Barstool Sports Teaming up with DraftKings

Because of Barstool's success and wide outreach towards consumers, companies with the same target market, offering different products often attempt to team-up with Barstool to help promote their products. The most notable partnership with Barstool is their one with DraftKings. DraftKings is a company that offers daily fantasy games to customers who don't want to be locked in to a full season of fantasy sports. The daily fantasy market has grown exponentially over the past few years, and Barstool jumped on that train relatively early. Last year, at the 2014 Super Bowl between the New England Patriots and the Seattle Seahawks, Barstool maintained a huge presence leading up to the game.

Since DraftKings is a daily fantasy game, they could not offer a contest for the Super Bowl alone, however, they still wanted to have a presence felt in the weeks leading up to the "big game". Instead of a fantasy contest, DraftKings partnered with Barstool to offer a prize package including tickets to the Super Bowl. The contest was a $100 buy-in with 20 prizes of cash, and 1 grand prize package winner. The package included:

· Airfare + 4 Nights Hotel for you and a guest
· 2 Tickets to the “Big Game”
· Party Bus Friday Night with El Pres and the Barstool guys
· 2 Tickets to the Victoria’s Secret “Leather and Laces” party on Saturday Night
· $500 Spending Money

DraftKings sponsors many Barstool events and in exchange, DraftKings is able to advertise on Barstool's website. Followers and fans of Barstool don't seem to mind, as many of them are also users of DraftKings' services. DraftKings is able to get their logo and name out there for their target market to see, while Barstool is able to gain the funding to put on certain events that may otherwise not be able to happen. Recently, Barstool has been able to put on a cross-country RV roadtrip on the "Barstool Dixie Bus" visiting various college campuses for college football games throughout their travels. DraftKings helped to sponsor this branch of Barstool and they are able to get their logo on the bus and have their presence felt at college campuses and college football games, a huge part of their target market. In this case of partnership, both parties are able to gain advantages and maintain a healthy relationship. 

Utilizing Sporting Events to Move Merchandise

As many of you may know, the Chicago Cubs and the New York Mets recently faced off against each other in the 2015 NLCS. While Barstool President David Portnoy is based out of Boston, Barstool has branches in both the Chicago and the New York markets. Portnoy teamed up with Dan Katz and Kevin Clancy, the Barstool reps in Chicago and New York respectively, to make a special on the matchup of the two teams and promote T-shirts that these markets, and even casual fans, might want to purchase. They attended a game in New York, then drove in their Barstool RV to Chicago to attend a game there as well. Barstool taped much of their journey and produced a video summarizing their travels that would peak interest in potential consumers.

Link to the video: http://www.barstoolsports.com/boston/encore-of-the-big-cat-vs-kfc-in-chicago-for-the-nlcs/
Disclaimer: Contains Some Strong Language

Not only were the three men seen joking around with each other, but they made sure to display much of their merchandise pertaining to the two teams they were highlighting. Portnoy even went as far as wearing about 15 shirts to the games in hopes of selling a few. He featured products from both markets such as:

The video did not mention how successful Portnoy was at selling these products at the actual game but offered amazing advertisement for the various products. Another segment in the video captured the men walking down the streets of Chicago where they encountered a copycat "yabo" T-shirt in a store window. They were quick to ridicule the store and point out that they had the first version.

Often times during games, when the T.V. cameras would pan over the crowd you were able to distinguish a Barstool shirt or hat in the stands, and the Barstool team would capture that in a Vine and post it to social media to show their products. This is great free advertisement for Barstool, showing people how fans from their team's market are wearing Barstool's clothing and that maybe they should grab some too.

Another thing that Barstool has been utilizing to their advantage, specifically in the Chicago and New York markets, is promotion after a team win. After a team from either city won a game Barstool would offer all of that team's merchandise for 20% off for an hour after the game. This is a very smart promotional technique, using the fans' excitement after a win to sell more merchandise. In the heat of the moment, adrenaline pumping, some fans would see this deal and immediately jump on it, purchasing one, or a maybe a few shirts or hats. All in all, Barstool has done a wonderful job using sports to help advertise their products. Barstool spends virtually no money on advertising and somehow get their products view-able to potential customers.