How to Announce Your New Sponsorship Deal on SponsorPitch

Is there anything more exciting than finally being able to announce a deal that you've spent months working on? We know you're doing lots of deals these days because we get press releases about them every day. But we're just a small team and we simply can't cover all of the amazing deals that are happening out there of every size, every day. We're counting on you to help us out. Now, Sponsor...

U.S. Army Sees Record ROI from non-existent IRL Sponsorship

Eyewitness news' unscientific sponsor recall study brings up a good question - with all of those logos going round and round, who gets noticed and why? In this piece, the Army got some recall for $0 while silly National Guard is out paying six or seven figures. But that isn't the point of the piece so let's set that aside for a moment. We'll agree that IRL sponsorships (along with motorsports...

Free Shirts! ...

Everyone loves free shirts, but apparently not when the fine print reads... "for £300mm sponsorship." A £20 co-branded Manchester United jersey (sent out to prospective sponsors and branded by Man-U with with their company names) didn't get the team a £300 million shirt sponsorship from Norwegian energy firm, StatoilHydro. That would've been a heck of a sales tactic had it worked. Alas, ...

Key Learnings: Moving to True Win-Win Relationships

This is the second posting in our "Key Learnings" blog series, which will be a regular collection of insights and stories from thought-leaders within the sponsorship industry. Today's key learning comes from Kevin Hanft from Marketing Leverage LLC. “Strategic partner” is a term used freely and likely too often. Especially when it comes to sports and entertainment marketing. Properties have...

Can Lax Catch Corporate America's Eye?

According to this piece from Wall Street Journal Economics reporter Kelly Evans, 1.2 million Americans are playing lacrosse, an increase of 40% since 2000. Don't worry - lacrosse is still up there with popped collared polos and sperry top-siders for Northeast preppy quotient, but there are signs that the sport may be growing its demo and geographic reach beyond private and ivy-league school pr...

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New Categories, New Struggles

The BBC's Maryam Moshiri reports that shirt sponsorship is no longer reserved for large multinational corporations, but also online gambling companies (as with AC Milan) and even charities (Barcelona and Aston Villa). As the sponsorship coffers get more limited across the board, teams throughout the world are relaxing their virtuous restrictions on all kinds of categories and expanding ...

Sports Biz Networking Event TONIGHT in NYC

Russell Scibett and Joshua Duboff are holding the Business of Sports networking event tonight! Come say hi to us, tell us what you think of Spitch, buy us a beer (we're still bootstrapping people)... whatever. It's at Galway Hooker starting at 6:30 and should be a great event. Event Name: The Business of Sports Networking - New York City Date and Time: May 26, 2009 at 6:30PM Location:...

Sponsorwise to SponsorPitch, 10 Years in Sponsorship

As you may have heard, Michael Munson, the founder of Sponsorwise, joined the SponsorPitch team last week. Michael will reside in Silicon Valley and continue in his current role for Fantell while serving as Vice President, Content & Strategy for SponsorPitch. Mike can be reached by email at [email protected] and on Twitter at @mjmunson. Here is his story.. In 1998, After going through...

English Premier Final : Commercial vs. Cause?

How's this for irony - in yesterday's English Premier League final, Barcelona FC faced off against Manchester United. Yup, the same Man-U that is looking for a new £300 million shirt sponsor to replace defunct AIG. In contrast, Barca has steadfastly passed on sponsorship money altogether and has a deal in place to actually donate £1.2 mm/yr to global cause and shirt partner, UNICEF. Fi...