In an article titled “Why Paze turned to basketball for brand relevance,” published in American Banker on October 01, 2025, CEO and Co-Founder Tyler Reed of Bizwrite Digital PR shared his keen insights into the amplification and strategic value of high-profile sponsorship deals.
The article explores the intricate realm of brand visibility and digital reach, highlighting the core strategies we recommend daily for our professional services firm clients.
Do Sports Sponsorships Work?
The article, featured in a top-tier financial publication, discusses Early Warning Service’s online checkout app, Paze, and its high-stakes, five-year partnership to become the official jersey patch sponsor for the NBA’s Atlanta Hawks.
The piece explores the strategic move by financial services brands to leverage major league sports sponsorships, such as jersey patches and stadium naming rights, for public awareness and brand association. The discussion centers on the trade-off between the high cost of this exposure and the potential for replicating the ubiquitous brand recognition achieved by competitors like Zelle.
Reed’s insights look at how the digital PR ecosystem transforms a physical asset, i.e., the patch, into a continuous, high-value content engine.
Breaking Down PR Best Practices & Thought Leadership
The value of earned media extends far beyond traditional metrics. For professional services CMOs, the core takeaway here is that digital PR creates assets that compound value.
Top 3 Strategic Takeaways for CMOs:
- Visibility is only the starting line. Modern PR is about asset creation. Every high-profile placement must be optimized for digital sharing to ensure continuous exposure and reach beyond the initial publication date.
- The Power of Guaranteed Context. The goal is to secure placements that place your brand in environments (or conversations) where trust is inherent and context is constantly renewed—like a jersey patch in a highlight reel, or an expert quote in an authoritative publication.
- Digital PR is ROI Multiplied. True ROI comes from leveraging an earned placement across all digital channels (social, website authority, sales materials). This global reach—the total audience across all shared touchpoints—is the strategic advantage that paid media simply cannot replicate with the same level of implicit credibility.
Compounding Placements
The following quote perfectly encapsulates the strategic, forward-thinking approach that Bizwrite brings to Digital PR campaigns, focusing on the enduring, multi-channel value of a media placement (paid and owned):
“It’s valuable real estate and guarantees that the Paze logo will be seen in every game broadcast, every highlight reel, and every social media post, from the team, the athletes themselves, and from sports influencers. That kind of exposure ensures a global reach far exceeding traditional ad spend.”
— Tyler Reed, Founder and CEO of Bizwrite Digital PR
