Innovative Partnerships Group worked with the Suns leadership team to create a state-of-the-art naming rights program led by the Firm’s business development team with an innovative go-to market approach and creative prospecting.
Together with the Suns, we unlocked emerging categories including within Sustainability & ESG and created a Sustainability Wheel to showcase how the Naming Rights opportunity provide a global showcase for venues, stadiums and arenas around the world to recognize the importance of sustainable solutions and practices.
In less than four months, unprecedented in the industry, from initial meetings to partnership announcement, Innovative Partnerships Group worked as an extension of the Phoenix Suns and their new partner Footprint to secure a long-term Naming Rights agreement, revealing the newly named Footprint Center (Home to the Phoenix Suns & Phoenix Mercury) on a global stage during the 2021 NBA Finals.
As a part of this mission-driven sustainable partnership the Suns organization is working with Footprint, a sustainable packaging & manufacturing company, to replace the Arena (Footprint Center) of single-use and short-term use plastics.
Innovative Partnerships Group, led by the Business Development division, was the first firm to identify and execute a global partnership committed to “plastic neutrality” while unlocking an emerging category. On the back of this partnership, with key ESG targets and mandates for the first-time, Innovative Partnerships Group has counseled and commissioned work across several of the firms’ other clients including sports franchises, prestige real estate developments and stadium projects, building Sustainable Ecosystems across a multitude of sponsor categories.
