A Strange Deal Gets Stranger

One sponsorship deal, among many, that never materialized this year was W Sports Marketing's sale of title rights to a pro-am tennis exhibition called the Grand Slam of Asheville at the Asheville, North Carolina Civic Center on August 28th. The opportunity, you may remember, garnered some last minute headlines when W Sports Marketing made an unusual offer - saying they would only ask for paymen...

Stricter Legislation May Impact Sponsorships

In coal country, some are saying that the industry's debate with environmental regulators and government officials could have a big impact on future sponsorship revenues. The "Friends of Coal" Bowl - a seven game football series between Marshall and West Virginia - may be one of the first affected. The Charleston Daily-Mail in a piece titled "Coal Climate Could Affect Coal Bowl" quotes the...

A-B Launches New Brand with SNL Sponsorship

Anheuser-Busch's newest brand extension, Bud Light Golden Wheat, will be making its debut on a big stage, Saturday Night Live, through an exclusive sponsorship on Saturday, October 17th. As part of the sponsorship, which Brandweek estimates is part of a $30 million campaign, A-B will purchase all advertising inventory and have several unique components featuring "Backstage with Bud Light Go...

Competitive Conflicts & MMA

After watching WEC 43 and reading this post at MMAPayout.com on ROI and fighter sponsorships, I thought it would be a good time to go beyond just poor placement and over crowding of sponsor logos on fighter MMA fighter apparel but also examine the concept of competitive sponsorship that exists in the sport. I wanted to focus more on the fact that directly competitive brands are often feature...

Sponsoring New Ideas

It's often said that big companies can't innovate...that they suffer from paralysis by analysis. Sometimes that is the case, but other times clever companies - in many cases driven by the marketing departments - use their resources to create innovative products that harness the wisdom of their customers in the process powering change, inspiring hope and of course, benefiting their own brand. ...

Liberty Mutual Sponsors Local Amateur Golf

Liberty Mutual Group, the country's fifth largest property and casualty insurer, announced today that it has entered into a three-year agreement to become the title sponsor of the Liberty Mutual Invitational, a local amateur charity golf tournament series that will hold 72 events across the U.S. in 2010. The tournament series was most recently known as the Cadillac Invitational, a sponsorship ...

Deal Flow 10/15/09

Anheuser-Busch's newest brand extension, Bud Light Golden Wheat, will be the sole sponsor of Saturday Night Live on Saturday, October 17th, through an exclusive sponsorship with NBC. >> Full Story Deal of the Day - Vote! Bud Light Golden Wheat/SNL - Good deal?(answers) Liberty Mutual Group will become the title sponsor of the Liberty Mutual Invitational, a local amateur charity gol...

Racing to a Win...Win...Win

I was just reading about what sounds to be a really nice (and effective) local-market sponsorship program that tied MultiGrain Cheerios in with CNN and local market YMCAs in tandem with several high profile city marathons. On just about every level – this worked. And it's these kinds of multi-channel combinations that you would be wise to look for as well in your sponsorship programs. The sp...

Activation Tactic of the Week

Are you looking for new advancements in signage technology? Are you looking to feature signage at your venue that will pop? Sports organizations looking for new signage technology to promote corporate partners need to check out the amazing work being done by Shapeshifter Media. Shapeshifter Media is the exclusive licensee of the international patents for the manufacture of Stairgraphics, a n...

Property of the Week: L.A. Derby Dolls

If you're a 20-something marketer you may not know the rich history behind roller derby. That's why we're here, to help you discover new opps! Meet the L.A. Derby Dolls. What is roller derby... At its zenith in the early 1970s, roller derby was played to sold-out crowds at stadiums across the U.S. including the Oakland Coliseum, White Sox Park and Madison Square Garden. The action then wa...