The West Coast Conference and INFLCR have entered into an innovative multi-year partnership to empower WCC student-athletes to share content in a collaborative model that builds individual and institutional brands on social media.
The WCC is the first conference to provide league-wide support for its member institutions in a partnership with the INFLCR platform that will enhance the overall engagement and brand identity of the conference and its men’s and women’s basketball programs.
“We greatly value the opportunity to empower our student-athletes and provide a platform to help amplify their voice in a unique and collaborative content-sharing model,” West Coast Conference Commissioner Gloria Nevarez said.
“We are thrilled for this innovative partnership with INFLCR that puts the WCC at the forefront in the endeavor to share content among member institutions and the conference that collectively builds brand identity. The WCC-INFLCR partnership enriches the student-athlete experience and offers a content sharing model that meets the appetite for content in the ever-changing social media and collegiate landscape.
“INFLCR is an industry leader with a history of success in content sharing and storytelling that is unmatched,” Commissioner Nevarez added.
“CEO Jim Cavale has created a platform that strategically delivers content, grows engagement and builds individual brands that collectively enhances the overall brand identity of our programs and the conference.”
The partnership includes use of INFLCR for the WCC at the conference office level, as well as providing the software and service for the men’s and women’s basketball programs of each WCC institution.
Student-athletes, coaches, staff and other brand ambassadors will gain access to thousands of photos, videos, and graphics produced by the member institutions, delivered through the INFLCR software and mobile app, to share on their personal and team social-media channels.
The relationship will also leverage INFLCR’s existing partnerships with USA Today IMAGN photography and Atlantic Records music to provide national-media content to the conference.
Pepperdine and LMU had already been earlier partners of INFLCR, onboarding several teams onto the INFLCR platform in 2019 and 2020, respectively.
Each institution and the conference will be able to deliver content seamlessly to the personal galleries of each student-athlete, coach and staff member, who also will be able to measure the impact of the content and growth of social followings within the app, as well as be able to access educational materials to coach them on best brand-building practices.
INFLCR now serves more than 800 NCAA collegiate athletic teams and is used daily by more than 30,000 athletes to access content from competitions, practices, travel and more.
“INFLCR’s first-of-its-kind partnership with the WCC is creating a roadmap for other conferences to follow when it comes to having a unified content strategy for all of its member institutions, teams, and student-athletes,” said INFLCR CEO Jim Cavale.
“Commissioner Nevarez and her team really understand the reality of centralized and unified content as being the impetus to centralizing and unifying brand-building strategies across a conference. And so through INFLCR, all of that content is going to flow in a way that will allow all of those parties to share it to social media and create newer, more efficient content operations.
This is all going to create a story of data and brand growth that’s going to be leveraged by these universities and their teams when it comes to student-athletes building up their brands.
“This is a ground-breaking approach from Commissioner Nevarez and the entire WCC team, and one that I expect will be the first of many other conference partnerships to come in the near future.”
How It Works
INFLCR’s partnership with the WCC is a unique agreement, giving the conference office access to the INFLCR content organization and distribution platform for use in sharing content from conference championships and more. In addition, the conference will provide the INFLCR software and service to all of its member institution men’s and women’s basketball teams at no additional cost.
INFLCR’s software platform clients 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, the WCC and its member institutions will be able to measure the increased audience engagement coming from the much-larger collective audience of those athletes and brand ambassadors.
The WCC plans to use this approach to bolster their online presence, overall engagement and other strategic goals.
ABOUT THE WEST COAST CONFERENCE
The West Coast Conference was formed in 1952 and has evolved and grown to become a nationally recognized and competitive force in Division I intercollegiate athletics with 15 conference-sponsored sports. The WCC is characterized by the stability of its membership and its unique emphasis on combining excellence in athletics with excellence in academics. For more information, visit WCCsports.com and follow the West Coast Conference on Twitter @WCCsports.
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