James Madison Athletics is extending its department-wide partnership with INFLCR for an additional five years.
“We continuously explore and evaluate opportunities to elevate our brand and our visibility,” JMU Director of Athletics Jeff Bourne said. “In the first year of our partnership, INFLCR proved itself in bringing significant value to our student-athletes and coaches as individuals as well as to the overall stature of the department. We are excited to continue working with Jim Cavale and his team and look forward to further expanding the reach of JMU Athletics.”
In 2019-20, 501 student-athletes from James Madison’s 18 NCAA Division I varsity sports used the INFLCR mobile app to access content produced by JMU Athletics, which they could then share to their personal social-media channels. Their usage metrics were significant:
— JMU student-athletes and coaches logged more than 26,000 sessions in the INFLCR app.
— JMU Athletics uploaded more than 21,000 content items to the INFLCR platform.
— JMU student-athletes and coaches downloaded and shared more than 10,000 content items.
— The collective follower audience of JMU athlete users exceeded more than 100,000 people.
INFLCR serves more than 100 NCAA partners, representing more than 700 teams and more than 22,000 daily active athlete users. James Madison was one of the company’s first department-wide partners from the Football Championship Subdivision.
James Madison’s football team, which has made three national-championship appearances in the past four years and is winner of national titles in 2004 and 2016, made prolific use of the INFLCR platform last season.
During the 2019 season, 107 JMU football student-athletes were active in the INFLCR app, logging more than 8,500 sessions and downloading/sharing more than 2,500 content items.. JMU student-athletes reached an average weekly audience of 29,000 and had an average engagement rate per post of more than 20 percent.
James Madison’s 5-year agreement coincides with a 5-year department-wide renewal for Teamworks, the leading athlete engagement platform, empowering more than 3,000 clients around the world to better connect and collaborate by simplifying their internal processes. Based in Durham, N.C. Teamworks creates a culture of communication and accountability for more than 2,000 NCAA Division I programs including every Autonomous Conference institution; professional teams in the NFL, MLB, NBA, NHL, MLS and EPL; collegiate and professional conferences; and national governing bodies.
Teamworks completed an acquisition of INFLCR, based in Birmingham, Ala., in early 2020.
“JMU’s student-athletes in all sports were power users of the INFLCR app during 2019-20, and we’re excited to help build on that with this multi-year extension,” INFLCR founder and CEO Jim Cavale said. “JMU is a forward-thinking institution that has proven to be a successful early adopter of technology that empowers the university’s student-athletes. We look forward to years of success together.”
How It Works
INFLCR’s platform helps clients like James Madison University send internal media and national photography content to personalized galleries for each of their athletes, coaches and other brand ambassadors.
Those athletes and brand ambassadors are able to access their content galleries through the INFLCR mobile app, and can then share the content to their personal social media accounts.
After the fact, James Madison is able to measure the increased audience engagement coming from the much-larger collective audience of those athletes and brand ambassadors.
James Madison plans to use this approach to bolster their online presence in a way that impacts event attendance, recruiting, fundraising, and other strategic goals.
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