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