NFL quarterback turned TV analyst
Steve Young is next in line for a “Journey to Comfort” spot for
Unilever’s
Dove Men + Care personal products line, we’re told by agent and agency sources. Young joins a litany of athletes who have helped the Dove Men + Care line gain share in the mushrooming market for male personal care products.
Since its launch in late 2009, the brand has also used athlete endorsers including Doug Flutie, Dwyane Wade, Drew Brees, Magic Johnson, Steve Nash and John Elway.
> JET-SET HOSPITALITY: Holding the country’s biggest sporting event in America’s biggest market will make demand for Super Bowl hospitality (and everything else) reach record levels long before Super Bowl XLVIII is played in East Rutherford, N.J., on Feb. 2. Super Bowl corporate hospitality is always at a premium, but such is the demand that the New York Jets are taking the unusual step of selling their own corporate hospitality during Super Bowl week, in concert with Lonny Sweet’s Connect Group, which is leasing four midtown restaurants taking more than 15,000 square feet at 33rd Street and Eighth Avenue.
It’s a bid with experiential sports marketing agency Engine Shop to attract dollars from what will certainly be the biggest market ever for Super Bowl hospitality by fashioning what he is calling “The 50-Yard Lounge.”
The Jets have reserved the entirety of Lugo Caffé, just across from Madison Square Garden, from Tuesday through game day of Super Bowl week. It will become Jets House, which the team will program and sell to corporate sponsors, media partners, suite holders and season-ticket holders.
Marc Riccio, Jets senior vice president of business development, said the team hopes to sell 1,500 or more tickets a day, with pricing to be determined. Jets House will be open from 10 a.m. until the wee, small hours.
Like the successful NFL House hospitality suite, which the league produces with SportsMark, Jets House will have player and chef appearances and concerts, and some team sponsors are expected to host private parties on-site.
“There’s a business opportunity for us and unprecedented demand from our business partners,” Riccio said. “We want to give them something that fits authentically with their team relationship.”
Jets House will be packaged with team sponsorships, and on-site branding opportunities will be available.
> RAVEN-OUS SPENDING: We’re forever fascinated by the correlation between winning and sales of marketing assets, whenever it can be quantified.
Specific to the NFL champion Baltimore Ravens, Kevin Rochlitz, vice president of corporate sales and business development, reports that in an offseason without any large deals up for renewals, sponsorship revenue increased about 10 percent. New sponsors include Procter & Gamble’s Cover Girl brand; the Royal Farms chain of convenience stores; Ashley Furniture; T. Rowe Price; Thompson Creek, the new official window company; and McCormick Spices, which is replacing Heinz as the team’s Red Zone sponsor, with radio and in-stadium assets.
Renewals included Southwest Airlines and the Maryland Lottery, which will be marketing a $2 lottery ticket for the first time.
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Turano
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> COMINGS & GOINGS: His noncompete clause having expired,
Genesco Sports Enterprises co-founder
Charlie Turano has resurfaced as an executive vice president at
Randy Bernstein’s
Premier Partnerships agencyin Santa Monica, Calif. “Charlie’s a guy with strong contacts at properties and brands and a great business development person for Premier,” said Bernstein, adding that he’s known Turano for more than 25 years, ever since they both worked for MISL teams. With the new position, Turano, who sold his half of Genesco in 2005, will relocate to California.
Terry Lefton can be reached at tlefton@sportsbusinessjournal.com.
