Marketplace Round-Up

The MINNEAPOLIS/ST. PAUL BUSINESS JOURNAL’s John Vomhof Jr. reports the T’Wolves are launching “one of the most comprehensive sponsorship Web sites in all of professional sports.” The site “will allow corporate partners to browse the team’s sponsorship inventory and view real-time updates on the fulfillment of their contracts,” including “which broadcast advertisements, arena signs and in-game promotions they have received and which they still have remaining.” The effort is the “first of its kind in the NBA, and the league is encouraging other teams to follow suit” (MINNEAPOLIS/ST. PAUL BUSINESS JOURNAL, 3/30 issue).

DICK’S: Dick’s Sporting Goods CEO Ed Stack appeared on CNBC’s “Fast Money” last night to discuss his company’s rising stock price and its philosophy to shun fashion trends and concentrate on the serious sports fan. Stack: “We took a different approach to growth as opposed to a number of people prior to us who kind of jumped all over the country and didn’t really realize the geographical and seasonal differences in this business. We’ve just kind of continued to grow the business in concentric circles from upstate New York and Southwestern Pennsylvania and have just continued to grow the business about 15% a year” (CNBC, 4/2).

PUMA: Puma will enter the Volvo Ocean Race in ’08-09 with its own boat. The company will also be the official supplier and the official licensee of replica merchandise for the event (Puma). In Baltimore, Candus Thomson wrote the entry of Puma, which has its int’l HQs in Germany, and int’l PR based in Boston, “casts some doubt on whether Baltimore and Annapolis will serve as a U.S. port-of-call for the fourth time.” Race organizers “have long indicated a preference for ports with ties to syndicates,” and Boston and Newport, Rhode Island, “have been mentioned as possible U.S. stopovers” in the past (Baltimore SUN, 3/31).