In other news, Pepsi drops the Gatorade Tiger Focus as part of an overarching “product lineup overhaul”. Watch this space for more “marketing reorientations” and “product refreshals” as sponsors watch their biggest asset suffer a meltdown.
“We decided several months ago to discontinue Gatorade Tiger Focus along with some other products to make room for our planned series of innovative products in 2010,” Gatorade spokeswoman Jennifer Schmit said in an emailed statement in response to inquiries.
Watch out for Sunil Gulati (for those not in the know, he is a native of Allahabad, India and heads the US Soccer federation and also the New England Revolution soccer team in MLS) in the coming days. Widely credited with turning around the US soccer set up from a rag tag bunch to a quite credible force, he is a clear example that Indians can be efficient sports administrators when allowed to do their job without the sort of interference that plagues the Indian setup. Matthew Futterman in the WSJ has a short interview with Gulati as he discusses the 2018 World Cup bid. An excerpt:
WSJ: With FIFA and the IOC so taken with how their events can help transform countries, what can the U.S. offer FIFA?
Mr. Gulati: We don’t need to build any stadiums in the U.S. or a single hotel, or a highway to host the World Cup. So you start from a basis of not asking for any public funds. The U.S. has shown it can be a powerful force in the soccer community. We set an attendance record in 1994 that will not be broken this year. We’re the top international ticket buyer so far for this event. Our television rights payment is the highest, and we have more registered players than anyone. Imagine if the game ever really, really took off in our country, the entire economics of the game changes for FIFA.
Amy Lawrence in the Guardian has a hilarious spoof of Woods’ agent Mark Steinberg in a conference call with his major sponsors. I will leave it you to enjoy the piece but could not resist pasting the denouement here:
Mark Steinberg: Alrighty … Thank you, gentlemen. I’ll endeavour to address those points before we reconvene tomorrow. But that about wraps up initial soundings, as I think I’ve heard from all of Tiger’s most understandably concerned stakeholders.
Dubai Holdings: Wait – what about us?
Steinberg: Oh please. This is so not your biggest problem right now
As they say the curse of gillette has had a nasty sting this time around..
The inspiring story of how marketing acumen allied with an inspirational concept can make even the mundane sell like hotcakes. A fascinating account of how a yellow rubber bracelet spawned a 300 million $ franchise that makes a positive diference to many lives.
“Lance Armstrong and his agent, Bill Stapleton, laughed when Nike executive Scott MacEachern approached them five years ago with a proposal to sell 5 million rubber bracelets ahead of the 2004 Tour de France. Great, they joked, we’ll sell 100,000 to friends and family and have 4.9 million left to shoot at each other across the room.
“I thought it was a stupid idea,” Stapleton said. “I’ve learned over the years Nike has a lot of crazy ideas, but most work.”
This idea worked better than anyone could have imagined.”
This from the Sports Business Journal about Roddick’s latest deal with Babolat:
“Andy Roddick signed a four-year, $10 million extension of his Babolat racket deal, making it one of the top deals in the sport. His racket deal is also unique in that it includes sneakers, as well. Babolat makes sneakers with tire company Michelin.
The fact that Roddick now has his sneakers tied up likely means he’ll be back with Lacoste, whose five-year deal with the American star expires in December. Companies like Nike and Adidas don’t sign deals just for apparel, and while Lacoste has sneakers, it does not emphasize them as much. Throw in that Lacoste also just signed fragrance and sunglasses deals with Roddick, and it looks like his days of wearing the alligator could be continuing.”
I can understand where Nike and Adidas are coming from, what I do not understand is why Roddick signed the deal he did unless he was adequately compensated by Babolat for the sneaker endorsement. This does throw up an interesting question though – does this mark an aggressive foray by Babolat into the performance sneakers segment? Interesting times ahead!
A fascinating discussion in the Guardian vis a vis the merits and demerits of the Ashes no longer being free to air. While any such discussion is bound to attract its fair share of Murdoch hating trolls, the discussion that follows the post is definitely one of the more cogent ones I have come across.
The current A list, protected for live coverage, includes the Olympics, World Cup and European Championships football, the FA Cup final, Grand National, the Derby, later rounds of Wimbledon, the Rugby League Challenge Cup and Rugby Union World Cup finals.
