Athletics revs up Porsche collaboration

By Diego Palos Rodriguez 12/3/24 11:26pm

Porsche, the luxury sports car brand, has made appearances in Rice football and women’s basketball social media posts, home football games and even on the court in Tudor Fieldhouse. These promotions are due to a recent partnership between Rice Athletics and Porsche River Oaks, located on Southwest Freeway and Greenbriar.

Kevin Dwan, Rice deputy athletic director, said the partnership began last year and has been successful so far.

“Porsche has been a great new partner of ours early on,” Dwan said. “I think we’re very aligned with their brand, what they’re looking to accomplish from a marketing standpoint and what we could offer.”

Dwan said Porsche River Oaks initially approached Rice about a partnership. While the agreement is relatively standard, the Porsche name and service have been a part of many promotional events and content for Rice.

“Obviously, it’s a luxury brand, an exciting brand, very visual,” Dwan said. “We’ve got cars out [at] pretty much every football game. Outside of our hospitality area, there’s at least one Porsche parked.”

Football players posed with Porsche cars to reveal their “City Connect” alternate uniforms this season, while women’s basketball head coach Lindsay Edmonds posed with a vehicle for Instagram. These posts are just the beginning of what promotional partnerships could accomplish, according to Dwan.

“As our creators are thinking about ways to stay relevant and ways to stand out and do something different, [the Porsche cars were] just one idea that came up, and we were able to make it happen because we have the partnership,” Dwan said.

On top of promotion, this partnership also includes incentives for the Rice community at Porsche River Oaks. Leah Webb, the brand manager at Porsche River Oaks, said that these include merchandise giveaways, raffles at sporting events, happy hours at The Podium bar next to the dealership and even purchase deals on a case-by-case basis.

Dwan said these types of incentives are common in Athletics’ partnership agreements and benefit both fans and the athletic department by showing the impact they can have on driving business to the partners. He also said that partnerships of this caliber can help attract other businesses to Rice.

“Anytime you have a successful partnership that both we in the athletics department feel good about and our partners feel good about that, word can spread,” Dwan said.

Ultimately, Dwan said he hopes this partnership can continue to grow and expand to include even more support for Rice student-athletes.

“The Porsche deal is not a [Name, Image and Likeness] deal right now, [but] we definitely see some potential there in the future,” Dwan said. “It’s a great way to showcase how much engagement we got with these creative assets that our student-athletes are a part of. Let’s expand on that, so both growing the Porsche relationship, but also going out to new companies and potential partners who are interested in NIL or using student-athletes in their marketing strategies.”