Hundreds of Millions of Text Votes Later, AT&T to Exit Idol

In 2003, the inaugural season of its American Idol sponsorship, AT&T generated 7.5 million texts (a record at the time) with its 'text to vote' activation. Hundreds of millions of teen texts later, Fox confirmed the end of AT&T's sponsorship on Wednesday prior to the premiere episode of the show's 13th season. The telecom's sponsorship was used initially to lift the adoption of text me...

Notre Dame, Under Armour Deal Said To Be "Largest In College Sports"

Yesterday, the University of Notre Dame formally announced the school's 10-year apparel contract with Baltimore-based apparel provider, Under Armour, which Fighting Irish Athletic Director Jack Swarbrick is calling "the largest financial commitment ever made by a brand to a university." ESPN cites sources reporting that the apparel deal is worth $90 million in cash and merchandise over 10 years...

Enter Your Sponsorship Campaign Into This Year's CLIOs

For the first time in the CLIO Awards' 55-year history, sports marketing and sponsorship will share the spotlight with the best in advertising. The international advertising competition is accepting applications for the first Clio Sports awards through March 21st. "Clio Sports recognizes the enormously dynamic and still growing impact of sports on marketing and advertising," said Nicole Purce...

10 Big Sponsorship Themes For 2014

According to UK sponsorship consultancy, Synergy, these are the 10 sponsorship themes that we'll all be talking about in the upcoming year. Head over to the Synergy Blog to read more.

Here's How To Grow Experiential Marketing Budgets

While 73% of CPG marketing execs believe experiential marketing will play an important role in their future marketing plans, there may still be much room for growth. A 'lack of clear ROI' is cited by more than half of execs as the biggest challenge holding back spending with 64% of CPG marketers either somewhat likely or very likely to increase experiential marketing budgets if their challenges...

The Best Super Bowl Spots From XLVIII

At least there were the ads. Here are some of our faves from last night... T-Mobile | #nocontract Budweiser | Puppy Love RadioShack | #inwiththenew

Learfield Snaps Up Nelligan To Shake Up College Sponsorship Landscape

Learfield Sports has significantly bolstered its portfolio of collegiate properties under representation, today announcing the acquisition of Nelligan Sports and its 41 schools under management. The deal means Learfield Sports will now own the multimedia rights for 97 collegiate athletics programs including with the acquisition Louisville and Marquette. “Learfield is a terrific company with a...

NO-bani! Russia Won't Let USOC Sponsor Ship Product to Sochi

Strained greek yogurt may be the latest casualty of the tense relationship between U.S. and Russia. U.S.O.C. sponsor, Chobani, got the cold shoulder when it tried to send its product to Sochi earlier this week as part of the company's multi-million dollar sponsorship and with the Games just two days away, Russian customs officials are reportedly preventing the shipment from traveling through to...

Sochi's First Sponsor Infringement Lawsuit Has Been Filed

Well, that was quick. To celebrate the start of the 2014 Winter Olympics, the Canadian Olympic Committee has filed a lawsuit against The North Face and parent company, VF. The lawsuit claims that the outerwear apparel maker infringed on Olympic trademarks and attempted to mislead customers into believing that North Face was an official sponsor in the run-up to the Sochi games with its "Villagew...

What You Won't See At Today's Opening Ceremonies

iPhones. At least that's the rumor that's been floating around the past couple of days. Samsung reportedly asked that athletes (who were all given a Samsung Galaxy 3 as part of the company's sponsorship activation) not bring their competitor's phones to today's/tonight's opening ceremonies or if they must, cover up the apple logo. All of which kind of makes sense, what with Samsung shelling out...