Databricks is Placing Its Identify on Cal’s Soccer Discipline. The $22.8 Million Wager Is A lot Greater Than Faculty Sports activities.
The AI data platform startup’s first college athletics sponsorship puts its brand on national television, and brings it back to the university where it started.
California Memorial Stadium. Photo: Adobe Stock
Databricks is making a multimillion-dollar bet that college football can help make its name as recognizable as its technology.
The San Francisco data and AI company has struck a naming-rights deal with the University of California, Berkeley, that will rename the Golden Bears’ football field “Databricks Field at California Memorial Stadium.” The agreement is reportedly worth up to $22.8 million over as many as 10 years.
The partnership, announced Thursday, is Databricks’ first collegiate
The partnership, announced Thursday, is Databricks’ first collegiate athletics sponsorship and the largest partnership in Cal Athletics history. It also goes far beyond putting the company’s name on the field. Databricks will become Cal Athletics’ official enterprise data and AI platform, its logo will appear at midfield and on players’ helmets and the company will receive branding across several other Cal sports and venues.
Databricks will start getting that exposure immediately. Its midfield logo debuted on Friday night when Cal played Clemson in a nationally televised game on ESPN. Starting October 3, its logo will also appear on Cal football helmets, which the university says will make the partnership the first in the ACC to include helmet branding. Databricks will also become the namesake of the Stadium Club and receive signage at basketball, volleyball and gymnastics competitions.
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Branding Play
For Databricks, one goal is straightforward: turning a company well known in enterprise technology into a brand familiar to a much wider audience.
Beyond giving back to the community, the partnership
“Beyond giving back to the community, the partnership gives us an opportunity to build broader brand awareness in the Bay Area and nationally,” Jenna Kozel King, vice president of brand and corporate marketing at Databricks, told Inc. “Databricks Field will be visible to fans in the stadium and to national television audiences.”
The company already serves more than 20,000 customers worldwide, including 70 percent of the Fortune 500. But King said Databricks has reached a point where “telling our story to a wider audience matters.”
Source: www.inc.com
