VANOC - now in the billboard sales business

In order the protect the integrity and spirit of the upcoming 2010 Vancouver Olympics, the Vancouver Olympic Committee (VANOC) took the proactive step of buying up all the unclaimed billboard space in the city and surrounding areas mainly as a measure to thwart unfavourable sponsors, competing sponsors or protesters to display outrageous and shocking messages - PETA we're looking your way.

Now VANOC is stuck trying to sell of a portion of the billboards to an beleaguered and unresponsive sponsorship market.

With Olympic sponsors and government partners all cutting budgets because of the economic downturn, Vanoc said Wednesday it still has $12 million worth of inventory.

The figure -- just under a third of the $40 million Vanoc put out years ago to uphold a demand by the International Olympic Committee to protect its sponsors from being targeted by non-rights-holders -- represents a significant risk to the organizing committee, which continues to scramble to find ways to cut costs in its $1.7 billion operating budget. - Source: Vancouver Sun

NY Yankees surpass 1M registered online users

MLB Advanced Media, LP (MLBAM), the interactive media and Internet company of Major League Baseball, announced today that the New York Yankees this month became the first of the 30 Major League Clubs to surpass one million registered users for free newsletters and alerts, including exclusive ticketing opportunities, via its official Web site, www.Yankees.com.

With free registration of a valid email address, Yankees fans can personalize their subscriptions to any of a number of direct communications to stay connected with the Club, including the Yankees Insider newsletter, a weekly source for exclusive inside-the-clubhouse stories, the latest ticketing opportunities, prospect scouting reports, discounts on authentic Yankees merchandise, photo galleries, video highlights and Yankees trivia. Source: PR Newsire

It guess it's easier to put your focus on online fans when the real Yankee fans are priced out of attending games at new Yankee Stadium.

How Can Milk be controversial?

According to an interesting New York Times article, CYTOSPORT makes of athletic-focused drinks have come under fire from Nestle in particular about CYTOSPORT's use of the term 'milk" in their brand Muscle Milk.

Nestle argues that "Muscle Milk" is misleading to consumers because the product doesn't include any actual Milk. They want CYTOSPORT's trademark on Muscle Milk. to be revoked.

Nestle's opinion:

“Nestlé USA strongly believes in the nutritional benefits of milk,” the company stated. “Consumers looking at Muscle Milk, marketed as a ‘Nutritional Shake,’ are likely to be misled into believing they are purchasing a flavored or supplemented milk product, when, in fact, they are purchasing a water-based product that contains no milk.”

CYTOSPORT's counter:

CytoSport countered that it had never “marketed Muscle Milk products as flavored dairy milk,” adding that, rather, it is modeled after another milk entirely. “CytoSport’s marketing and advertising materials have made it clear — over the more than 10 years that Muscle Milk has been sold — that Muscle Milk products are high-protein nutrition products designed after one of nature’s most balanced foods: human mother’s milk.”

CYTOSPORT has a established a small but significant group of athletic endorsers that include NFL Star RB Adrian Peterson, Shaquille O'Neal and Brandon Roy from the NBA and Ryan Braun from the Milwaukee Brewers of MLB.

Who ever knew that Nestle was the official world guardian's of milk's marketing and branding? If Nestle can put up this type of fight, what if the Red Hot Chili Peppers make a stand about this infringing on one of their albums or what if the Dave Chappelle Cambodian Breast Milk group raised a concern?

Affliction Folds and Then Decides to Fold T-Shirts

What a wild course of events over the last week it has beenn for MMA promotion Affliction. They went from hyping their third PPV with a headline match of Fedor Emelianenko vs. Josh Barnett, only to see Josh Barnett test positive for steroids which led to a wild and unsuccessful scramble to find a suitable opponent for arguably the MMA world's best pound-for-pound fighter, which ultimately led to the final nail in the coffin of Affliction as a competitor to UFC in the fight promotion game.

