An Interview With Tim Lister: Racing Industry Veteran
As Sportsdigita’s new Senior Vice President of Business Development, Tim Lister comes equipped with a wealth of knowledge— most notably in the motorsports and racing industries. We sat down with Tim to gain valuable insights into the motorsports industry— from trends, advice, future predictions, and how smart racing leaders are leveraging DIGIDECK. Take a look!
Q: Can you tell us about your background in the racing industry and how it brought you to your current position of Senior Vice President of Business Development at Sportsdigita?
A: My career with NASCAR spanned 11 years with the sanctioning body, primarily based in the NYC Office and a few years in the Charlotte HQ. My responsibilities were to grow the NASCAR corporate roster of “Official NASCAR Partnerships”. This consisted of traditional IP rights of the NASCAR sanctioning body, Series Entitlements in the US, Mexico & Canada.
I also ensured the larger NASCAR industry stakeholders consisting of the Tracks, Teams/Drivers and Media were equally represented in all our partnership conversations. I always believed the only way to make a significant impact on a brand’s investment in NASCAR was to have meaningful partnerships across all stakeholders in the sport.
Q: What trends are you seeing in motorsports sponsorship?
A: From a league perspective, the sport continues to work to provide a variety of entry points for brands with new and innovative racing locations. i.e. Street Race in Chicago & The Clash in the LA Coliseum.
From a Team perspective, the days of a single Fortune 500 brand sponsoring a car for the full season have shifted to multiple brand campaigns on the car for the season. This opens the door for the teams to provide powerful marketing assets to multiple brands to join their organization and capitalize on the brand affinity of NASCAR fans.
Q: How has motorsports ticketing changed over the years? Both in the single ticket and premium space?
A: In pro sports, an absolute priority is around the guest experience. The exclusive access you can get in NASCAR is bucket list material. The tracks have invested in their facilities to provide fans some of the best premium club & hospitality race day ticketing packages, including pre-race concerts and access in the garage & pit lane.
Q: How essential is it for racetracks to book third-party events in the off-season?
A: The motorsports facilities will only host NASCAR races once, maybe twice a year. There is a massive priority for the venues to give consumers a compelling reason to come back to visit throughout the year with powerful events they can secure outside of NASCAR event weekends.
Q: What recommendations do you have for sales teams looking to improve their entitlement and sponsorship pitches?
A: It’s a very competitive sales landscape with other sports properties offering unique assets now. (Jersey patches, stadium entitlements, emerging sports leagues, etc.) A couple staples to focus on:
- Know your audience.
- Highlight unique selling points.
- Offer customized assets that align with the brand’s initiatives.
- Provide data & insights. Be creative & innovative.
- Most importantly… demonstrate value!
Q: How do you see DIGIDECK elevating sales and marketing efforts in the racing industry?
A: With over 500+ partners in sports, DIGIDECK has become the industry leading trusted solution for teams to effectively showcase their sponsorship & ticketing assets through the storytelling process.
Through constant innovation and partner feedback, we have created powerful capabilities for teams to showcase all the sensory content with unmatched customization.
Unique features include the ability to include 360° track imaging for virtual tours to showcase suite amenities & branded entitlement zones. We can also empower your sales teams with DIGIDECK Capture, a feature that allows consumers to fill out a qualifying form that automatically creates a custom DIGIDECK proposal based on their inputs and sends it directly to their inbox in seconds.
Q: What feedback have you heard from DIGIDECK partners in the racing industry?
A: The highest-performing sponsorship & ticketing partners in racing always point to the ease of creating highly customizable presentations and meeting urgent timelines to send out the proposals. The luxury to shorten the sales cycle truly leads to closing more deals and increased revenue.
Q: What are your predictions for the future of motorsports?
A: I’m predicting increased viewership through streaming content to capitalize on popularity. F1 had great success with Drive to Survive and NASCAR has the new docuseries NASCAR: FULL SPEED.
Thank you to Tim Lister for sharing his insights on motorsports and the role DIGIDECK plays within the industry. If you’re curious to learn more about how DIGIDECK will elevate your sponsorship and ticketing sales and recaps, take a test drive with a free demo today!
