Kickoff

Postmates becomes the official on-demand delivery partner of the NFL

Friday, September 11, 2020 by Snacks
_Clear eyes, full stomachs, can't lose_

Clear eyes, full stomachs, can't lose

Clear eyes, full hearts... can’t lose when you’re the official anything of the National Football League. ICYMI: last night, the NFL brought back football (the least socially distant of all sports). ICYM the score: Postmates won the marketing game.

  • Postmates is now the 1st official on-demand delivery partner of the NFL. Great title to stick on the fridge for its parent Uber, which announced it's snatching up Postmates for $2.6B in July.
  • The multiyear partnership also makes Postmates a Super Bowl sponsor. Just wait for the Chipotle Super Brown Rice Bowl and Tuna Poke Super Bowl commercials to roll in.

"Postmated" is basically LA slang... So far, Postmates has been the smallest fish in the Delivery Wars pond. Before it got acquired by Uber, it had just 8% of the US market share for delivery (mostly in LA). Don DoorDash dominates the mafia-style food delivery wars with a 40%+ share, followed by Uber and Grubhub. But Uber/Postmates has a winning marketing strategy:

  • Play #1: People will mostly be staying home to watch games — no sweaty crowded bars and beer-drenched tables. Perfect time for a food delivery partnership with the NFL.
  • Play #2: America is united in its love of football (at least there's one thing). This NFL sponsorship could be the perfect way for CA-based Postmates to win nation-wide love.
THE TAKEAWAY

The NFL powers an entire economic ecosystem... Postmates is the official delivery partner of the NFL, but the NFL is the unofficial cash cow of American marketing. That's because 43 of the top 50 most-watched TV broadcasts last year were football games. The NFL is the blue whale that the whole ecosystem feeds off of. In turn, the fishes feed the NFL with big cash money for extra high-exposure partnerships and $12M commercials.

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