Billions of dollars have been cut from youth athletics and the situation is predicted to grow more dire. As the leading U.S. sporting goods retailer, DICK'S Sporting Goods believes sports offers young people the necessary opportunity to have fun, while building character and essential skills, on and off the field. DICK'S recognizes the issue is important and critical, and took action: Through its non-profit Foundation, it created and launched "Sports Matter," a campaign to combat the nationwide funding crisis facing youth athletics. "Sports Matter" consisted of three key components: generating awareness of this growing crisis, raising money for sports programs facing drastic funding costs, and giving back to the communities where the company serves.

Through customized and unparalleled support, including a mechanism for schools to crowdsource funds which DICK'S would match dollar-for-dollar. More than 185 programs were accepted into "Sports Matter." A 360 integrated cause marketing campaign, leveraging traditional, social, online media, the power of influencers, and geo-targeted messaging and advertising helped the campaign reach success. More than $4MM was raised, 185 athletic programs were rescued, the issue of funding for sports programming was raised to a national level, and DICK'S was positioned as a thought leader on saving youth athletic programs (a key target audience for the retailer).

Integrated marketing included:

• "Sports Matter" panel at SXsports Summit

• Actor Michael B. Jordan, ESPN’s Jon Gruden and Mike Golic, and Olympian Sanya Richards-Ross as campaign ambassadors hosting events, conducting interviews and sharing on social media how sports impacted them

• Category-exclusives in Variety, AdAge and AP (syndicated by 100+ outlets)

• Created documentary (branded content), We Could Be King, about two Philadelphia school football programs merged due to budget cuts; debuted at Tribeca Film Festival

• ESPN partnership to promote “Save Youth Sports Week” through ads and ESPN.com homepage takeover

• Media relations (lifestyle, sports, philanthropic)

• Geotargeted social media content and hyper-targeted social advertising (e.g., alumni, hometowns)

• Social influencer campaign involving 340+ community leaders and athletes including Senator Cory Booker, Education Secretary Arne Duncan, and NFL players Victor Cruz and Cam Newton

• In-store efforts encouraging consumer POS donations

• Traditional advertising on why ‘sports matter’

The program was deemed a huge success by DICK’S and the industry. It raised $4MM+ to save 185+ youth athletic programs - $2MM raised by individual teams and POS donations combined with DICK’S Foundation’s dollar-for-dollar match.

However, "Sports Matters" achieved much more than just raising money. It saved school programs, elevated awareness about declining youth sports nationally, and established DICK’S as a thought leader on the issue.

Social media and PR drove the results. Media relations generated 200MM+ impressions. Social media drove 50% of donation activity on Sportsmatter.com; Facebook and Twitter were primary contributors, indicating word-of-mouth success. “Sports Matter” content (700+ posts) ranked most engaging content on DICK’S owned channels, and social content sparked 100,000+ consumer engagements (likes, shares, favorites, retweets) in four months, yielding 178MM+ impressions. In total, 377MM combined social and PR impressions and the celebrity influencers helped drive 280k+ website visits and 600k+ unique online and POS donations.