AVP in Talks for New Title; Crocs Deal Expires

Crocs, who has title sponsored the AVP Tour since 1996, will not be back as title sponsor of the Tour next season. The company's three year sponsorship deal expired yesterday, the same day as the company's quarterly earnings call. CEO John Duerden indicated the company would be shifting their marketing strategy to a more direct to consumer model. "As part of our cost reduction initiati...

A Jump Start for Your Stalled Sponsorship Program

Festivals and events across the country are feeling the impact of the recession on their sponsorship programs. You may be, too. Worse, you may not know what to do next. One crucial but perhaps counterintuitive next step is to deepen your commitment to your existing sponsors. Now is the time to strengthen the ties and all the ways your two organizations are interconnected and enrich the spo...

Cirque Gets New Insurance Partner

The U.S. division of Sun Life Financial today announced a new partnership with Cirque du Soleil that will make Sun Life the Official Insurance Partner of Cirque du Soleil U.S. Big Top Touring Shows, U.S. Arena Touring Shows, and the Presenting Partner of a major new Cirque du Soleil U.S. show to be announced next month. The sponsorship is the first in a series of announcements comprising a new,...

Make Community Programs A Winning Sponsor Proposal

Going back to the mid 1980's when I was first a ‘baby’ in the sports marketing world, we developed a unique niche by packaging the team’s community programs to our sponsors, a practice that most businesses had never before seen nor been asked. Back then, most sponsorship proposals were about as vanilla as you could get, including the usual mix: a program ad, game tickets, a shootout promotion a...

Quick Tip: Sell Assets AND Outcomes

Sponsorship professionals sell assets. Successful sponsorship professionals sell outcomes. photo cred via photobucket: blogs.msdn.com/michael_oldenburg

Update: AVP & Crocs Officially Split Ways

Update > 8-10-09: In follow-up to a story we broke Saturday morning, AVP Pro Beach Volleyball today released a statement today confirming that they have agreed part ways with Crocs at the end of the 2009 season. In the statement, they noted that Crocs has agreed to buy out the remainder of their contract; noted as restructuring charges in the original story mentioned below. Here's the full s...

Deal Flow 8-10-2009

Yardbarker Network has signed a sponsorship deal with Coors Light that will run throughout the NFL's pre-season and 17-week regular season. The Columbus Blue Jackets on Monday announced Cleveland-based Medical Mutual of Ohio would be the team’s official health insurer as part of a one year sponsorship. Standard Life has become the first title sponsor of the British Basketball Federation ...

Financial Statements for Sponsorship Sales Pros

I know many of you may automatically dismiss this because you're thinking finance has nothing to do with marketing and sales.. especially sponsorship sales! For those that take this post with an open mind, we're about to arm you with a competitive advantage that may very well separate you from those that just said "finance has nothing to do with marketing and sales.. especially sponsorship sal...

Making A Better Pitch

The other day, someone emailed me regarding a sponsorship pitch for an event he was running (he saw a previous blog post and mistakenly thought that I worked for the particular company). In reading the email, I noticed a few things that he could have done better before sending this cold-email, so I replied back and we had a nice dialogue about it. With his permission, I’m going to include som...

"We don't hold a monopoly on new ideas."

How has the recession affected how big agencies view sponsorship? What is a PR firm's take on the current perception issues facing the idea of sponsorship? How do sponsorship proposals navigate through a big agency to find the account decision-maker? Mark Harmsen, the newest member of the SponsorPitch team, recently hit the streets to find out what's on the mind of Samantha Lucas, Chair of U....