US Bank CMO Michael Lacorazza talks connecting with lacrosse fans

Michael Lacorazza, the CMO at US Bank, talks about the power of sports collaborations and its recent lacrosse partnership.

Transcript

00:00The power of sports is that their fans have a very deep emotional connection.

00:09We just launched a new partnership with the Professional Lacrosse League, or PLL,

00:15and we are the official bank and wealth management sponsor of the league.

00:20But it's more than that, we're also their bank.

00:22Well, the reason why lacrosse was so powerful for us is it's a sport that's growing rapidly.

00:27The PLL has grown its fan base 3x over the last five years.

00:33They now have 48 million fans in the U.S. and 4 million youth lacrosse players.

00:40And the league's at this amazing inflection point where we believe that the growth is about to explode even further.

00:46Every sponsorship decision, media decision we make is audience-led.

00:50The fan base that they've attracted is an audience that we want to connect with.

00:54We took about 12 months of discussion with the PLL to land where we did.

01:01And it wasn't because either one of us wasn't interested in working together or it was difficult.

01:05We started with, how can we help you?

01:07How can we help you grow versus what can you give us?

01:11And both parties were in that same kind of mental model.

01:16We're operating in that same sort of mental model.

01:17And so what we ultimately constructed just felt so right for both the organizations.

01:23And if you think about how media consumption behavior has changed so much with the introduction of all the streaming services,

01:31there's no more of this sort of appointment television broadcast type of thing, right?

01:35So except for maybe in sports because people want to watch the action live.

01:39They want to be a part of it.

01:40And so it's a way of being involved right in the moment live.

01:47We do sponsor a number of different teams.

01:49So, you know, for example, the Minnesota Timberwolves, the Los Angeles Clippers in basketball.

01:54We're also with the Minnesota Vikings as well as the stadium in Minneapolis, San Francisco 49ers, San Diego Padres, to name a few.

02:04So we've been involved with sports and the business of sports for quite some time.