Football is, by far, the biggest draw for most sports-themed restaurants and bars in the United States.
From die hard fans to casuals, college and pro, fans clubs, alumni groups, and fantasy gurus… Football brings everything.
It’s also expensive to show.
The average bar is paying upwards of $10,000 a year on football content alone. That’s a lot of money. For better or worse, operators don’t have a ton of great options:
- Pay up
- Forgo football and risk losing a lot of guests
Missing out isn’t worth the gamble…
We’re seeing how important being able to show games is in real-time right now in other sports.
Montreal restaurants that can’t show the Canadiens playoff games are losing reservations at a rate of 50% on game day. Meanwhile, in Tampa Bay, bars are seeing an increase in business 2-3x the norm during Lightning playoff games.
Granted those are different sports and the playoffs, but it highlights the importance of having access to the games your guests want. And in the U.S., that’s definitely the NFL and NCAA football.
This is all to say that your sports bar can’t go with option #2 – forgo football. That spells doom for your business. So you have to run with #1 – pay up.
But you can’t take a loss either.
Your bar needs to find ways of ensuring a full return on investment (ROI) of the content you’re paying for.
Be Where Sports Fans are Searching
When football fans are looking for a place to watch their favorite teams, unless they have a regular watering hole to visit, they’re turning to search and AI chatbots.
This is especially true for fans living outside the realm of their favorite teams and fans traveling for work or vacation.
So it’s important to be where fans are searching. You want your bar to appear when a fan queries “where to watch the Carolina Panthers tonight”, “Detroit Lions bar Wichita” and “top football bars near me,” for example.
Being associated with a local fan club can help with this as they’re likely to appear in searches specific for your town and on forums and other social media. Alumni groups, too, are good to partner up with for a similar reason.
The easiest way to ensure you’re appearing in search and AI results is with a FANZO profile. Last year, they connected sports bars with more than 6 millions fans searching for a place to watch live games at.
Make Sure Your Website and Socials Highlight Football
After a fan finds you, they’re going to check you out before visiting.
In fact, 78% of sports fans will check a bar’s website before visiting the first time. And it’s vital that your bar’s website highlights football in some regard.
“If they don’t take sports seriously online, I don’t believe they take it seriously in venue.”
In short: Your bar needs to promote what football games you’re showing on your website and social media.
- List your game schedule on your website. Fog Street Lawn Club does this for their soccer games and reports getting 5-10K visits a month to their website. Unreal.
- Show fans having fun. It’s worth investing in a photographer to snag some amazing photos and videos of your guests celebrating while watching the favorite team at your bar. Highlight the joy, excitement and emotion of the fans.
- Promote on your socials. Upload some graphics advertising what games you have scheduled for the weekend. Drop any special event or menu in the caption, too. This is also a great place for using those photos and vids you picked up of guests having fun.
- Highlight your TVs. If your business has an impressive TV setup, it’s worth showing that off. It’ll let online visitors see that you take sports seriously in venue and what sort of viewing experience they can expect.
If you don’t have the time or expertise in-house for this sort of marketing, FANZO makes embedding what football games you plan on showing onto your website and socials a breeze with some simple automation.
It helps you target those 78% of fans with below-minimal effort and tech skill needed.
Join Us for the Football Marketing Bootcamp II Webinar on June 24th & 25th
If you’re looking for some more football marketing ideas for your bar, join us for the Football Marketing Bootcamp II webinar on June 24th and 25th. It’s a free event we’re hosting, sponsored by EverPass.
Our goal is to help bar operators learn how to best market their business for the NFL and NCAA season and bring in more fans for less effort, so your bar can make the most out of that $10,000 investment.
Here’s what you’ll learn in this free, two-day webinar series:
- Sports Marketing in the Digital Age: How to Reach More Fans for Less Work
- We’re #1! How to Find, Build and Market to Fan Clubs
- The Big Switch: How to Make Converting to NFL Sunday Ticket on EverPass Painless
- Fleaflicker Marketing: How to Get Fun and Creative with Football Marketing
You can register for the Football Marketing Bootcamp II here. If you’re not able to watch live, you can still sign up and we’ll send you links to the recorded sessions after the event is over.
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