Purdue University and USA Swimming LIVE Partnership

Purdue brought Boilermaker pride to Indiana’s capital city as the presenting sponsor of USA Swimming LIVE — a free, nine-day fan fest serving as the outdoor entertainment hub for the 2024 U.S. Olympic Team Swimming Trials. In just two weeks, the event garnered over 220 million impressions across earned, paid and social media.

Why Sponsor the 2024 U.S. Olympic Team Swimming Trials?

Anticipating the opening of Purdue’s Indianapolis campus and the relocation of the Ray Ewry Sports Engineering Center to Indianapolis, we embarked on a partnership with USA Swimming and the Indiana Sports Corp to sponsor USA Swimming LIVE — a free, nine-day event taking place just outside Lucas Oil Stadium where the U.S. Olympic Team Swimming Trials were taking place. Capitalizing on the national hype surrounding the event, this was a unique opportunity to engage the Indianapolis community and visiting guests, including potential students and corporate partners.

Goals

Our primary goals for this partnership included:

Increasing awareness and hype for the upcoming launch of Purdue’s new urban campus in Indianapolis
Establishing Purdue as a contributor to Indianapolis’ reputation as a hub of sports innovation

Creating brand awareness and affinity with unaffiliated audiences

Creating long-term brand equity that fosters brand loyalty, positive associations and future engagement

Establish Purdue’s presence in Indianapolis

Results

27,000+ Total clicks on all storytelling pages

209 million Earned media impressions

1.74 million Social media impressions

In-Person Activations

The 2024 U.S. Olympic Team Swimming Trials welcomed a record-breaking 22,209 attendees, achieving the largest swim meet attendance in history. This unprecedented turnout earned Purdue even more exposure with activations on Georgia Street, where most fan activities took place during the nine-day event. Activations included a VR experience executed through the Purdue University in Indianapolis Computer Graphics Technology department, sidewalk graphics, Purdue-themed props and selfie opportunities, fencing and wayfinding signage, appearances from Purdue Pete and the Purdue Goldusters, and Purdue experts speaking on swimming-related STEM topics.

Storytelling

Three stories were published on Purdue’s storytelling platform, The Persistent Pursuit. Purdue’s footprint was clear throughout the U.S. Olympic Team Swimming Trials — from a Purdue student overcoming hardship to compete in the event, to the students and faculty behind the virtual reality swim experience, and even to the Boilermakers who helped to engineer the construction of the pools inside Lucas Oil Stadium. All three stories performed very well, with the Olympic pools story quickly becoming the fifth-most viewed story of all time on the website.

Read the Stories

Purdue University in Indianapolis Virtual Reality Storytelling

Because of the event’s proximity to Purdue’s Indianapolis campus and its upcoming July 1 opening, we wanted to showcase the Purdue in Indianapolis Computer Graphics Technology program as an example of Purdue’s excellence and innovation. A small team of Purdue students and faculty in Indianapolis designed a virtual reality experience especially for this event that allowed attendees to simulate what it’s like to compete in an Olympic swimming race. This offered potential students and families a taste of what Purdue’s Indianapolis campus offers: innovation in computer graphics technology, VR, sports engineering and more.