Live Nation Grows Q3 Sponsorship Rev 4.4%

On the heels of announcing a marketing alliance with Coca-Cola, Live Nation today announced that sponsorship revenue totaled $78.5 million during the third quarter, an increase of 4.4% over the prior year. Revenue grew by 14% to $1.8 billion, but merger expenses (with Ticketmaster) impacted net income, which fell by half to $69 million.

In 2009, Live Nation has grown its number of sponsors by 3% to 793 and has extracted on average $182,000 in revenue per sponsor for the first nine months of this year.

"Despite a challenging advertising environment, we have also grown our sponsorship revenue by almost 5% year-to-date which illustrates our ability to connect brands, concerts and music fans," said Michael Rapino, President and Chief Executive Officer of Live Nation.

Sponsorship revenue for the first nine months of this year has risen 4.6% to $144.6 million.

"We generated robust organic growth from our operations during the third quarter as we focused on executing our fundamentals with excellence during the peak concert season," he said.

We'll have more from Live Nation's Q3 conference call so check back to this post later tonight.