| | The Daily Insider
Afternoon News & Headlines
Tuesday, July 8, 2003
4:00pm ET | |
| |
| • | Casual Male Retail Group Today Signs Endorsement Deal With George Foreman |
| • | Mariners To Host “Salute to Japanese Baseball Night” Tonight Against Orioles |
| • | Citizens Against Government Waste Today Criticizes USPS Sports Sponsorships |
| • | Tonight’s Southern League All-Star Game A Preview Of Jacksonville Facilities |
| • | FIFA Today Appoints iSe To Conduct ’06 World Cup Commercial Hospitality |
| • | Buzzer Beaters/Tonight’s Events/Channel Surfing/In Other News/The Daily Stat |
GEORGE FOREMAN TO PUT NAME ON LINE OF BIG & TALLAPPAREL
MA-based Casual Male RetailGroup today announced that it has signed George Foreman to an exclusiveendorsement and licensing contract for men’s apparel, including big and tallapparel. Beginning in spring ’04, thecompany will introduce a Foreman signature line of apparel and accessories thatwill initially be exclusive to the company’s Casual Male Big & Tall stores,catalog and Web site. As of presstime,shares of Casual Male Retail Group were up $0.26, or 4.4%, to $6.16 (THEDAILY).
MARINERS TO PAY TRIBUTE TO JAPANESE BASEBALL TONIGHT
TheMariners, in conjunction with MasterCard, tonight will host “Salute to JapaneseBaseball Night” during the team’s 7:05pm PT game against the Orioles. Highlights of the evening include a taikodrum performance, video tributes to Japanese baseball and MLB’s ties to Japan,the introduction of both starting lineups in English and Japanese and abaseball cap giveaway to the first 20,000 fans. The caps feature the Japanese word for baseball – yakyu. An on-field ceremony prior to the game withJapanese greats Yutaka Fukumoto and Choji Murata will culminatewith Japanese Ambassador to the U.S. Ryozo Kato throwing out theceremonial first pitch (Mariners).
U.S. POSTAL SERVICE SPORTS SPONSORSHIP PROGRAMSCRITICIZED
Afterobtaining a draft copy of a report by the U.S. Postal Service (USPS) Office ofInspector General, DC-based Citizens Against Government Waste today criticizedthe USPS sports sponsorship programs. The report, which reviewed expenditures of $48M for 11 programs activefrom ’96-’02, found that the USPS was unable to verify revenue claimed as aresult of the sponsorships, lacked goals and objectives for ten of 11 reviewedand did not track or properly use event tickets and invitations in ’01. The report also notes that the USPS had onlyfive sponsorships remaining as of October ’02 (Citizens Against GovernmentWaste). Among the sponsorshipscited in the report:
| Sports Sponsorship Program | Cost to USPS (length varies) |
| U.S. Cycling | $40M |
| Yankees | $3.7M |
| NFL Giants | $1.9M |
| Bears | $632,500 |
| Devil Rays | $630,500 |
JACKSONVILLE HOSTS SOUTHERN LEAGUE ALL-STAR GAME TONIGHT
TheDouble-A Southern League Jacksonville Suns will host the Southern LeagueAll-Star Game tonight at 7:05pm ET at the 11,000-seat Baseball Grounds ofJacksonville, and the FLORIDA TIMES-UNION notes that city officials “view thegame as a showcase before Jacksonville hosts the Super Bowl in February2005.” Mayor John Peyton: “Theall-star game gives our city a great opportunity to show off … the improvementswe are making for the entire sports complex area. This gives us many opportunities to learn and improve, and I knowwe will be ready for prime time when the Super Bowl comes to Jacksonville” (FLORIDATIMES-UNION, 7/8).
BUZZER BEATERS
FIFAtoday announced that is has appointed marketing agency Int’l Sports &Entertainment AG (iSe) to conduct the sale and management of the FIFACommercial Hospitality Program for each of the 12 venues that will be utilizedduring the ’06 World Cup in Germany. iSewas founded earlier this year as a joint venture between Dentsu and PublicisGroupe (FIFA).
NBCtoday reported that the net’s coverage of the NASCAR Winston Cup Series Pepsi400 from Daytona Int’l Speedway on Saturday night earned a 6.0/13 final Nielsenrating, a 15% increase over last year’s 5.2/12 on Fox. The rating marks the fifth time in threeyears a NASCAR race on NBC earned at least a 6.0 national rating (NBC).
LeTour.com,the official Web site of the Tour de France, reports that a French actors’union staged a protest during Stage Three this morning, noting the route was“blocked by the actors who are using the Tour to voice their concerns aboutpoor support from the French government.” The Web site also reports that Lance Armstrong was “having a goodlaugh about the attempt of the protest to stop the Tour” (LETOUR.com, 7/8).
ThePHOENIX BUSINESS JOURNAL reports that Phoenix Int’l Raceway (PIR) “has changed thename of its Advertising & Promotions division to Consumer Marketing.” Scott Simpson, who has been with PIRsince ’96, will lead the newly named unit, which will oversee the consumermarketing, sponsorship promotions and PR efforts (BIZJOURNALS.com,7/8).
American Capital Strategies today announced that it has invested$23M in Riddell Sports Group. Theinvestment, which will take the form of senior subordinated debt and equity,supports Fenway Partners’ recent acquisition of Riddell (American CapitalStrategies).
