Riverhounds Digital marketing strategy

Dylan Fister

Increasing Ticket Sales through Local Engagement 

In today’s sports environment, digital engagement across a variety of platforms is a key driver of fan growth and revenue. For a club like the Pittsburgh Riverhounds, building stronger ties with the local community can be the foundation for online engagement and long-term ticket sales. “Professional teams in major sport leagues such as the NBA and NHL rely heavily on ticket sales as one of their primary sources of income... and use original and adaptive sales force strategies to promote and sell tickets” (Irwin, Sutton, & McCarthy, 2008). Adapting this mentality to the Pittsburgh Riverhounds forces marketers to look in a variety of directions. 

The Campaign 

The core component of this new digital marketing strategy is to create an ongoing Youth Soccer Spotlight series across the Riverhounds different social media accounts. The team will feature a local youth soccer player every week from within 50 miles, showcasing their abilities through images and highlight reels. Following the announcement online, winning athletes will be invited to the upcoming Riverhounds home game, along with discounted tickets for their entire team and their families. The initiative aims at tapping into the local youth soccer community, attempting to get young players and families at games and build an opportunity for local athletes to become lifelong Riverhounds fans. This campaign aims to garner an interactive and meaningful form of engagement, where potential ticket buyers feel like they have a part in the organization’s mission. 

Building Local Connections  

Posting local athletes will allow the Riverhounds to build relevance within the community. When young soccer players, fans, and families see familiar faces in the spotlight they will become invested in the story and the team. Players who are featured during the campaign will be given the glory and the credit they deserve, but also, they will serve as a symbol of local pride and connection. My fellow classmate, Austin Hansen, wrote an article on digital marketing, where he cited a great quote from Gary Vaynerchuk. According to Vaynerchuk (2016), “The more relevant your content is to an audience, the more they will be interested in consuming it, and the more reach you’ll get” (p. 9). Vaynerchuk’s emphasis on relevancy with audience coincides with the goal of this campaign to reach different communities all around Pittsburgh.  

The journal Community Engagement Through Sport discusses the value of partnerships between sports organizations and their surrounding communities. “University partnerships with local communities provide mutual benefits to all stakeholders... partnerships have become important to universities because they have helped to diffuse the perception that universities operate as a separate entity from the communities in which they reside” (Holt, 2016). Like universities, the Riverhounds can break boundaries between organization and community through partnerships and shared programs. 

Sticking Out 

For years, ticket sales grew through email marketing. In today’s Ai marketing generation, email outreach can be a lot more crowded. According to an Emarketer article, “Email marketers have their work cut out for them this year, as surpassing AI filters in inboxes will become increasingly difficult. Automation is the top tactic in email marketing, and marketers' top challenge is ensuring deliverability and avoiding spam filters” (Liederman 2025). 

According to Google (2020), marketers can beat the attention recession if they choose to focus on value and encourage interactivity and community. The site states, “One of the best ways to capture audience attention is to involve active participation in your content... Interactivity works best when paired with community building.” Modern marketing is no longer about posting the better product; it's about giving users a reason to stay engaged. 

Video Content 

Another classmate of mine, Dresden Bouman, wrote a piece covering how video content has become crucial in marketing to generation z. “Short form videos are definitely the best way to get their attention. Behind the scenes footage, product demos and influencer partnerships all perform well with this audience” says Bouman (2025). The Youth Soccer Spotlight campaign can lean on short video reels and player highlights to gain the attention of young athletes.  

Noah Fries, another peer of mine, dove into a list of ways to keep Gen Z connected to one’s team or league, according to Greenfly. According to the site, “exclusive content helps attract and retain younger fans... and original athlete media keeps fans glued to their journeys” (2025). This insight highlights the importance of giving fans content that they can’t get anywhere else. The Youth Soccer Spotlight campaign applies this idea by showcasing local players and helping young fans see themselves as part of the Riverhounds journey. 

Advanced Audiences  

While this initiative is built to target the youth soccer community and their families, this type of online content can be appealing to some surprising demographics. My classmate, Payton Miller, wrote an in-depth piece on the analytics of senior citizen’s social media use. Miller found a study that stated, “90% of adults ages 65+ are online, compared with 98% of those ages 50–64.” (2015) This growing online presence, combined with their spending time availability, this audience has become a key demographic that sports teams should not overlook in terms of ticket sales through digital marketing. For the Riverhounds, this means the Youth Spotlight campaign can resonate with grandparents, extended family members, and older local supporters who enjoy following local youth athlete success. 

Overall, the Riverhounds' ticket sales success depends not only on performance and marketing but the off-the-field connections it forms with its community. As Kharmalki et al. (2020) explain, “Fan engagement with sports clubs' social media channels is driven by needs that enhance their connection to the club, provide valuable and timely information, and facilitate social interactions with other fans.” By showcasing the stories of young local athletes, the Riverhounds can create a deeper emotional bond with fans of all ages—building a loyal, engaged audience and filling more seats at Highmark Stadium in the process.