Sports fans love cheering on their favorite teams, whether they are at home or in the stands. As the pandemic continues to affect different sport leagues and organizations across the country, teams and brands are tasked with new challenges when it comes to engaging their audience and creating new revenue streams. One solution includes connecting with fans virtually to incorporate look-alike fan cutouts into stadium and arena seats. This technique of “filling the seats” is quickly rising in popularity and is being adopted by all types of sporting events from youth sports to the professional leagues. Not only does it create a sense of normalcy for the players, but it also makes for a more presentable field for broadcasting games.
The Premier Lacrosse League (PLL) recently shifted their season to a three-week tournament with no in-person fans. You can imagine the disappointment of the teams, League, and the PLL community. So, to encourage the players, promote interest in the televised event, and drive additional revenue, they sought out a solution to engage their fans in the PLL Championship Series in Utah.
To make this happen, Source One Digital worked together with PLL staff to create a game plan for their Championship Series with unique coroplast cutouts of their fans as well as watch party banners. The project included:
- A customized fan cutout design that could be installed to sit upright in the bleachers, all while ensuring durability and presentability for the duration of the three-week Championship Series
- Developed of a customized PLL website where fans could upload their images and place orders through a secure platform
- Layout a timeline which accounted for the time for fans to place orders, cutout production, and shipping to the host venue in time for the event
Results
The PLL received many compliments regarding how real the cutout fans looked on TV, and it increased the excitement surround the Championship Series games. More importantly, the fan cutout program helped the league to strengthen relationships with their fans and bring in additional revenue from lost ticket sales.