180-Year Old Boat Race Scores New Title Sponsor

The Boat Race, an annual rowing competition between Oxford and Cambridge that draws over 300,000 spectators to the River Thames, has scored a new title sponsor. BNY Mellon has announced it will sponsor The Boat Race, an event first held in 1829 through a five year agreement starting in May. The 2013 Race formally titled The BNY Mellon Boat Race. At the same time, Newton, a BNY Mellon company ...

Kodak Theatre Landlord Says Naming Rights Contract Still Enforceable

CIM/H&H Media LP, which sold the naming rights to Kodak Theatre, has filed an objection in U.S. Bankruptcy Court to the company's efforts to drop its sponsorship of Kodak Theatre less than three weeks before the Oscars are to be held at the venue. The naming rights deal, signed in 2000, is for 20 years at a cost of $72 million, with an estimated $4 million in sponsorship fees due this year...

On-Field Ads Coming To H.S. Football

The National Federation of High School Associations, a governing body for high school athletics has released new rules that may allow state organizations and their member schools to more broadly commercialize prep football. The Football Rules Committee has passed a new rule that will for the first time allow state associations and their member schools to place corporate advertising and/or comme...

NASCAR Looks For New Sponsors In Silicon Valley

H/t: Rob Katz

Win A FREE Professional Membership For The Rest Of 2012

Many of you probably recall our fiercely competitive monthly SPoint contests from last year. Well, we're bringing them back. SPoints™ are SponsorPitch's take on the loyal customer punch card - except instead of free sandwiches you get additional discounts and benefits on SponsorPitch. Whichever SponsorPitch member receives the most SPoints™ during the month of February will be upgraded to profe...

Memphis May Help Deliver FedEx To Big East Partner Roster

Memphis will join the Big East for all athletics in the 2013-2014 year - a big move for both the university and the conference, each of which have been affected by the recent rush to realignment in college athletics. According to the Memphis Commercial-Appeal, which obtained a copy of the contract, the deal could also help deliver a new major sponsor for the Big East. In clause 13 of the eigh...

MasterCard Renews UEFA Sponsorship

UEFA has renewed its multi-million dollar sponsorship with MasterCard, a partnership that dates back to 1994. The payment solutions provider will continue as an official partner of the UEFA Champions League for the new 2012–15 cycle, and for the UEFA Super Cup in 2012, 2013 and 2014. The three-year deal will run until the end of the 2014/15 season and will see MasterCard continue to leverage t...

Confessions (and Learnings) of a First-Time Sponsorship Seeker

Let me introduce myself...my name is Kym Oberauer and I am, among other things, a drag racer. I love drag racing. Some say I’m addicted to the sport. It’s more a lifestyle choice than a hobby. The downside of drag racing is the expense. Like most sports that require an internal combustion engine, costs are measured in thousands of dollars rather than hundreds. The last few years have been the...

Yield Management Is Biggest Sponsorship Challenge, MSG's O'Neil Says

MSG President Scott O'Neil last week took some time to explain the organization's less is more philosophy when it comes to sponsorship. "Can you go out and do a deal in the auto category or is it better for this organization to do six deals or three deals or five deals?" O'Neil asked. "That's what we wrestle with every day and that becomes kind of a little bit of mixture of art and science." ...

Coca-Cola Launches Olympics Ad Campaign

A few months back, Coca-Cola provided a behind-the-scenes look at the progress the soft-drink company was making on its "Move to the Beat" Olympic campaign. Debuting today, the IOC sponsor is releasing the finished product: "We approached our London 2012 campaign in a bold new way in order to create stories that teens would love and that they would want to share," said Jonathan Mildenhal...