Canadian Football League
The Canadian Football League (CFL) is Canada's version of the NFL, with nine teams playing 18 games from June to November. Each year their championship, The Grey Cup, is Canada's largest sporting and media event. This high-scoring league uses Meltwater to accurately report media ROI to leadership and event sponsors.
Meltwater Enables the CFL to
Keep team and league officials up to date on trending storylines
Create boardroom-ready reports showcasing program ROI
Free up PR team's bandwidth to focus on additional priorities
Challenge
Before switching to Meltwater, the CFL was using a competitor's media monitoring tool which produced incomplete results and had limited reporting capabilities. They also encountered issues with platform usability, irrelevant content, and poor customer service.
Too often the team was unable to capture important coverage as it happened, and by the time their service rep returned their phone call for help, the opportunity to capitalize on a media opportunity had passed. The lag in coverage made report creation an exhausting and unfruitful process, and generated inadequate ROI reports for leadership.
"Our previous tool was difficult to use," says the CFL's Lucas Barrett. "We spent too much time trying to figure out how to find an article we needed or teach ourselves how to do something within the platform. In contrast, transitioning to Meltwater was turnkey."
"Meltwater always goes the extra mile. For example, I asked our service rep for quick help on a report, and not only did he answer my questions, but he sent me a report based off our conversation, including little but important things like each team and event logo populated in the background. This kind of attention to detail is what really wows our execs."
Lucas Barrett, Communications Specialist
Solution
Better Tools Equal More Winning Plays
The key draws for the CFL in switching to Meltwater were the ease in customizing accounts based on a user's role and the ongoing efficiencies provided by their customer service rep. Although transitioning to an all-encompassing platform can seem daunting, the intuitiveness of the platform combined with proactive customer support made onboarding a breeze. Now, each user has visibility only to the articles and analytic dashboards relevant to their job, which helps keep the department focused and on track.
Beyond mere mentions, each team's executives receive a customized newsletter with links to top stories, comparisons to past seasons' media coverage, and metrics on league and team announcements. The ability to keep each team up to date in a reliable, consistent manner has kept everyone that needs to be in the know informed and on the same page.
Summary
Meltwater Helps CFL
Update league and team executives on the biggest storylines
"The Meltwater Newsletter is invaluable. Team presidents look to us to keep them aware of storylines and trends surrounding the league. We want to highlight our players, so if there's a guy who does something incredible off the field, we capture and share that."
Measure their effectiveness as communicators
"The analytics we value include reach, ad revenue, and the number of mentions. The Meltwater Pulse Reports showed us when you add in all the partnerships, the numbers are huge. Meltwater definitely allows us to make greater sense of all the coverage we're receiving."
Analyze historical press coverage to shape future media initiatives
"The ability to compare current coverage against previous seasons helps us understand where we can improve. As the media landscape continues to evolve, we want to continue monitoring trends and position ourselves as leaders in sports and entertainment."
— Lucas Barrett, Communications Specialist