Cricket, controversially, managed to get itself off the A list after a 1998 review, on to the B list which protects only highlights, and the England and Wales Cricket Board has since been paid hundreds of millions of pounds for selling the live rights exclusively to Sky.
Davies’s committee has been able to consider the impact of Ashes cricket being off free-to-air TV for the first time, as the drama has unfolded. They may conclude that this summer the series has been largely followed by people already in love with or interested in cricket, rather than drawing in a wide-eyed new audience, as the high drama of 2005 did, shown live on Channel 4.
While it does sound logical that everyone should be able to watch what most definitely is a long standing sporting event, the only problem is that whenever you start placing economic restrictions on what was previously decided by the market you are bound to run into issues.
Also as a few of the commenters have pointed out, test series due to their unpredictable nature and non knock-out formats do not lend themselves to a selective form of free to air. A piece definitely worth your time.
I have read accounts of how people refused to buy SHARP products when they were sponsoring Manchester United. While it might be true for the most tribal of fans, I have a hard time believing that it might be the case for the common fan as well. Rob Bagchi in the Guardian talks about the increasing proliferation of replica shirts amongst fans and whether the sponsors really get anything out of the bargain:
“I know from talking to Norman Whiteside that one of the perks he got on signing professional terms with Manchester United was an invitation to a Sharp outlet where he was allowed to pick a music centre for the bedroom in his digs but football fans, to whom stereos rarely come for free, are more discerning. If anything, because there are far more people who don’t support Manchester United than do, you would think that there are dangers of a boycott implicit in identifying your company with any specific team. That was certainly what motivated CR Smith to back both Rangers and Celtic simultaneously when those two clubs first sold the space on the front of their jerseys. Tribalism, the Scottish glaziers understood, works both ways.”
While having your corporate logo on Real Madrid, Manchester United or any of the big clubs might not be a sure shot measure to move your products off the shelf, it definitely is the cheapest and most effective way to get your brand in front of a massive global audience.
While I realized very late what Bwin actually makes, my perception of them was already positive as they were present on probably the most expensive piece of apparel real estate ( Real Madrid ) and that for me was a powerful indication of the company’s clout.
This would definitely make for a fascinating business case study though.
Bud Light in Purple and Gold colors
From the Wall Street Journal comes the concept of “Fan Cans” or in other words the same beer but in your school colors.
Dozens of colleges are up in arms over a new Anheuser-Busch marketing campaign that features Bud Light beer cans emblazoned with local schools’ team colors.
Blair Moray, a 21-year-old Louisiana State University junior, bought beer Thursday afternoon. Many colleges worry beer cans with school colors will spur underage and binge drinking, but LSU hasn’t tried to block sales.
.Many college administrators contend that the promotions near college campuses will contribute to underage and binge drinking and give the impression that the colleges are endorsing the brew. Though some schools aren’t interfering with the promotion, others are demanding that the sales be stopped. With students returning to campuses and the fall football season approaching, the “Fan Cans” are also renewing the debate over the role of beer makers in encouraging college drinking.
Would this actually make college kids buy more beer? And anyway, aren’t they already drinking too much for their own comfort on gamedays?
The Sports Business Journal has an interesting article which highlights the increasingly popular adoption of blogs by readers as an alternative to main stream sports journalism. What caught my eye was:
“The latest incident to draw journalists’ ire was a blogger’s suggestion — without evidence — that an MLB player might be using steroids. Unfortunately, this kind of misstep feeds stereotypes of bloggers as uninformed “basement dwellers” who don’t want accountability and who care little about accuracy in their quest for an online audience.
Some fear that as bloggers build an online following, responsible reporting about teams and leagues will be replaced by reckless rumor-churning. Dallas Mavericks owner Mark Cuban recently suggested that mainstream outlets officially shun bloggers whose online coverage is rumor-driven.
After surveying more than 200 bloggers, we suggest a different tactic: Credential them instead.”
Great suggestion and one which has actually been acted upon. JRod who writes the immensely popular Cricket With Balls ( My all time favorite cricketing blog ) was accredited by the ECB for a portion of the Ashes test matches this summer and that in an instant gave the blogs’ readers a more intimate channel to discuss the Ashes. Surely everyone is better off when a popular blogger is given access as long as there is no loss of original style and content as a trade off.
More power to bloggers and kudos to those organizations who show a willingness to partner rather than shun.
