Nashville, Tenn.-based Vanderbilt Health recently partnered with the NFL’s Tennessee Titans — banking on a return that will “far outweigh” the cost, a health system leader told Becker’s.
The organization struck a multiyear deal in early March to become the team’s official healthcare provider and sponsor its new arena. As part of the agreement, Vanderbilt Health will get naming rights to a stadium entrance and appear on signage inside the arena, provide clinical care to the players, and offer emergency medical services on-site.
“We want to meet our community where they are. And our community is really in sports and entertainment,” said Stuart Dill, senior vice president and chief marketing officer of Vanderbilt Health. “Sports and entertainment are unifying. They bring people together.”
As he worked on this partnership, he learned that of the top 100 most-watched television shows in the U.S. last year, 84 were NFL games (and 96 were sporting events).
“The only time in America where everybody will turn and look in the same direction is the Super Bowl — you’ve got 125 million people watching it in real time,” he said. “Marketing, at its core, is about connecting. When you really think about how to connect, then you have to do that in unifying places. And that’s why sports and entertainment are such a perfect avenue for healthcare.”
Based in the Music City, Vanderbilt has other entertainment-related partnerships. Nicole Kidman, who lives in Nashville, is the voice of the academic health system’s current brand campaign. Dolly Parton’s name adorns part of the children’s hospital. Taylor Swift helped open Ryan Seacrest’s studio there. Kix Brooks of country duo Brooks & Dunn sits on its advisory board.
Mr. Dill was himself a longtime music manager before joining Vanderbilt Health in 2015. Nashville’s “two greatest exports are entertainment and healthcare,” he said.
With the Titans, Vanderbilt got a unique opportunity to become a “cornerstone sponsor” of the team’s new Nissan Stadium, a $2.1 billion, 60,000-seat facility set to open in 2027. While Vanderbilt isn’t disclosing the financials of the sponsorship, Mr. Dill said the health system will monitor the return on investment via normal marketing metrics like impressions, conversations and reach through social media, digital media and broadcast. But then there are the intangibles.
He pointed to Vanderbilt Health’s partnership with the NHL’s Nashville Predators, which honors a “Champ of the Game,” a patient from Monroe Carell Jr. Children’s Hospital at Vanderbilt, beamed onto the Jumbotron, as the crowd gives a standing ovation and the players tap their sticks on the ice.
“It’s a unifying moment for both teams, for the entire audience, to support a kid that’s currently literally at the children’s hospital that night,” he said. “That’s worth its weight in gold. It’s worth more than any ad buy, right? There are moments we’ll be able to create in all of these partnerships, including the Titans, that will far outweigh any financial price tag that we’ll pay on a branding element.”
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