More hospitals seek partnerships with sports teams to promote wellness and fitness as well as build their brands in increasingly competitive markets.
For example, as part of the partnership between Barnabas Health, the largest not-for-profit integrated healthcare delivery system in New Jersey, and the New Jersey Devils, the team’s practice facility has been renamed the Barnabas Health Hockey House, reports Ragan's PR Daily.
The health system describes the move as an investment in promoting health and community outreach. It also has plans for youth hockey clinics, and wellness and nutrition programs at rinks throughout New Jersey.
The article also notes that Children’s Mercy Hospital, a comprehensive pediatric medical center in Kansas City, Missouri, landed naming rights to the stadium and practice facility for Sporting Kansas City, a major league soccer squad. It’s building nearby a 25,000-square-foot national training and coaching eevelopment center devoted to pediatric sports medicine.
Meanwhile, Baylor Scott & White Health, the largest not-for-profit healthcare system in Texas, and the Dallas Cowboys recently broke ground on a 300,000-square-foot research and wellness campus that will serve athletes at all skill levels, according to Hospitals & Health Networks.
And Northwell Health in New York, a health network that includes 21 hospitals and three skilled nursing facilities, has partnerships with Major League Baseball’s Mets, the New York Cosmos professional soccer team and the Major League Lacrosse champions, the New York Lizard, HHN reports. The National Hockey League’s New York Islanders train at the new Northwell Health Ice Center.
The partnerships not only get hospitals’ names in front of thousands of people, but also associate them with strength and endurance rather than illness, according to the article.
“This is the power wheel where we need to be. It’s a great way to get close to the communities we serve,” Stephen Evans, M.D., executive vice president and chief medical officer at MedStar Health in Columbia, Maryland, told the publication. The non-profit, community-based health system is heavily involved in youth programs sponsored by the Washington Capitals, Baltimore Ravens and D.C. United. And, he said, teh partnership is also a great way to recruit top sports medicine practitioners.
- read the PR Daily article
- here's the Hospitals & Health Networks story