, financial service is a fairly utilitarian product, but through these moments, we can give it some context, which is our ultimate goal.
CC: How many proposals do you receive in a year and what would be some of the key attributes you look for when you’re choosing a sports property or venue to sponsor?
FN: Our department receives and evaluates over 300 proposals a year. It’s certainly a cross between an art and a science, but since we’ve landed on this venue strategy because of the year-round opportunities, we then factor in key markets. Like any business, we want to present our brand either where it is not as present or prevalent, or where it is a growing business and looks to continue to sustain that momentum. We also look to enhance our sponsorships with elements that drive our community efforts. So every partnership that we engage has to have a component that gives back, because our bank is there and we want to be good citizens to that community.
CC: What’s the most outlandish proposal you have been pitched?
FN: Since we are not just in sports but also other entertainment spaces like culinary and musical categories, one of my favorites was from a music tour by an artist whose tour I will not name. It was essentially a song about–sorry for this word, but along the lines of “B**ch Better Have My Money” and the organizers of this tour thought it was appropriate to prepare a proposal because “Presented by Chase” would be a terrific tie due to the lyrics. It took a little while to try to understand the logic on that, but I got a good kick out of that one.
CC: What is a key mistake often repeated by rights holders?
FN: I think it is overestimating media value within the partnership. In most deals, the media elements are a component of the integrated package, but as a sponsor our core focus is really about the engagement with customers. We are certainly seeing that play out now in this abnormal period where there are no fans and no opportunity to engage. If our focus was to be on media, there are many more efficient ways to purchase those opportunities without having to partner with the rights holder.
CC: A current change in sports is the growing trend of legalized betting. As a financial institution, how does this new category marry up with your brand, and do you want to associate with venues or teams that would have sports betting partners?
FN: I think I’d separate how we think about it. We wouldn’t necessarily not do a deal with a venue partner because they have a sports betting component. We realize that that is certainly a trend moving forward. We ourselves aren’t getting involved in that medium and are not crazy about it. I feel there’s a certain drag on a property if they get too heavily invested in it, but we realistically understand where the industry is going and we would make sure that we are not in the middle of that association.
CC: With the U.S. Open taking place on Labor Day, what is your opinion of the event without fans?
FN: If you had asked me this four months ago, I would have said it would have been one of the worst things possible to think about, because it is such a grand event in what it represents in terms of fan engagement. In many ways, it is a core part of the magic of that event. In many ways, the U.S. Open is not even about tennis. It’s an end-of-the-summer-season event, it’s summertime in New York, it’s a global event. But now looking forward, I think it will be interesting and I think it will be a terrific symbol for New York and the sports world to be played without fans.
I think it will be interesting from a marketer’s perspective to see how we translate what’s so great about that event. Now we’re challenged with how do we bring it to an at-home experience? How do we engage people in the social aspect of it while they’re home with the celebrity factor? The goal is now focused on how do you get that energy to come through the screen? We’re excited to bring our experience to a fan-less U.S. Open and translate it to the at-home experience.
(Click here for JPMorgan Chase’s Activations for a spectator-free U.S. Open)
CC: Based on your knowledge of the game, if you were a stakeholder in racing, what would you exploit to try to generate more interest from sponsors and advertisers?
FN: The beauty of the in-person experience. Until you see it up close, you can’t comprehend what great athletes the horses and the jockeys are and that there’s more to it than what appears to the layman. Then it’s the overall experience. I think that’s why people love the pageantry of the Kentucky Derby with its decades of tradition and festivities beyond the actual race itself. I would say that’s a great way to market it— as an experience. Similarly, Saratoga has built that tradition and there’s a destination element as well as a focus on racing. Focus on tradition and the pageantry of the sport.
CC: What’s the best sponsorship advice you have received and who gave it to you?
FN: I think it comes from my former boss, the guy that started the division I’m working in now. He had a very analytic approach to sponsorship. He said we’re never going to take away the emotion of it. That’s what it’s based on, but it has to be moved closer to a science than an art. I think the industry has traditionally been too loose in terms of not measuring itself and setting out goals. He emphasized a focus on the science behind it, especially in sponsorship where we did not want to be known as a company that went to games and fancy dinners. It should not be about us, but we should look at it from the customer perspective. How does sponsorship drive revenue? How does it bring people together? How does this strengthen the brand, and then most importantly, how do we prove that out?
CC: Is there a business mistake that you try to avoid at all costs?
FN: There’s a lot to them. I think you never want to take the emotion out of how you’re selecting, but I think you really want to make sure you’re doing your homework, looking at everything from not only the brand that you’re associating with, but the people that are going to be involved with it. Making sure that there’s enough flexibility within agreements, because the beauty of sponsorship is that it needs to evolve as you go along. You need to have enough structure in the agreement to protect your rights and get a set vision of what assets you are going to get. But you also need to be able to call an audible and adjust accordingly because things change so quickly and it’s not a commentary necessarily on the platform, but you just need to be able to pivot quickly. That entails some flexibility from the partner you’re choosing as well. As much as you can, have that understood up front.
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