New York City, NY, 05/01/24 – KORE, the sports and entertainment business solution, and Utah-based soccer club Real Salt Lake (“RSL”), which includes Major League Soccer’s RSL side, Utah Royals FC of the National Women’s Soccer League, MLS Next Pro team Real Monarchs and the trio’s America First Field and Zions Bank Stadium venues, are excited to announce the first ever partnership between the two organizations to utilize KORE’s industry leading partnership platform, Sponsorship + Activate to drive deeper efficiencies and insights for RSL.

RSL was prepared to make the move to a Partnership platform that could manage the needs of a professional sports team trying to measure every element of its partnership portfolio. The platform includes a native integration into RSL’s CRM environment for enhanced pipeline management, and in application advance inventory valuation and management, proposal creation and analysis, post-contracting operations such as billing, revenue recognition, and reporting. Finally, the Activate platform will provide RSL asset activation management and ROI measurement for each partner.

Like a growing number of teams, RSL have also engaged with KORE’s advisory group, KORE Planning & Insights (“KPI”), in addition to KORE’s technology platform. KPI will help RSL leverage the KORE Partnership Platform to maximize adoption while driving advanced insights to help the club think more strategically about pricing, packaging, and valuation. Leveraging KORE’s unique set of data, RSL can leverage unique data points to help better understand the industry landscape and market trends.

The partnership highlights key items for both organizations: Union Sports & Entertainment commitment to driving the most advanced insights and processes, and KORE continuing to be the solution of choice for the industry.

John Kimball, President of Real Salt Lake, comments, “KORE is the clear industry leader when it comes to sports business technology and leveraging the data to drive true organizational change. We look forward to utilizing their platform and knowledge of the market to take our Partnership program to the next level.”

KORE’s COO, Adam Grow responded, “This has been a long time coming for KORE, as we have had numerous conversations with RSL over the years. To finally bridge the gap, and become partners, is exciting for all of us. We look forward to helping drive RSL’s partnership group to new heights and deliver immense value into the Club.”

The newly formed partnership between Real Salt Lake and KORE highlights KORE’s ongoing growth within the North American ‘Big 5’ Leagues, and specifically, Major League Soccer (“MLS”). KORE now works with over 70% of all MLS Clubs helping deploy the most advanced data driven practices in the industry for fans, partners, and stakeholders’ insights alike.

About KORE:

KORE is the global leader in engagement marketing solutions. More than 900 brands, venues, and sports organizations trust KORE’s tools and platform as a source of truth to manage assets and measure partnership impact, with real-time insights, across all channels.  Through Sponsorship Management and Evaluation, Ticketing and Fan Engagement, and Data Management and Analytics, KORE’s two-sided network unites corporate sponsors, sponsorship properties, and their fans with solutions that help enhance the fan experience, drive smarter decisions, and enable marketing and operations teams to spend time where it matters. Learn more at KORESoftware.com or follow us LinkedIn or Twitter. 

About Real Salt Lake / Utah Royals FC:

During the first week of January 2022, the RSL compendium of properties was acquired by global sports entrepreneur David Blitzer – who boasts interests in the Philadelphia 76ers (NBA), the New Jersey Devils (NHL), the Cleveland Guardians (baseball) and the Washington Commanders (NFL) – as well as several European soccer entities, including Crystal Palace (England), FC Augsburg (Germany), Estoril (Portugal), ADO Den Haag (Netherlands), Alcorcón (Spain), SK Beveren (Belgium) and Brøndby IF (Denmark). The Blitzer group partners with Utah-based Smith Entertainment Group (SEG), which owns the Utah Jazz (NBA) and the soon-to-arrive Utah Hockey Club (NHL), led by Ryan Smith and including Dwyane Wade, among others.

For the 2024 season and beyond, Real Salt Lake’s Blitzer / Smith ownership groups have partnered to bring the National Women’s Soccer League back to Utah, as Utah Royals FC return in the Spring. Led by Head Coach Amy Rodriguez, President Michelle Hyncik and Sporting Director Kelly Cousins, URFC aims to seize upon the success the NWSL enjoyed during its first iteration on the Wasatch Front from 2018-20 and grow the game to even greater heights going forward. Led by visionary sports business entrepreneur Jess Gelman – the founder of the Sloan Sports Analytics Institute, along with innovative NBA executive Daryl Morey – Utah Royals FC blazes new trails in 2024.

Real Salt Lake recently kicked off its 20th Major League Soccer season, its third full season under Head Coach Pablo Mastroeni, who led the Utah side on an interim basis for the final 100 days in 2021. RSL is the lone Western Conference side to have advanced to the Audi MLS Cup Playoffs in each of the 2021, 2022 and 2023 campaigns, amassing 13 postseason appearances in the last 16 years, as well as on five occasions in the last six seasons.  

RSL’s MLS Cup 2009 victory marked the state of Utah’s only major professional championship in nearly 40 years, the title preceding an historic run to the 2010/11 CONCACAF Champions League Final. Buoyed by a passionate base boasting several thousand season ticket holders and opening its permanent home in Sandy just over 15 years ago; since October, 2008, RSL’s 167-60-76 (W-L-T) mark at America First Field – home of the “RioT” Supporters Group umbrella – equates to a 1.90 points per game average and a 0.677 win pct, one of the truly amazing value proposition in North American sporting landscape today.

In 2015, the club expanded its development pyramid with the addition of Real Monarchs SLC, one of several MLS-operated clubs playing in the USL Championship, the United States’ Division II setup.  The Monarchs boast a pair of titles in its brief history, as the 2017 USL Championship Regular-Season champions, later winning the USL Championship title in 2019. For the 2022 season and beyond, Real Monarchs compete in the newly-launched “MLS NEXT Pro” as part of a joint United States and Canada endeavor to complete the professional player pathway by connecting youth academies in MLS NEXT to first teams in Major League Soccer.

The entire competitive RSL setup, which includes nearly 70 players representing the RSL Academy’s U-15 and U-17 teams, calls the expansive Zions Bank Training Center in Herriman, Utah their daily training home. With five world-class grass fields, two indoor turf fields, a residential dormitory, the STEM-based RSL Academy High School and the 5,000-seat Zions Bank Stadium located on a 42-acre campus, Utah’s sporting future is bright.

The RSL Community Foundation was established in 2016, created with the goals of being active in the community year-round, utilizing the popularity and reach of RSL, the Royals, the Monarchs and the Academy in promoting health and wellness in children throughout the region, engaging supporters of soccer to raise funds and volunteer time for various local initiatives.

For more information, please contact:

Mandy Savage
Content Marketing Manager, KORE
amanda.savage@koresoftware.com

Trey Fitz-Gerald
VP Communications, RSL/Utah Royals FC
trey.fitzgerald@RSL.com