To its credit Affliction put on some real decent PPV cards but unfortunately for the company, without a TV deal in place that allows for a natural connection with fans between PPVs as UFC has with Spike TV it was impossible for the upstart promoter to make serious in-roads as a viable competitor to UFC. They certainly tried their damnedest by throwing lots of money to entice fighters to join the organization e.g. Andrei Arlovski was paid upwards of $1.5M for his bout against Fedor. Ultimately the company was hemorrhaging money and likely would have added to their losses had the August 1st PPV gone on as planned.

No need to shed tears for Affliction though, they have gone back to focus on what initially brought them into the MMA market- making t-shirts. Specifically Affliction signed a sponsorship deal with UFC which will see the clothing company once again be able to sponsor UFC fighters.

The biggest hockey game of all-time?

The 2010 I.I.H.F. World Championship will be played in Germany and one of the games is surely going to draw huge interest simply because of the sheer enormity of the amount of people that could witness the game live and in-person. According to reports the May 2010 hockey game between Germany and the US will be played at Veltins Arena to a crowd just short of 76,000 people. Wow!

Veltisns Arena was built in 2001 chiefly to be new home for German Bundesliga soccer club Schalke 04 and World Cup action from 2004. The Veltins Arena is a pretty cool stadium its got a retractable roof and a slide out grass pitch.

If the game does sellout it will be the largest attended hockey game in history. Michigan State played host to the University of Michigan for an outdoor game in 2001 to a record crowd of 74,554.

Mannywood Bobblemania

Despite his 50-game suspension for a PED violation early this season, Dodgers' slugger extraordinaire Manny Ramirez popularity with fans in Los Angeles continues to grow. Case in point the Dodgers held a Manny Ramirez Bobblehead night on July 22nd which resulted in a sell-out crowd. Because of the success of that promo night the Dodgers wasted no time in adding another Manny Bobblehead night for a tilt in September.

Despite his strong fan base not everyone wants to be associated with the Mannywood phenomenon. Kaiser Permanente, a health insurance company was originally slated to sponsor the Manny bobblehead giveaway promo but opted out when Ramirez had his positive PED test.

As a health-care organization, we thought it was necessary to pull out of our sponsorship of the promotion when he was suspended for violating baseball's drug policy," Kaiser Permanente spokesman Jim Anderson said. - Source: LA Times

San Manuel Indian Bingo and Casino ended up stepping in to become the title sponsor for the promo event. It will be interesting to see who steps to sponsor September's giveaway.

NFL Team Lotteries

Dre & Snoop, Weddings & Open Bar, Jennifer Love Hewitt, and the NFL & Gambling. The list of the greatest pairs wouldn't be complete without the NFL being there. Gambling has never gone greater with another sport than it does with football. Back in May the NFL decided to legalize a form of gambling by allowing individual teams to seek out scratch lottery deals with their state lotteries.

Already the New England Patriots and the Seattle Seahawks have set up deals with the Massachusetts and Washington State Lottery Corporations. The deals will allow the state lotteries to sell NFL-themed scratch games and will most importantly give NFL clubs another revenue streams. Other sports leagues have already been doing this with great success.

The Massachusetts State Lottery has sold $5, $10, and $20 Red Sox scratch-off tickets that generated a total of $632 million in three years. Massachusetts cities and towns got $83 million, the lottery said, and in a typical game about 2.1 percent -- about $13.2 million in this case -- goes to operating expenses, which would include the fee paid to a third party that obtained the rights from the Red Sox. - Source: ESPN - AP

GSP Gatorade Commercial

Days before his UFC 100 beat down of No.1 Contender Thiago Alves, Gatorade released this commercial for Georges St-Pierre.



GSP is a central figure in Gatorade's Canadian What's G campaign ad it makes a lot of sense. You could make a strong argument that St-Pierre is the most popular Canadian athlete, with maybe Sidney Crosby being his only real opposition.

MLB All-star ratings

Last week's MLB All-star game in St.Louis, which saw the American League extend its unbeaten streak to 13 years over the National League drew impressive viewership numbers. According to MLB, the game had a total audience of 33.6 million viewers, the largest total in 10 years and drew an average of 14.6 million viewers, the highest in 7 years.

