Public relations
Investor relations
Brand Development & Articulation
Marketing Services
Creative Services
Content & Social Media Strategy
Social Media Creation and Management
Analytics and Measurement
Advisory Services
Crisis Communication
We help create brand strategy and visual identities that resonate with unique audiences in the sports world and beyond. This includes such services such as strategic design, value proposition and positioning creation, and storytelling that moves the needle.
Drawing from extensive expertise in public relations, alongside advanced capabilities in digital advertising, performance and influencer marketing and organic social media, we empower brands to engage new users and retain audiences, consistently outperforming industry standards.
We take pride in our role as trusted partners, seamlessly integrating with every level of your team to offer ongoing advisory services for multifaceted business and communications challenges. Leveraging our vast network, we facilitate connections with potential investors and strategic partners, as well as advise and help create growth paths for our clients to successfully move forward.
In everything we do, we rise above the ordinary through our deep experience and understanding of strategic media relations campaigns, social media, strategic alliances, and relevant industry events. Our goal is to help you drive brand awareness and fortify your reputation as an industry leader.
As an integral partner, our team is committed to taking your brand to new heights and driving business opportunities. At the heart of our approach lies our unparalleled expertise in public relations, which serves as the cornerstone of our success, along with brand development, performance marketing, and advisory services. We help our clients, ranging from emerging start-ups to industry giants, raise capital and focus on the right growth paths.
Launch in Ohio, brand building, user acquisition
Betr tapped Digital Sport by Hot Paper Lantern to launch its real-money gambling app in the state of Ohio on Jan 1, 2023 - the state's first legal day of sports betting. DS by HPL's event marketing and design teams worked hand-in-hand to execute a series of in-person events and brand collateral, along with supporting digital assets.
Complete with a New Year's Eve launch party and multiple NFL watch parties across Ohio, betr's tour of the state effectively created buzz for the brand, engaging in-person experiences for consumers, and a swell of new users for the real-money gaming app. DS by HPL's team planned, staffed and executed all events, plus produced marketing collateral that aided in betr's "takeover" of each unique venue.
COMMUNICATIONS
Five Star Fans is a revolutionary fan engagement company designed to meet the new demands of college athletics. We closely collaborated with their leadership to educate the marketplace, crafting a compelling narrative that highlighted their unique value proposition and the timeliness of their product to meet consumer demand.
With Name, Image, and Likeness drastically impacting the landscape of college athletics, we developed messaging, storylines and targeted narratives to position Five Star Fans as an essential partner in this new era. Our approach emphasized their technology and aligned the brand with prominent thought leaders in the industry.
COMMUNICATIONS
Monkey Knife Fight (MKF) was a fun, irreverent, unknown daily fantasy sports brand trying to be noticed by customers, partners and investors in this cluttered marketplace. We partnered with leadership to articulate and package a winning narrative through its unique offering, creative sports teams partnerships and by telling a story that always stayed one step ahead of the competition.
Leveraging a "Play to MKF'ing Win" tagline, we launched a hugely successful media campaign, amplified through social and maximized through smart, targeted advertising, which helped this fantasy sports platform not only build its customer base, but get noticed to the point that it was acquired by Ballys for $90M. A true success story.
CONTENT AND VIDEO CREATION
Bettormetrics is an established sports odds intelligence company in the UK. They came to Digital Sport by HPL as they started to expand into the US market and needed to grow their brand presence in the states, as well as create new sales materials aimed at this new market.
Our message was simple: Sportsbooks are leaving millions on the table due to deficiencies in their trading performance, and Bettormetrics has the tools to identify those unprofitable patterns so they can be remedied. Our approach was developing an animated explainer video to help educate and visualize this complex piece of sportsbooks.
COMMUNICATIONS
Hot Paper Lantern began its relationship with sports betting technology startup WagerWire in the Spring of 2022. The scope of the relationship was to build brand awareness for the company as it raised capital, to help create influence with investors and potential strategic partners.
