July 2025 | Michael Fechter
Credit unions have spent years marketing themselves as alternatives to major banks. “It’s not been easy,” says Tropical Financial Credit Union CEO Rick Shaw. “I mean, people don’t know what a credit union is.”
That’s why, mere months after moving up from CFO to CEO in 2022, Shaw inked a sponsorship deal making Tropical Financial the official credit union of the Florida Panthers hockey team. He re-upped the deal last year, convinced that Tropical’s presence at Panthers events has helped build its brand.
It’s a low six-figure investment, he says, that places Tropical’s logo on Amerant Arena’s scoreboard and elsewhere in the arena, and they’re able to sign up new customers at some games. In addition, Tropical Financial has a presence at two NHL-sized rinks at Fort Lauderdale’s Iceplex that are used for Panthers practices and youth hockey.
The hope is that fans’ passion for their team translates into positive feelings for the team’s “official” sponsors.
While Amerant Bank owns the naming rights on the Panthers’ arena, Tropical’s first foray into sports marketing had to be more modest, Shaw says. “We try to limit what the risk is that we’re taking.”
Tropical has been in business 90 years, created to serve Southern Bell employees in Miami. Southern Bell became BellSouth, and then part of AT&T. Gradually, employee turnover drained the credit union’s membership and it became Tropical Financial in 2001 with accounts accessible to anyone in the community. Despite having nearly 67,000 members and just under $1 billion in assets, more aggressive marketing was needed. “People know who the Panthers are,” Shaw says. “People don’t know who Tropical is.”
Miami-Dade and Broward are the core customer bases, Shaw says, and Tropical has branches in Kendall, Doral, Miramar, Plantation, Fort Lauderdale and West Palm Beach.
While he doesn’t have specific data, word-of-mouth tells Shaw that the partnership is building name recognition and trust among fans.
“It comes up in a lot of conversations. It’s amazing to us how often people mention the Panther partnership.” Tropical employees try to take advantage of those moments to tout the value of a credit union for financial services.
“People who may not otherwise be willing to try Tropical and see how we are as a business, because of the partnership they are willing,” he says.