MLB Maternity Wear

From the files of what will they think of next comes the launch of a baseball fan gear for those women that want to cheer on their teams while preggers. www.maternityjersey.com sells MLB maternity shirts for fans from the Red Sox, Yankees, Cardinals and Cubs.

In case the company hasn't already thought of it, maybe they could also sell these shirts to men who carry large 'Molson Muscles". New York and Chicago are amongst the Top-25 fattest cities in the U.S. so you've already got a built-in market.

GQ Golf Style

When it comes to golf fashion, Tiger Woods is a torchbearer for driving golf apparel sales. Tiger wearing his iconic red shirt on Sundays is as synonymous as Eddy Curry leading the NY Knicks in body fat%. Even though Tiger sporting red on Sunday is a given, did you know that there's a strategy and thought process put into planning the wardrobes of specific players for the full duration of tournament?

The New York Times ran an interesting article this week that shed some light on this subject, like for instance the attire Tiger will wear at Turnberry this week (pictured above) was selected over a year ago and the discussions about what he should wear began almost a year and a half ago.

This well-thought out coordination is done in effort to ensure stores are stocked with the attires of all the fans' favourite golf pros. So what type of impact does a player's performance have on an individual clothing item?

“A single shirt worn by one of our athletes on a Sunday afternoon winning a tournament can raise sales 10 percent,” said Tiss Dahan, the senior director of global apparel at Adidas Golf. “We see the influx online, and our customer service phone line will get the calls from retailers who are reacting to requests from consumers. You get somebody playing well in clothes that look good, it really moves the needle for apparel.” - Source: NYTimes

Drew Rosenhaus & the Florida Panthers

What Scott Boras wasn't available?

The Florida Panthers are using NFL super agent Drew Rosenhaus as part of a new ticket campaign. Rosenhaus is best known as the co-conspirator in all of Terrell Owens' contract sagas, holdouts, trade demands and lawn-orchestrated press conferences.

The Panthers' campaign has casted Rosenhaus in the role of agent for Panthers' fans as he 'negotiates' on their behalf for better season ticket perks and prices.

Advertising Age has more about the campaign including reaction from ad industry experts.

Lesnar not big on Drinkability

Newly minted UFC undisputed Heavyweight Champion and former WWE wrestler Brock Lesnar ushered in his win at UFC 100 with a 'memorable' post-fight interview. Along with bashing his opponent Frank Mir, giving the middle finger to the crowd and acknowledging that he planned on having sex with his wife, he also bashed one of UFC's main sponsors.

Bud Light who had a prominent logo at the centre of the octagon were on the receiving end of a major dis by Lesnar. Lesnar stated he was going to celebrate his win with a Coors Light (Bud Light's biggest competitor) because according to him "Bud Light won't pay me nothing."

At the press conference, Lesnar backpedalled on his comments and even drank a Bud Light as mea culpa. Obviously Dana White got to Lesnar and explained to him that sponsors, such as the one he trashed are the ones that contribute to paying his contract, and his purse fees...so in essence they are paying.

The gluttony of sports

Your team is coming off a putrid season where they set the NFL's all-time futility mark with an 0-16 record, how do you win fans back? By allowing them to eat themselves stupid of course!

The Detroit Lions are introducing 5,500 seats next season that will allow fans to have all-you-can-eat privileges with the price of their ducat. It's these types of promotions that do not do much in quelling the stereotype of the "overindulgent' American.

The LA Dodgers have been employing the strategy for a few seasons now, offering an "All-You-Can-Eat-Pavilion" in the right field bleachers. For this season the Dodgers lowered the cost of sitting out in right field from $35 to $25

Tampa Bay Lightning Late Night Calls

In an effort to drum up interest for an upcoming Young Guns camp, the Tampa Bay Lightning had Steven Stamkos record a message that would got out to fans via an automated call. The problem was the calls were made as late as 11pm.

Obviously the Tampa Bay Lightning don't watch Curb Your Enthusiasm otherwise they would have known about proper phone etiquette in not calling people after 10 pm.