History was made with the marketing of the UEFA EURO 2024™. With the hospitality offering of the 2024 HOSPITALITY EXPERIENCE, guests could experience it in exclusive fashion.
For the first time in the history of the Euros, UEFA passed the marketing, design and catering of the entire hospitality programme to a partner: the 2024 Hospitality Experience, a joint venture by Fortius and SPORTFIVE. This filled guests and UEFA with enthusiasm from the off – and led to record sales, too.
In this Success Story:
The challenge
UEFA EURO 2024™ was Europe’s central sports event in 2024. It was hosted in Germany and intended to offer a football and fan experience unlike any other in the world. For the first time ever, UEFA commissioned an external partner with designing, marketing and implementing the hospitality programme for a Euros tournament – the 2024 HOSPITALITY EXPERIENCE. This was no regular task for the joint venture composed of the world-leading sports marketing agency SPORTFIVE and the sports experience platform Fortius: alongside the execution, the challenge lay in successfully positioning and marketing the tournament’s exclusive hospitality packages within an ultra-competitive market. The goal was not only to appeal to top-level companies and guests, such as high-net-worth individuals (HNWI), but also to make the hospitality experience a central component of the tournament and make the offering attractive for national and international target groups alike.
The background
The 2024 Hospitality Experience was created to implement the most extensive, most sustainable hospitality programme in the history of the Euros. Fortius and SPORTFIVE worked closely together to use innovative hospitality solutions and an unforgettable live experience to meet companies’, guests’ and fans’ high expectations and use anticipation to boost sales of the packages. To do so, SPORTFIVE not only tapped into its in-depth industry knowledge, but also its extensive network and sales connections, with more than 180 colleagues in the core German market and additional sales power in the European markets of the Netherlands, Austria, France, Spain, Portugal, Hungary and Poland, and as a non-exclusive sales partner in the UK. Beyond this, SPORTFIVE was already the marketing partner for football clubs at five UEFA EURO 2024™ stadiums.
SPORTFIVE’s role
As the exclusive sales agency in Germany, SPORTFIVE played a central role in marketing UEFA EURO 2024™ hospitality packages. Thanks to its longstanding presence at more than 20 sites across Germany and its trust-based collaboration with the DFB, SPORTFIVE was able to implement a far-reaching sales and marketing strategy. In direct collaboration with the 2024 Hospitality Experience, SPORTFIVE opted for a comprehensive, target-focused sales concept spanning various European and global markets. In the process, the leading sports marketing agency generated more than 500,000 brand contacts, ensuring that sales were also underpinned by strong digital campaigns.
The official “UEFA EURO 2024™ Final Draw Party by 2024 Hospitality Experience”
The execution
SPORTFIVE developed a multi-level communication and marketing campaign comprising events, trade fairs, showrooms and digital channels to showcase the exclusive hospitality services well ahead of time. The highlight was the Final Draw Party to mark the official draw for the group games in Hamburg’s Elbphilharmonie, which was attended by more than 500 guests and at which the UEFA EURO 2024™ catering concept was unveiled for the first time. SPORTFIVE also organised events with prominent tournament ambassadors who made UEFA EURO 2024™ and the hospitality offers emotionally accessible – for instance, at the annual SPORTFIVE brunch. In parallel, cross-media communications campaigns in print, PR, online marketing, influencer marketing – as with the creator The Padded Seat – and out-of-home campaigns were launched. In the process, SPORTFIVE also turned to innovative approaches, such as digitally projecting branding content onto well-known German sights.
In spring 2024, the focus was on a combined marketing campaign concentrating on educational content on social networks. On Meta and LinkedIn alone, this generated more than 2.5 million impressions among the relevant target groups. In turn, SPORTFIVE didn’t just put corporate clients in touch with the hospitality services: it also put the overarching topic of the VIP experience and its perks in the foreground. “We consciously expanded the sales funnel and provided educational content on sports hospitality. By extension, we were able to gain additional target groups, such as high-net-worth individuals, affluent millennials and affluent families,” says Frederik Festner, Senior Director Marketing Communications at SPORTFIVE. “Ultimately, it’s about sharing the experience, feeling those nail-biting moments together, celebrating goals together. Thanks to sports hospitality, it’s a breeze to unite business and passion – and to stick some of the most emotional sporting moments into your family photo album, too, if you fancy a more exclusive stadium experience. After all, sport unites and football does anyway. Why not utilise this emotion-laden potential for your own company’s goals or invest in special memories as a private individual?”
The result
Thanks to the broad-based, targeted sales and marketing strategy, SPORTFIVE and the 2024 Hospitality Experience succeeded in generating strong demand for UEFA EURO 2024™ hospitality packages. The highest sales figures ever seen for a hospitality programme at the Euros led to approximately 80,000 enthusiastic guests in the hospitality areas across the ten stadiums. This meant that SPORTFIVE didn’t only achieve outstanding sales results: it also reinforced the perception of UEFA EURO 2024™ as an exclusive sporting event with an excellent hospitality experience. In addition, it was the first time that UEFA was supported by an external partner in terms of the marketing and production of its official hospitality programme for the final round of the Euros – a new development that SPORTFIVE and the 2024 Hospitality Experience were able to implement to optimal effect thanks to successful campaigns and exclusive sales channels.
Robert Hoene, Vice President of UEFA EURO 2024™ at SPORTFIVE, concludes: “The secret to the success of our sales of the UEFA EURO 2024™ hospitality packages is based on our expertise in sales and marketing, our data-driven sales approaches, our market coverage with long-standing client relationships and the ability to get the entire organisation behind this project to ensure a shared focus and a high level of motivation. What made our offering unique was the quality of the product – which had never before been available in German stadiums – and the perfectly orchestrated symbiosis of marketing and sales.”
What made our offering unique was the quality of the product – which had never before been available in German stadiums – and the perfectly orchestrated symbiosis of marketing and sales.
Robert Hoene, Vice President Sales UEFA EURO 2024™ at SPORTFIVE
45 million
contacts achieved in the marketing period
30,000
leads generated
80,000
guests in the hospitality areas
