Latest Thinking from IEG

Bad Faith: Big Brother Pulls the Rug Out from under Venue Sponsorship
Unsettling news came out of Vancouver last week, as the provincial government of British Columbia killed a deal for telecommunications company Telus to obtain naming rights to BC Place Stadium.

More >

Filed under: Canada, contracts, government/municipal, in-kind, naming rights, negotiating, telecommunications, valuation, venues, backlash

Power Balance Pavilion: I Don’t Hate To Say I Told You So
Thirteen months ago when the NBA Sacramento Kings signed a five-year deal for wristband-maker Power Balance to take over the naming rights to the Arco Arena, I tweeted the following: “Did the Maloof/Kings/Power Balance naming rights deal just set the #sponsorship industry back 100 years? I'm leaning toward yes.”

More >

Filed under: non-traditional categories, pro sports, selling, valuation, venues, naming rights

Plenty of Questions Surround Mercedes’ Superdome Deal
Stadium naming rights sponsorships never fail to create conversation about their value, origins and overall worthiness, and last week’s agreement to put the Mercedes-Benz name on New Orleans’ Superdome is no exception.

More >

Filed under: naming rights, pro sports, valuation, venues, automotive

Why Leagues Should Not Regulate Team Sponsorships

English Premier League club Manchester City recently signed a 10-year deal—which includes title of the team’s stadium and shirt sponsorship—with Etihad, Abu Dhabi’s national airline, for the princely sum of £300 million ($482 million), according to media reports.

More >

Filed under: international, naming rights, pro sports, valuation, backlash

Livestrong Sporting Park: Nice, but not a Big, New Idea

The deal between MLS team owner Sporting K.C. and Livestrong to make the cancer-fighting foundation the naming rights sponsor of the new soccer stadium opening in June is certainly commendable. However, it is neither unprecedented, nor the best example of this type of partnership between a sports property and a nonprofit.

Those that have come before include:

More >

Filed under: cause marketing, naming rights, nonprofit, pro sports, trends, valuation, venues, what is sponsorship, assets

Chase Paid $30 Million And Didn’t Get Title? Smart Move

The news that JPMorgan Chase signed a 10-year agreement with Madison Square Garden for a reported $30 million a year certainly raised many an eyebrow across the sponsorship industry earlier this week.

More >

Filed under: naming rights, pro sports, spending, sports, trends, valuation, venues, financial services

The WTA Argument: Do Title Sponsors Really Scare Off Other Partners?

As my colleague Bill Chipps reveals in IEG Sponsorship Report this week, the WTA Tour has decided not to market the title sponsorship position about to be given up by Sony Ericsson. (Subscribers can read the full story here.)

More >

Filed under: packaging, pro sports, selling, sports, trends, naming rights

Why Don’t More Big-time Sponsors Offer Big-time Perks To Customers?

Among the many sponsorship announcements I receive, one from a couple of weeks ago stood out. It was from the NBA Charlotte Bobcats, touting the fact that subscribers to Time Warner Cable in North Carolina and South Carolina would have an exclusive four-day opportunity to purchase playoff tickets before they went on sale to the general public.

In case you have forgotten (or never knew), the Bobcats play in Time Warner Cable Arena.

More >

Filed under: pro sports, sports, naming rights

How to Make Rest Stops a Viable Sponsorship Opportunity

Plenty of bandwidth has been spent on this site discussing how government entities get it wrong when dealing with sponsorship. And this Philly.com article on a plan to sell naming rights to rest stops on the New Jersey Turnpike will do little to reverse that trend. The stops are already named for New Jersey’s most famous sons and daughters, so corporate naming rights can be expected to inspire particularly heated backlash.

More >

Filed under: government/municipal, naming rights, backlash

Sponsoring a Rivalry

This weekend’s rivalry matchup between my alma mater, Northwestern University, and their in-state rivals, the University of Illinois, reminded my sponsorship-geared brain of an interesting deal signed by another Illinois institution, State Farm Insurance.

Last month, State Farm signed a multi-year deal to present a rivalry series between Arizona State University and the University of Arizona.

Although seemingly unremarkable (sponsors already present football and basketball rivalry games and weeks on television networks), this relationship is deceptive in its breadth and depth.

More >

Filed under: college sports, naming rights, packaging, activation