GSP - Crossover Star?

By signing an endorsement deal with sports drink maker, Gatorade earlier this month UFC middleweight champion Georges St.Pierre (GSP) just gives further proof to the argument that Mixed Martial Arts and particularly Ultimate Fighting Championship (UFC) is becoming mainstream.

A few years ago this would have seemed like a big risk for a company like Gatorade to align themselves with a sport that isn't legislated in all U.S. states and Canadian provinces. But now seeing someone like the charismatic GSP aligned with the likes of other Gatorade spokesmen such as Peyton Manning, Kevin Garnett, Sidney Crosby and Derek Jeter doesn't seem so out of place.

NHL Ticket Prices: To Freeze or Not to?

With the economy fully in decline and people being laid off en masse, some NHL clubs are being empathetic to the public's decreasing disposable income and are either lowering their ticket prices for next year or at least committing to freezing prices.

James Mirtle over at FromtheRink.com has done a terrific job of laying out what each club has planned for next year. http://www.fromtherink.com/2009/3/24/809176/keeping-tabs-on-2009-10-ti

Atlanta, Dallas, New Jersey and Tampa thus far have committed to lowering ticket prices. Buffalo, Edmonton , Nashville, Pittsburgh, St.Louis, Toronto, Vancouver and Washington will continue to raise their ticket prices.

The rest of the clubs are standing pat are haven't announced their plans yet.

Interestingly, the four clubs that are lowering ticket prices all rank in the bottom half of the league's attendance.

The NHL's Real MVP

This year's best player hasn't gotten near the accolades that his fellow country mate Alex Ovechkin or his fellow teammate Sidney Crosby have been receiving but for anyone who's been watching closely Evgeni Malkin is the NHL's best player this year.

The man affectionately known as Geno can do it all: score, make brilliant passes, play the physical game, rush the puck coast-to-coast,backcheck, kill penalties. Now you can add cook perogies and flirt with Russian Hockey legend Igor Larionov's stunning daughter, Alyonka to the list.



Malkin is an untapped marketing resource for the NHL and as his command of the English language improves, he'll be better able to display his great sense of humour and joking nature that makes him a hit with his teammates. I mean who doesn't love a good LeBron James impression?!

Get Hammered and Watch a Hockey Game

The Phoenix Coyotes and Smirnoff Vodka are getting together to run an interesting promotion for the Coyotes April 7th game against the St. Louis Blues. The promotion is pretty simple, buy a bottle of Vodka and get free tickets of the game.

The Coyotes aren't making the playoffs again this year so I guess the team's logic in attracting fans to watch a meaningless game is to get them all liquored up. I wonder if Tropicana or Ocean Spray are looking to co-brand on this promo?

NBA Amazing Campaign

The NBA has launched a new ad campaign for the upcoming playoffs, which start next month. Actually it's not so much of a new campaign as it is a spin on a successful one they launched last season. The campaign which will be using the tagline "Where Will Amazing Happen This Year?" features clips of playoff moments from select stars like LeBron, Dwyane Wade, Paul Pierce shot in black & white, and filmed in slow motion.

The commericals are beautiful and just awesome to take in.

Here are a couple samples:

Top 10 Most Innovative Sports Companies

In this month's issue of Fast Company magazine, which is a terrific read, they had a cover story on the top 50 Most Innovative Companies in the World, as a subset of that list they put together the Top-10 Most Innovative Sports Companies.

It's an interesting and very diverse list with a surgeon, a restaurant, an architecture group and a banana hammock purveyor on the list. Check it out for yourself

1. New England Sports Ventures: Like a five-tool talent, the Boston Red Sox are a multiple threat, making money on deals in Nascar, bull riding, golf, and, oh yeah, baseball.
2. Nike: Channeling its notoriously competitive culture into designing products with a smaller environmental footprint, the Beaverton, Oregon, behemoth is winning the race to make toxin-free and made-to-be-recycled shoes.
3. Andrews Sports Medicine: Another banner year for superstar sports surgeon Dr. James Andrews. The Yankees signed former patients C.C. Sabathia and A.J. Burnett for a cool $245 million.
4. ESPN: As penetration of high-def TVs approaches 25% of all U.S. households, ESPN has added three more HD channels. Total number of HD sports events last year: 1,100.
5. Speedo: In winning eight gold medals, Michael Phelps did for the LZR Racer what MJ did for Air Jordans. The LZR racked up 48 of the 52 swimming records set in 2008.
6. HOK Sport: The premier architectural team in sports unveiled the first LEED-certified stadium in the majors, for the Washington Nationals. On deck this spring: the Yankees' and Mets' new stadiums.
7. NHL.com: The challenger brand of sports leagues is becoming quite the creative digital-media company. Free from other leagues' restrictions on video, NHL.com shows exclusive off-the-ice footage as well as every goal scored.
8. AEG: It owns teams and arenas around the world, but its biggest move is the recent partnership with the NBA to build a dozen arenas in China, which will globalize the league like never before.
9. Levy Restaurants: This Chicago restaurant company caters the Super Bowl, the Kentucky Derby, tennis's U.S. Open, and every venue from Wrigley to Lambeau.
10. Ultimate Fighting Championship: Higher ratings than Monday Night Football, sponsorship by Bud Light, and pay-per-view streaming over Yahoo -- UFC continues to take mixed martial arts mainstream.

