Founded in 1997, the Chicago Fire are prominent in American soccer history. Competing in Major League Soccer (MLS), the Fire have carved out a place in the passionate sports town of Chicago, representing the city’s first major soccer team. Over the years, the team has secured top-tier talent and found success with four US Open Cups, a MLS Cup Championship in 1998, and a Supporters’ Shield in 2003. As one of the founding members of MLS, the Chicago Fire hold a special place in the hearts of soccer enthusiasts and continues to contribute to the growth and popularity of the sport in the United States.
The Fire’s partnership marketing team previously relied on manually tracking sponsorship fulfillment using numerous decentralized,
static Excel files. This fragmented approach hindered stakeholders’ ability to monitor deployment status and provide timely updates to partners regarding the completion and performance of assets.
The Chicago Fire now use Blinkfire Inventory Manager (BIM) for their partnership asset tracking and sales process needs. This all-in-one sponsorship CRM tool allows multiple departments to effectively manage inventory on sponsorship assets, offering sales stage transparency in near real-time. The Fire are invested in Salesforce, with virtually all revenue-generating departments utilizing the CRM to handle their respective books of business, making a bi-directional sync between BIM and Salesforce imperative.
“Through BIM and its two-way Salesforce integration, the partnership team now has an all-in-one tool to sell, activate, track, and assess the performance of all assets. The team can swiftly identify available inventory, track deal progress, and optimize sales strategies.”
Nick Moreno
Director of Business Strategy & Analytics, Chicago Fire
