The document discusses the importance of creating strong brand identities for high-performance sports brands, citing iconic franchises as examples of how successful identities drive commercial and community success. It outlines the unique approach of Teamup, which works with integrated teams to leverage design thinking in developing and managing brand identities that can lead to substantial growth. The document also emphasizes that a well-defined brand, supported by ownership and fan engagement, can significantly enhance the financial performance of sports organizations.

1. Building a
high-performance
sports brand
The most reliable path to growth is offering customers
breakthrough brand identities.
We all know iconic franchises, such as the Dallas Cowboys, the
community-owned Green Bay Packers, FC Barcelona, and the New
York Yankees. These examples are constant reminders of how a strong
identity can be at the heart of sustained commercial and community
success. With the unpredictability of a sports-team performance, there
is one constant factor that differentiates high-performance businesses
from the others. That crucial factor is the equity of a strong brand.
So, how do companies deliver exceptional designs and
management, launch after launch?
Design thinking is a disciplined way to interrogate data, behavior, and
preferences to find the gaps between what exists today and what
customers highly value. This kind of analysis is a necessary foundation
to make a creative leap, which results in something entirely new.
Working with teamup is different. Our clients work with integrated teams
of designers, researchers, and experts in areas such as marketing,
commercial operations, and culture management. Our teams bring
deep sector-specific insights from years of experience, and an
awareness of how market dynamics can help drive growth and create
value. Our culture experts work closely with clients to ensure that the
entire organization can be mobilized to deliver a new franchise brand.
A strong brand, with a unique identity and personality,
will help shape relationships and define the culture of
a club. However, for a brand to perform in this role,
being owner and fan-driven is quintessential. By being
strong brand evangelists, ownership can define and
defend the actions of a brand.
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2. What we do
Our work ranges from brand identity and
brand evolution to experience design, and
across physical, digital, and spatial platforms.
We use design to create differentiation and
drive growth for our clients by identifying
and capitalising on market opportunity.
We support clients in a variety of ways,
helping create new brands, developing
and launching new properties, and uplifting
operations to support market entry at scale.
We help clients cast brands focused on
growth and differentiation, and we work
with them to enhance their own in-house
capabilities to improve speed to market.
Building a high performance sports brand
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3. Celtic FC: 125 years of Football for Good
The Open: This is the One where it all began
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Building a high performance sports brand
Examples of our work
All of our work combines analytical rigor and breakthrough creativity to identify
opportunities and to help clients achieve them. The following is our recent
design work:
Tottenham Hotspur Stadium: Branding Football’s Shiny New Thing

4. Our approach
Our first priority is to identify the biggest
opportunity to capture value. From there,
our designers enter a phase of discovery,
creation, testing, and research. Once a
successful brand idea has been defined,
it is further developed into a full-fledged club
brand identity, along with the experiential,
commercial and marketing foundations
for its success. Finally, the organization
is empowered to take the new club brand
to market.
This approach shows far better financial
results—these companies that get the
brand identity right from the beginning and
consistently apply it on and off the field
boost their odds of success and having their
stakeholders know exactly what they stand for.
For clubs that invest in a high-performance
brand, the prizes are as rich as doubling their
revenue growth and shareholder returns over
those of their peers.
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Building a high performance sports brand

5. Contact us
With over 20 years of experience, teamup is part of the sports
business conversation everywhere it’s happening. Across the
world, our clients are evolving their businesses, placing brand
at the core of all they do.
Ask any one of the hundred clients we’ve impacted by winning
customers, transforming organisations and achieving best-in-class.
We build high performance brands
BOSTON
LONDON
Sharlene Sones ssones@teamupco.com +1 (386) 846-8621
Fred Popp fredpopp@teamupco.com +44 (0)7889 718 179