What We're Thankful For

What are we thankful for this year? Among other things, all of our partner service providers. If you're bored over the holidays, click the links below, shoot them a note and find out what they are all about. Whether you need help selling, finding, activating or measuring sponsorships; the SponsorPitch service providers database will feature targeted product and service solutions to your s...

NAIA Extends Title With Buffalo Funds

Randy Covitz of the Kansas City Star reports that the NAIA has secured an extension to Buffalo Funds' current title sponsorship of the NAIA Men's Basketball National Championship. Covitz writes: The NAIA on Monday announced three-year extensions with Buffalo Funds to continue title sponsorship of the NAIA Division I Men’s Basketball National Championship with the city of Kansas City for t...

Roddick Re-Ups With Lacoste

The AP reports that tennis player Andy Roddick, who first signed a five year deal with Lacoste in 2005, has renewed his apparel sponsorship with the French clothing-maker for four more years. Roddick, who currently stands #6 in the ATP Men's ranking. was forced to pull out of this week's ATP World Tour Finals with a knee injury. When the first deal was signed, Robert Siegel, Chairman o...

Partnership Marketing with Park City Film Week

There is something so enticing about having your brand in Park City during the film festival week—the influencer crowd; the throngs of reporters; supporting filmmakers and of course the celebrities that visit during the festival. I remember attending my first film festival related party in 1995 as an intern for the Utah Film Commission. The party for a small film called “Plan 10 From Outer ...

With No Title Sponsor, Indy ATP Stop To Atlanta in 2010?

The Indianapolis Business Journal reports that rather than face the prospect of a fourth year without a title sponsor, the Indianapolis Tennis Championship (formerly the RCA Tennis Championships) will move to Atlanta in 2010. Once one of the top stops on the Tour's summer hardcourt season, the ITC has struggled recently with its search for a title sponsor. Sources from the U.S. Tennis Assoc...

GlaxoSmithKline Signs Tier III Sponsorship with London 2012

GlaxoSmithKline will be the Official Laboratory Services Provider for the Olympic and Paralympic Games for the 2010 games, becoming LOCOG's 25th sponsor. The tier three sponsorship will provide facilities and equipment for a World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) accredited satellite laboratory at the Games. The laboratory, to be based at one of GSK's UK research and development sites, will be ind...

Sponsors Should Tell Their Story, Too

99% of the time, it's the property that puts together a fancy video and shiny presentation to tell their story about why sponsorship is so critical. As sponsors do a better job at cleaning up their formerly haphazard sponsorship portfolios, so too could they do a better job of telling the why, how and what's of their sponsorship strategy. What does their brand stand for? A concert tour, a fil...

Head Tennis Extends ATP Until 2012

HEAD Tennis has announced the extension of their partnership with the ATP until end of 2012. The agreement between HEAD and the ATP was made during the Barclays ATP World Tour Finals in London when executives convened to discuss the successful partnership that began in 1994, the longest agreement of any current partner of the ATP. “This partnership strengthens HEAD's relationship with one of...

For UPS, Olympics "Like A New Start-up"

What can Big Brown do for the Olympics? More than you might think. UPS, in its role as the official logistics and express delivery sponsor of the Beijing 2008 Olympics, delivered more than 19 million items through the closing ceremonies. But more than just delivery, UPS has its eye on supply chain management, too. Although UPS has been an Olympic sponsor since 1996, Dan Brutto, President of UPS...

Odds & Ends

From time to time, we have random thoughts on sponsorship that don't necessarily fit into a neat blog post... here goes. Competing for Sponsorship. In a meeting last week with a major agency, we discussed the idea of RFP's. The idea being something like - why can't sponsorship act like an old fashion business plan competition or RFP process. In some ways, we're doing the same stuff. S...