TONIGHT’S EVENTS
WI’sfive PGA Tour members – J.P Hayes, Jerry Kelly, Skip Kendall,Steve Stricker and Mark Wilson – will participate in the BairdCelebrity Shoot-Out, which begins at 3:00pm CT. Among the celebrities expected to attend are Brewers President UlicePayne, Olympian Bonnie Blair, MISL Wave coach Keith Tozer,Univ. of WI-Milwaukee basketball coach Bruce Pearl and actor DondreWhitfield (MILWAUKEE JOURNAL-SENTINEL, 7/8).
ReliantStadium will host an int’l soccer doubleheader beginning at 7:00pm CT withMexican club team Santos Laguna playing the MLS Wizards. Guatemala-El Salvador will follow atapproximately 9:15pm CT (THE DAILY). A crowd between “13,000 and 18,000 people are expected for the games” (HOUSTONCHRONICLE, 7/8).
CHANNELSURFING
WinstonCup driver Dale Earnhardt Jr., Dodgers C Paul Lo Duca and women’sboxer Mia St. John will be on ESPN’s “Rome is Burning” at 7:00pm ET.
ESPNwill air the season premiere of “Beg, Borrow & Deal 2” at 8:00pm ET.
ESPNwill air the 2003 World Series of Poker at 9:00pm ET.
ESPN2will air two new episodes of “Streetball: The AND 1 Mix Tape Tour” at7:00pm and 7:30pm ET.
ESPNClassic’s “SportsCentury” will profile FrankRobinson at 8:00pm ET.
ESPN’s“Outside The Lines Nightly” willexamine how Mark Chmura and Kirby Puckett, among other athletes,dealt with perception and reality as it pertained to their image and the legalprocess at midnight ET. The programwill also examine MLB’s new All-Star voting process.
Saints RB DeuceMcAllister, Brewers LF Geoff Jenkins, SI columnist Rick Reilly and comedian Mike Donovan are scheduled toappear on FSN’s “BDSSP.”
A&E’s“Biography” will profile the series “TheMunsters” at 8:00pm ET.
E!’s“True Hollywood Story” will profile Eminemat 8:00pm ET.
The Travel Channel will air“Most Dangerous Place to Live in the U.S.” at 7:00pm ET.
HEADLINERS
Hereare tonight’s headline guests on the following talk shows:
| “Late Show” | Juliette Binoche (r) |
| “The Tonight Show” | James Woods |
| “The Late Late Show” | Carl Reiner (r) |
| “Late Night” | Jake Johannsen |
| “Jimmy Kimmel Live” | Chris Spencer |
TODAY’S ARTICLES OF INTEREST
ESPN.com’sDarren Rovell wrote of John Hancock CEO David D’Alessandro and theroughly $10M per year his company spends to sponsor the IOC and USOC, “There’s a catchwith the cash. In exchange for thefinancial support, D’Alessandro will serve as their toughestcritic, watching their every move and publicly embarrassing them if hefeels their officials need a loud wakeup call” (ESPN.com).
SeeThe Daily Insider’s Articles ofInterest section for more sports business-related links.
TODAY’S TEASER…
Sports& Entertainment: Name the two Academy Award winners that appeared in the ’76 flick“The Bad News Bears,” and the films for which they were awarded an Oscar.
IN OTHER NEWS……
TheWALL STREET JOURNAL reports that NC-based apparel maker VF “is trying on somefancier clothes with its acquisition of Nautica Enterprises,” at a cost of$585.6M, “plus a hefty $104[M] payment to Nautica’s chief designer, DavidChu.” VF has been “seeking to growby buying rather than licensing new brands, eliminating costly royaltypayments. In December, it was narrowlydefeated in its bid to acquire the Calvin Klein business by Phillips-Van HeusenCorp., a much smaller company” (WALLSTREET JOURNAL, 7/8).
THE DAILY STAT: TOP SPORTS SITES FOR THE WEEK ENDING JUNE 22
Thefollowing are the top five sports Web sites ranked according to home uniqueaudience for the week ending June 22, according to Nielsen//NetRatings. Unique Audience = the number of persons inthousands accessing the site or network, with each counted only once. Average time spent = the average amount oftime a visitor has spent at that property for the week. This data isbased on 50,000 home users with Internet access (Nielsen//NetRatings).
| RK | BRAND OR CHANNEL | UNIQUE AUD. | AVG. TIME SPENT (HH:MM:SS) |
| 1) | ESPN | 3,220 | 0:25:55 |
| 2) | eBay Sports | 1,927 | 0:10:02 |
| 3) | Yahoo! Sports | 1,828 | 0:21:32 |
| 4) | MLB.com | 1,443 | 0:10:55 |
| 5) | AOL Sports | 1,389 | 0:12:50 |
…TODAY’S ANSWER
Walter Matthau, who played Coach Morris Buttermaker, wonthe Best Supporting Actor award in ‘66 for his role in “The FortuneCookie.” Tatum O’Neal, whoplayed Amanda Whurlitzer, became the youngest person to ever win an AcademyAward when she took home the Best Supporting Actress award in ‘73 for her rolein “Paper Moon.”
If you have any questions,comments or suggestions, please let us know at:
dailyinsider@sportsbusinessdaily.com
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