Modisoft, a provider of POS and administrative software, announced that it is an official sponsor of the Carvana Professional Pickleball Association (PPA) tour for the 2023-2024 season.
Safi Modi, head of growth at Modisoft, said that the company had been looking to find a new way to bring awareness to the brand, “We wanted to do something fun and new to ourselves to put our name out there and for brand awareness. Pickleball is a quickly rising sport, and it’s something our clients resonate with.”
As part of the sponsorship, Modisoft is presenting the brackets that are posted before each tournament. “Each bracket, which will be posted on social media, will be presented by Modisoft,” Modi said. “So when players and fans go to see who is playing, they are going to see Modisoft right below the bracket every time.”
“Modisoft has partnered with NACS. We’ve done partnerships with restaurants. Most large companies have a cool, unique partnership that separates them from another company,” Modi told NACS Daily. “We wanted to do sports. We were debating between college football, college basketball and other organizations like that, but the problem was that college teams only target that specific college area. Through the PPA sponsorship, we get national exposure.”
The 2024 PPA calendar includes 26 tournaments in 16 different states, with each tournament lasting three days. The tournaments are not just for professionals—they offer an amateur bracket as well, inviting people to “play where the pros play,” which helps increase interest in the tour.
Modi noted that in the c-store industry, sports deals are still pretty rare.
There is a cost with major sponsorships like these, Modi stated. “It’s expensive. But you get brand exposure with something that brings people happiness.”
He added, “Modisoft is connected to pickleball. Pickleball is cool, innovative, happy and fun. It’s a sport that brings people together. At the tournament, you might see someone from San Diego cheering while another might be from Austin.”
“We would love for convenience stores to keep an open mind and consider these creative marketing platforms and sponsorships,” Modi said. “We’ve talked to a couple of our c-store partners, letting them know that the PPA tour will be making a stop in their city. We encourage them to consider having their own booth at the event or do something else to take advantage of the marketing potential.”
In the October 2023 issue of NACS Magazine, Nicholas Triantafellou, director of marketing and merchandising at Weigel’s, which has 79 locations in the eastern Tennessee region, called the NIL market a “no-brainer.”
“Where we’re located, we have no professional teams. It would do me no good to advertise with the Tennessee Titans,” Triantafellou said. Instead, he said he views Weigel’s NIL partnerships with student-athletes as a way to establish “deeper roots in the community.”
For more on c-stores and NILs, check out “A Slam Dunk for C-Stores” in the October 2023 issue of NACS Magazine.