Fight over Sponsorship Looming for UFC?

The Vancouver Sun yesterday confirmed our previous story on a reported new UFC policy that charges companies a minimum of $100k to sponsor fighters. Another interesting tidbit from the piece, "managers were reportedly warned that if their fighters appeared in EA Sports' upcoming MMA video game, they would never fight in the UFC again. The UFC and game developer THQ recently released a compet...

Deal Flow 7-28-2009

Soccer United Marketing (SUM) today announced a multi-year sponsorship with AT&T that make AT&T the official communications partner of the U.S. men’s and women’s national teams and MLS. Roush Fenway confirmed that Crown Royal will be the lead sponsor for Matt Kenseth's #17 car at Roush-Fenway Racing, taking over for Dewalt's 12 year relationships with the NASCAR team. Johnsonville Sa...

Can the UFC Gain Sponsors That Have a Broader Appeal?

Sports Business Journal has an article up talking about the issue of the UFC continually fighting for gains in the advertising market. Most notably, there are a few choice quotes (via MMAPayout) from marketing firms that still point at the problem that Dana White and the UFC have in attracting different sponsors:"I don’t think anyone wants to be there when something bad happens, and something b...

Travel Michigan Gets Technical

Time was when travel sponsorships involved a simple booth and a sweepstakes. Last weekend, Michigan married GPS technology with one of the world's most prestigious fresh water sailing events in an effort to drive visitors to michigan.org. Travel Michigan spent $110,000 to title the Bayview Mackinac Race in its 85th year and then installed GPS devices on more than 200 participating boats. Fan...

Sponsors Silent on Vick Reinstatement

Giving Sponsorship Back to the Fans

Social media has reshaped the game. blah blah blah. You've heard it a million times from the promotions and social media teams within your organization, BUT what does it mean for sponsorship professionals - that is the real question we should be concerned with here, right? Well, the answer may just lie in a couple very recent consumer and sponsorship trends. When you combine them in the rig...

What are you reading when you read the news?

One simple jolt to your corporate sponsorship selling efforts is to read the news more creatively than you used to. Look for opportunities. That's just one suggestion I offered participants of my workshop a couple weeks ago at the Texas Festival & Event Association conference (and to readers of my new guidebook). Here are a couple examples of what I mean. I recently came across this news i...

Cause Marketing Lessons from the Tour de France

The Tour de France, the world’s most famous bike race wrapped up last weekend–sadly, without our hero Lance in yellow. It’s been a tough struggle for the Tour the past couple of years. First, it didn’t have a big name rider like Lance involved anymore. But an even bigger problem has been the drug scandals that have knocked out some of cycling’s best riders and left a blemish on the sport. And ...

Crown 'em: Crown Royal to Sponsor Matt Kenseth’s #17

According to Jayski.com and the NASCAR examiner, Crown Royal will be introduced this week as the lead sponsor for Matt Kenseth's #17 at Roush-Fenway Racing, taking over for Dewalt. Dewalt had been Kenseth's only primary sponsor during a successful 12 year relationship, but last week announced their intention to move away from the NASCAR platform. "We have seen great success for both their c...

Deal Flow 7-27-2009

Orange has agreed to be a lead sponsor of the competitions of the Confederation of African Football (CAF) over the next 8 years. In particular, CAF’s flagship competition will now be known as Orange Africa Cup of Nations. Sony Computer Entertainment America has announced that it will be sponsoring the Alli Dew Tour for the 5th year in a row. Sony will offer access to the latest PS3 and PSP gam...