Chicago Fire CMO Dan Moriarty discussed how the pandemic accelerated digital fan engagement, the unpredictability of marketing a sports team and what drew him to the Fire in a Q&A with Ewan Larkin of AD AGE. Questions and answers have been edited for clarity and brevity.
On how the pandemic changed marketing while he was consulting for the White Sox: “The pandemic was crazy for everyone, but especially crazy working in a sport that makes the majority of its money from live events. We were figuring out, how do we keep fans engaged? How do we keep partners engaged? How do we honor partner commitments and contracts? From a marketing perspective, weirdly, it supported a lot of what we’d been doing, which was digital community building. It led into this idea that all sports teams have been working through, which is: 15, 20 years ago, game day was the be-all and end-all, and now it’s about growing digital audiences and how you monetize them.”
On marketing a brand versus a team: “The biggest change you need to make going from a traditional brand into a sports brand is the fluency of sports. At Hyatt, we would know we were launching a brand a year in advance. We would have all of this planning for it. It was largely stuff that was in our control. … Sports is the complete opposite, right? You might have a massive campaign planned or something that you’re meant to be launching, or you might be thinking, ‘Hey, we’re marketing a really premium product. The team is going to be really good this season.’ You are one injury away. You are one bad result away. You are one player trade away from everything you’ve spent the last year or two or three working on going out the window.”
On what drew him to the Fire:“In 2019, Joe Mansueto, who’s our current owner and chairman, bought the club outright, and ever since then has just been making all of the right decisions from an investment perspective. [That convinced] me not only is it a brand and a club that has a lot of growth in front of it, there’s an ownership group that’s willing to make the required investments” (AD AGE, 11/11).