NBA's Latin Nights

It wasn't until I watched Dwyane Wade's now classic 48-point MVP-calibre performance last week against the Chicago Bulls that I picked up on the NBA's Noche Latina program which embraces the league's Latin American and Hispanic fan bases. Wade and his Miami Heat were sporting "El Heat" jerseys - the team nickname that Miami's Hispanic fan base has for the team.

The Heat are just one of eight teams participating in the program along with LA Lakers (Los Lakers), San Antonio Spurs (Los Spurs), Chicago Bulls (Los Bulls), Phoenix Suns (Los Suns), Dallas Mavericks (Los Mavs), New York Knicks (Nueva York), and the Houston Rockets (Los Rockets). Each of these teams will be donning their Latino-inspired jerseys during select games in the month on March.

Pics of all the "Latin Nights" jerseys, as the NBA calls them can be seen here: http://store.nba.com/family/index.jsp?categoryId=3499105&ab=HP_CSPOT_LATINNIGHTS

Doug Christie is Ready to Teach Future Ballers How to be Whipped

Former NBA player Doug Christie, best known as a Sacramento King and the dude that was so whipped by his wife that he had throw her hand signals during games to acknowledge her, has launched Christie Sports Management/Athlete Training Firm. According to the press release, the firm will offer free scholarships to low income athletes and will also as an agency to sign prospective NBAers.

I would be remiss if I didn't share Doug Christie's bio that appears at the bottom of the press release.

About Doug Christie: Today, Doug a 14-year NBA star/author and wife Jackie, a fashion guru/author, have created several arms of their continuously growing empire. As a team, they operate JackieChristie.com in addition to their film production company, Infinite Love Productions which co-produced "Committed: The ChristieS," their Hit reality show that airs nationwide on BET J, "The Christie's-Uncut," their straight to DVD satirical comedy, as well as authors of "No Ordinary Love," a true story of marriage and basketball. The power couple also owns the record label Jean Rah Fya Records.

The bio fails to mention some interesting points like: he and has wife Jackie renew their vows every year on their anniversary, that Jackie had to be present anytime Doug was interviewed by a female reporter or that Doug is generally not allowed to interact with females.

We all know guys that are whipped, but this takes it to a new level.

Toronto Argos in the Music Promotion Business?

So here's the deal, if you buy two tickets for any Toronto Argonauts CFL game you can purchase tickets in advance of the general public sale to Coldplay's July 30th concert at Rogers Centre (formerly SkyDome).

Seems like a random partnership? Well apparently the Argos already had a game booked for that date at the same venue.

"The Argos had July 30, a Thursday, booked at the Rogers Centre for a date with the Winnipeg Blue Bombers. But that date also happened to fit into Coldplay's plans for their North American tour. The Argos had no trouble giving up the date, provided it worked for everyone involved. So, for the inconvenience of moving the game to the afternoon of Aug. 1, Argos fans get a shot at Coldplay ducats before anyone else."

You would think if the Argos were to be involved with a British band it would have been The Who, you know because they have that Pinball Wizard up in the front office. You don't even have to say it, I know that was lame.

How to sell tickets if you're a non-playoff team

I've already touched on the ticket selling struggles of the Ottawa Senators this season a couple of times. This normally thriving franchise has run into difficulties selling tickets for a team that will miss out on the playoffs for the first time in over a decade.

Just take a look at the prices that the team is charging with a promo code for an upcoming Thursday game against the Edmonton Oilers. It's shocking to see one of the Canadian franchises discount their prices so drastically. To put it in perspective the club seats usually go for about $200.00. Yeesh!

Return of the King

More on Tiger's return. Here are a couple of great commercials, the first from the PGA as a welcome back and the second from EA Sports in response to an apparent glitch that was found in the Tiger Woods video game.

The Tiger Effect

It's a toss-up what's more obvious: knowing that a "celebs" career is seriously on the downside when their agent's greatest pitch is Celebrity Apprentice or that the PGA and their fans have greatly missed Tiger Woods during his 9-month absence recovering from knee surgery.

Nielsen has recently tabulated the TV ratings difference of Tiger Woods played tournaments from the 2007 season vs the events he missed during 2008 season - the results are staggering. Overall, ratings were down on average 46.8%. In tournaments where Tiger played TV audiences were about 4.56 million on average, last year without Tiger the audiences were 2.43 million on average.

Some of the most incredible ratings losses include losing 78.2% on the Saturday of the PGA Championship and 57.6% of viewers on the Sunday finale.

MLB One a Day Vitaims

Ok, even though this relationship was struck up nearly a year ago, the unintentional comedy of a vitamin brand aligning themselves with Major League Baseball (MLB) is too great to pass up.

According to the release, One a Day Vitamins are the official Multivitmain of Major League Baseball." It's a four-year sponsorship arrangement. You can bet this will be taught in Marketing 101 classes as an example about the dangers of aligning yourself with the wrong sponsor, for instance a league that's shrouded in performance enhancing drugs, rampant steroid usage, scandals and cover-ups.

You have to love this priceless quote from an MLB exec: "Major League Baseball is committed to issues of health and wellness and One A Day is an ideal partner to help further our efforts."

I'm surprised that A-Rod didn't initially claim that he was just taking these officially-endorsed multivtimains.