The California Interscholastic Federation last month voted to “begin offering title sponsorships for all state and regional championships staged by the federation, beginning with tournaments to be held next fall,” according to Jack Carey of USA TODAY. The CIF, the largest state high school association in the country, puts on a total of 450 “state and regional championship events.” The federation’s move “could signal a trend toward more lucrative, across-the-board title sponsorship deals by state high school athletic associations.” That would mark an approach “similar to intercollegiate or pro sports, and away from less lucrative sport-by-sport deals that 18 states currently use.” Twenty-four states, not including California, use at least some form of a title sponsorship. The CIF is working on “securing the sponsorship deal with Time Warner and with Home Team Marketing.” HTM President Pete Fitzpatrick said that the plan is to “try to secure a deal with one firm to sponsor all CIF championships so that company will be branded as the official sponsor of all postseason events.” Fitzpatrick estimates such a deal could be “worth $500,000 a year to the CIF, with probably a three-year contract to start.” Carey notes while some state high school associations “have had title sponsorship deals on a sport-by-sport basis for many years,” only a “half-dozen have one firm sponsoring all events.” New York currently does not have title sponsors for its championships, but is “actively on the lookout, having opened discussions last fall in an effort to offset the cost of championship events” (USA TODAY, 3/15).