Through this work, the WagerWire founders have become futurists and thought leaders, even though their product has just launched.
As an integral partner, our team is committed to taking your brand to new heights and driving new business opportunities. At the heart of our approach lies our unparalleled expertise in media relations, which serves as the cornerstone of our success, along with brand development, performance marketing, and advisory services, helping our clients, ranging from emerging businesses to industry giants, to raise capital and focus on the right growth paths.
COMMUNICATIONS
Understanding Players Health, the leading provider of athlete safety and insurance solutions across sports, was closing on a $60M Series C funding round at the end of 2024, DSHPL leveraged the lead-up to the announcement to create a media relations plan focused on a steady cadence of news and interaction to introduce the relatively unknown brand, its mission and its CEO Tyrre Burks to media that matter.
The media relations strategy paid dividends as the media, through its previous interactions with the brand and CEO, understood the company and its trajectory. These touchpoints helped maximize the news of the fundraise. DSHPL secured more than 30 pieces of media coverage for Players Health across key verticals like: insurance, sports business, college sports (NIL), entrepreneur (minority entrepreneur), private equity, finance, and local Minneapolis outlets.
COMMUNICATIONS
Digital Sport by Hot Paper Lantern partnered with The Curling Group (TCG) to generate sustained media momentum ahead of the launch of its new professional curling league debuting in April 2026. The engagement was designed to elevate curling’s visibility in the U.S. market, position TCG leadership as innovators in modern sports entertainment, and use tentpole events to introduce the sport to new audiences beyond traditional curling fans.
As part of this strategy, TCG hosted the KIOTI Grand Slam of Curling Tahoe, marking the first-ever U.S. stop on the Grand Slam of Curling circuit. The event served as both a world-class competition and a proof point for curling’s ability to succeed as a premium, fan-forward live sports experience in the United States.
Earned media coverage generated more than 62 million estimated unique monthly visitors across national, regional, broadcast, and sports industry outlets, including Forbes, and major NBC, ABC, and CBS affiliates. Coverage included live television segments, national features, athlete profiles, and event recaps that collectively elevated curling’s profile in the U.S. market and reinforced The Curling Group’s vision for a modern, fan-forward professional league ahead of its April 2026 launch.
During the Grand Slam of Curling Tahoe event, digital and social platforms delivered significant audience reach and engagement, reinforcing curling’s growing strength as a media-friendly live sports property. The event generated 34 million impressions, 18 million video views, and 575,000 engagements, while driving 500,000 active users to the official website.
COMMUNICATIONS
Hot Paper Lantern began working with FTN, the premier home for fantasy sports and sports betting content, in January of 2023. What started as helping boost the company's profile in the B2B space has blossomed into a 360-degree consistent media blitz positioning the company and their experts as go-to sources for football fans' favorite writers, placing FTN's data in the most engaging conversations.
HPL began by securing opportunities for FTN executives to speak with industry press while at industry conferences, laying the groundwork to establish who FTN is and what they offer on the B2B and B2C level. From there, we branched out into consumer media, and used FTN's experts as sources for sports betting affiliates and other similar outlets who were looking for commentary based on quality data. Two years in, FTN is seen as a serious thought leader in the sports industry.
Nine lessons we've learned from pitching and partnering with dozens of early-stage companies in the sports world.
Our team delivers tangible results customized to your needs with seamless integration at every level of your business. With expertise spanning areas across focused sectors such as sports betting and iGaming, the changing landscape of college and NIL sports media rights, new streaming capabilities, and emerging sports technologies that are reshaping how fans can be part of the experience, our experience is comprehensive, and our approach is relentless.
Having a keen understanding of the sports landscape and the ability to connect our clients with real influencers who make a difference, our track record speaks for itself – we know what it takes to drive success in a category that is both emerging and constantly changing. We pride ourselves on being true partners and are ready to tackle your most complex business and communication challenges.
