London-based ad agency WPP has "stepped into the increasingly lucrative arena of sports rights, setting up a new agency to represent" the likes of the Cavaliers and EPL club Manchester City, according to a front-page piece by Moore & Cookson of the FINANCIAL TIMES. ESP Properties "will be a 150-person unit that sits within GroupM, WPP’s media-buying arm." It intends to "take on the likes of IMG, Wasserman and Infront in selling sports rights across the world." ESP Properties Global Head of Strategy & Corporate Development Jonathan Lenson said, "This is a meaningful number of people in terms of specialist capability." He added, "We have just started working with the Cleveland Cavaliers to help them sell outside North America in terms of global sponsorships and partners." The new agency "will build on WPP’s investment in Bruin Sports Capital." ESP Head of EMEA Jonathan Hill said, "Obviously everyone is interested in Asia and what we can do there. We will sell wherever there is a market for tier-one rights. That means selling US properties overseas but also helping them to understand their home markets." Moore & Cookson note the initiative is "the latest sign of WPP’s ambitions to become a force in media and entertainment beyond advertising" (FINANCIAL TIMES, 5/19).
TIME FOR CHANGE: For some time, the question of why WPP had no companywide sports and entertainment shop had remain unanswered. GroupM Global CEO John Kristick, who will head the ESP unit, said, "For the past four years, I’ve been trying to find a place to consolidate WPP’s interest here. We’ve never really had anything companywide, other than ad hoc, so we’re happy to start with a nicely scaled business that will serve rights holders as well as brands." Kristick said of the 150 employees in the new unit, 40 will come from IEG. The IEG brand name will disappear from the consulting side of the business, but remain the nameplate on its conference business and Sponsorship.com editorial operation. The new ESP Brands will be managed in North America by CEO Bryce Townsend, who headed the old GroupM ESP. A reorganization earlier this year saw 30 of ESP’s approximate 40-person workforce become "embedded" within the GroupM agencies (Terry Lefton, Editor-At-Large).
