75,000 FOLLOWERS: SOCAL COYOTES, COACHELLA SPORTS & ENTERTAINMENT FASTEST-GROWING BRANDS

(INDIO) – The SoCal Coyotes – America’s #1 Developmental Pro Football Program™ – and Coachella Sports & Entertainment Stadium Authority LLC, have rocketed to a combined 75,000 online followers, proof that the non-profit sports program and its CSESA parent platform are now a digital media powerhouse – with both among the nation’s fastest-growing sports brands.

This week the Coyotes shot past 50,000 followers while CSESA topped 25,000, as both organizations use social media channels like Twitter, Facebook and Instagram to engage their steadily growing mass audience in intimate and personal ways, resulting in digital media dominance like few understand.

“Facts tell, stories sell,” says J David Miller, CSESA chairman and founder of the Coyotes non-profit leadership organization. “Content is king.”

Nationally, the upward-trending Coyotes have far and away more likes and followers than any developmental pro football franchise in the country. In just seven years, the Coyotes have surpassed every  professional indoor Arena team – and are in respectable company in high-low comparisons of other prominent mainstream sports and facilities.

Among Coachella Valley landmarks and icons, the Coyotes and CSESA have eclipsed the Desert Sun (70,438), Indian Wells Tennis Garden (9,895), Thermal Club Race Track (14,327), Palm Springs Air Museum (18,905), CBS Local 2 (16,100) and FOX 11 (1,954) in coveted Facebook popularity.

The Ontario Fury (pro soccer) have 11,604 likes while the Ontario Reign (pro hockey)have 41,877. Both play in nearby Citizens Bank Arena, which has 32,230. The Star at Frisco, the 91-acre campus that hosts the world headquarters of the Dallas Cowboys in Frisco, has 37,301.

Through a dizzying array of programming that ranges from sports opinion shows, faith-based ministry, heavy local high school coverage and of course, the core competence of the six-time champion SoCal Coyotes developmental football team, both organizations have unleashed an arsenal of media choices that stay on message, maintain consistency and embody the values of the brands and their plans that align with their corporate goals.

“Creative uses of real-time visualization drives our social media to another level,” Miller says. “This goes a long way in the millennial world. We’ve turned our social platforms into search engines, which gives us traction across all of our channels. We’re able to track trends, search conversations and categorize content.

“We have clean, over-arching messaging – such as ‘Faith, Family, Football,’ or ‘Defend the Shield,’ driven by smaller, niche growth of  ‘communities within communities,'” he adds. “An example is our breakout coverage of high school sports, or faith-based ministry. We’re delivering diverse content across multiple platforms with niche targets that are difficult to duplicate.”

For advertisers who seek a 24/7 social media presence and wish to ‘ride-along’ relevant, clean content, this strategy separates the CSESA and the Coyotes from its competitors, and delivers messaging across multiple platforms into even the narrowest markets.

Directing traffic in the midst of CSESA’s ‘perfect storm’ is VP of Digital Media Scott Alvarez. A 31-year-old Penn State grad and wunderkind, Alvarez daily deploys fresh content that capitalizes on converging trends. Alvarez credits the social intelligence platforms of the Coyotes and CSESA for their measurable results, which allow him to cull data and “see” what matters most, while detecting moments or trends that need action, and allow him to “listen” to the organizations’ social media followers in a smarter way.

Other CSESA platforms and brands include the CLAHS with Michael Karls™, The Sport Report with Conrad Negron™, Shield of Dreams Broadcast Ministry™, First & Ten LLC Financial Services™, and Developmental Football International LLC™.

“It’s amazing what customer advocacy and social media engagement can do for your bottom line,” Alvarez says. “Being a social business is now the norm, so we want to be a social media presence that people want to follow and share. If you can’t pivot and be socially adept, you will lose ground and risk being obsolete overnight.”

Coachella Sports & Entertainment is barely more than a year old, but has already become a household name. Its primary mission is the ongoing development of The Shield at 1 Coyote Way, a $300+million development scheduled for the 125 acres surrounding the Classic Club in Palm Desert, which is frequently in the news and garners a respectable share of earned media.

Entering their seventh year and 12th season with a formidable national footprint, the Coyotes are one of the Coachella Valley’s largest originators and producers of sports content. This includes live game coverage and daily sports programming.

On the field, the Coyotes are reigning Pacific Coast Conference champions of Developmental Football International LLC. They return to action at Shadow Hills Stadium in September.

A significant portion of the Coyotes’ meteoric online growth can be attributed to its numerous ‘Above the Line’ leadership camps, clinics, and symposiums, which impact 50,000 youth annually. The Riverside County District Attorney’s Office and Sheriff’s Department rely on the Coyotes for their camps to at-risk youth, and Coyote players and coaches volunteer throughout the Coachella Valley 52 weeks a year.

The Coyotes’ non-profit also supports a host of other non-profits and charitable organizations, ranging from Rotary Clubs, women’s health organizations, ministries like The Bridge Calvary Chapel, the Uganda-based Agape Children’s Village, and an array of African mission outposts.

The organization has meticulously built dominant national brands now synonymous with ‘Faith, Family & Football,’ and other trademarks such as ‘Building Champions, Building Men™,’ and ‘Defend the Shield™.’

For it’s corporate partners, sponsors and advertisers, the Coyotes soaring popularity delivers significant viral brand support in a sea of social media.

The Washington, D.C.-based Pew Research Center reports that 67-percent of all Americans in 2017 turned to Facebook for information and news. Brandwatch reports that as of January 2017, there are more than 1.71 billion monthly active users on Facebook, each claiming an average of 136 friends.

Syncapse, Inc., a social media marketing company, has valued a Facebook ‘like’ at $136 since 2015. To determine that number, Syncapse compared the consumer habits between fan and non-fans using the categories of product spending, brand loyalty, likelihood to recommend, media value, cost of acquisition, and brand affinity. The data was collected from around 2,000 panelists, across a wide range of demographics.

The Coyotes non-profit holds patents pending, copyrights, trademarks and licenses on more than a dozen intellectual and business properties, including brands, logos, designs, names, programs, advertising and marketing literature, products, photographs, publications and proprietary assets.

The Coyotes publish content across all social media, including Instagram, Snapchat, Twitter and Facebook.

DISCOVER how The Pro Football Educator, operated by former Denver Broncos GM and two-time Super Bowl winner Ted Sundquist, selected the SoCal Coyotes as America’s #1 Developmental Pro Football Program. Enjoy more Coyote football at Facebook.com/thesocalcoyotes.

FAITH, FAMILY, FOOTBALL is the real mission of the Coyotes – and not surprisingly, something that dates back to the great Vince Lombardi in 1959. More than game tape. More than a weight room. More than a 40 time. The Coyote mission reaches far beyond the actual gridiron, deep into the development of young athletes as fathers, husbands, and men.

SEVENTY PLAYERS EACH YEAR earn the distinction of ‘Defending the Shield’ in the uniform of the SoCal Coyotes. Many will earn a shot with NFL, CFL or AFL opportunities, or graduate into business careers.

For more information, email SVP Ron DiGrandi at [email protected].