Turning your Neutral Site Game Into a Home Game

Paint the town red. Or orange. Or maroon. Or whatever color your university is proud to own. 

Every year in major college athletics, neutral site games are played in sports like football and men’s and women’s basketball. For most universities, these games are treated as quick in-and-out appearances. But we see neutral site games as a unique opportunity to celebrate major brands in critical cities.

Some advice…go out and own the town. Here’s why: many of these games are played in key alumni areas or regions of geographic interest to a university. Drawing as many eyes as possible to your institution not only helps spark additional interest, it helps to activate many who have been longing to see their favorite team play without the travel constraints. 

Recently, Heavy Content Studios partnered with Virginia Tech athletics in celebration of its women’s basketball team’s matchup with 2023 NCAA runner-up Iowa at the Ally Tipoff game in Charlotte, N.C. The Hokies were fresh off their first ever Final Four appearance and wanted to keep their momentum trending upwards into their ‘23-’24 season.

To give the women’s team the recognition they deserved, we worked directly with Tech’s athletic department to strategize, create, and place support branding throughout the Charlotte metro.  Our media buy included 27 digital billboards, and two 20-foot x 12-foot motion boards near the Spectrum Center. The copy for the executions were fun yet bold while Tech’s unique color scheme helped transform greater Charlotte into a symphony of maroon and orange. Heavy also pitched  numerous other creative concepts to further engage Virginia Tech’s abundant Charlotte alumni base, their largest outside of the Commonwealth of Virginia. 

There are many instances where neutral site takeovers make sense for university athletics. Football games in particular offer the opportunity to tie multiple areas of campus together from Athletics to Alumni to central Marketing & Communications. These large events are usually played on weekends when they are more accessible to fans and families, act as recruiting tools for nearby student-athletes, and offer a once-in-a-lifetime experience for everyone involved  It’s an opportunity to take over a city, amplify your university’s message, engage with fans and alumni who don’t regularly get to see your team compete, and create an impactful experience. In our eyes, neutral site takeovers are a win-win.