179% Partnership Revenue Growth, Backed by Better Conversation Data
Promotion to the Championship demanded a commercial operation to match. Here’s how the club built one.
About Lincoln City Football Club
Lincoln City FC have built a reputation for outperforming larger clubs through disciplined execution and a clear focus on efficiency.
Over the past three seasons, the club has consistently delivered more performance per pound spent than almost any club in the English football system. That reflects a data-led operating model, not short-term luck.
That success on the pitch culminated in promotion to the EFL Championship, creating a major commercial opportunity off it. Promotion raised the club’s profile, increased inbound interest from potential partners, and made partner revenue growth more important than ever.
When Bobby Copping joined as Head of Commercial, he was tasked with scaling sponsorship revenue and building a more predictable commercial function. With Championship football increasing attention on the club, the team needed to manage both outbound activity and inbound demand from new partners with far greater discipline.
The Business Problem
As Lincoln City’s profile grew, the commercial team did not lack opportunities.
They lacked visibility into which ones mattered most.
The main issues were:
- Partner revenue needed to grow quickly after promotion to the EFL Championship
- Inbound demand from potential new partners needed to be tracked properly
- Outbound activity was increasing across a wider account base
- Opportunity progress was unclear
- Prioritisation was inconsistent
- CRM data was incomplete
- Conversations were happening, but not consistently captured in CRM
Without that data, the team could not reliably see where to focus, which opportunities were moving, which inbound enquiries needed attention, or where deals were at risk.
The club needed a more disciplined way to capture commercial activity, understand account momentum, manage inbound demand, and turn every conversation into usable revenue intelligence.
What Changed
Lincoln City centralised outbound sales in Solgari for Microsoft Teams, automatically capturing every conversation into HubSpot.
That meant:
- Every call was captured automatically
- Inbound and outbound conversations could be tracked in CRM
- Interaction history became visible in real time
- All conversations were written back into CRM
- The team could see account context before every call
- Follow-up became more consistent
With complete data in place, the commercial team had a clearer view of account activity, inbound partner interest, and opportunity progress.
AI could analyse conversation history, surface high-momentum opportunities earlier, and make stalled or risky deals easier to spot.
The team could prioritise based on evidence, not judgement alone.
Once every conversation was captured, Lincoln City had the data needed to see where to focus, where deals were progressing, where inbound demand was building, and where action was needed.
The Outcome
- 3 times more businesses reached in 9 months, totalling 7,000
- 179% increase in partner revenue
- Inbound demand from new partners tracked more consistently
- Every commercial conversation captured in CRM
- Pipeline visibility improved
- Forecasting became more reliable
- CRM became a trusted system of record
Summary
Lincoln City’s promotion to the EFL Championship created new commercial momentum. The club had a stronger platform for partner growth, but also greater pressure to manage rising demand, improve visibility, and grow revenue predictably.
The club did not increase budget or replace core systems.
They improved how commercial activity was captured and used, giving the team clearer visibility into opportunities and enabling prioritisation based on real interaction data.
The same discipline that drove on-pitch efficiency was applied to commercial operations.
Result: 189% partner revenue growth, supported by Championship momentum, better visibility, sharper prioritisation, and more disciplined commercial execution.