Robert Morris just gave away its basketball jersey patch.

Robert Morris just gave away its basketball jersey patch.

And I think there's a really smart strategy behind it.

Instead of selling the patch to a traditional sponsor, Robert Morris put All Hail, a basketball creator brand with nearly 2 million followers across platforms, on its jersey.

The trade? All Hail creates content around the program all season and distributes it to its audience.

No traditional sponsorship check.

Because sometimes attention is more valuable than revenue.

Every sports organization has assets: signage, tickets, content, access, IP, experiences, jersey patches.

We tend to immediately ask, how much can we sell this for?

But that's starting with the asset instead of the strategy.

The better question is: What does our organization need right now, and how can our assets help us get there?

Robert Morris needs attention. More people watching, talking about and engaging with its basketball program.

So instead of monetizing the patch today, they're using it to acquire content, distribution and relevance.

That's the tactic serving the strategy.

And if the attention grows the audience, the value of everything else they have to sell grows with it.

Attention before revenue.

Sometimes the smartest way to monetize an asset is to not monetize it yet.