AEG has signed Toshiba America Business Solutions and Coca-Cola as founding partners for the Las Vegas arena scheduled to open in 2016.
Both are 10-year deals valued in the seven figures annually. They build upon global agreements both firms have, running eight figures a year, across AEG venues that started at Staples Center and its adjacent entertainment district, L.A. Live.
 |
Toshiba America’s sponsorship includes naming rights to a plaza outside the arena.
Photo by: COURTESY OF AEG
|
The sponsorships mark the newest developments for the $375 million arena project on the Las Vegas strip, privately funded through a partnership between AEG and MGM Resorts International.
As part of its deal, Coke gets the arena’s pouring rights, six years after taking over the same rights at Staples Center.
Last year, Toshiba America replaced Panasonic as a founding partner at Staples Center. In Vegas, it becomes the arena’s exclusive supplier of digital signs and displays and provider of printers and copiers.
The technology firm’s agreement extends to naming rights for Toshiba Plaza, a 75,000-square-foot space outside the arena designed to host food and wine festivals, fashion shows, holiday celebrations and other community events.
In a city that draws 40 million visitors a year, Toshiba America sees a great opportunity to reach a global market, regardless of whether there’s an event going on inside the arena, said Bill Melo, the company’s chief marketing executive and general manager. Both the plaza and the arena will serve as a showcase for Toshiba America to introduce new products in front of a large and diversified audience, he said.
Nick Baker, senior vice president of AEG Global Partnerships, the group selling sponsorships for the Vegas arena, said the city’s role as a big convention town is a key driver for Toshiba America.
“It’s not just consumers,” Baker said. “The Consumer Electronics Show brings 300,000 business decision-makers to town and [Toshiba] can use Toshiba Plaza as a laboratory as well as for hospitality, which is of critical importance to them.”
For Coca-Cola, the deal aligns with its global marketing efforts in tandem with AEG and MGM, and it’s a great way to expand its overall footprint in Vegas, said Sharon Byers, Coca-Cola North America’s senior vice president of sports and entertainment marketing partnerships.
Coke also loves the vision MGM has for developing a green park with 200 trees on the opposite side of Toshiba Plaza, to provide shade cover in the desert for families to sit down and relax apart from “running in and out of venues” on the Vegas Strip, Byers said.
Coca-Cola’s deal covers Toshiba Plaza and the park, where its products will be served exclusively.
AEG has now sold three founding partnerships for the Vegas arena, including Schneider Electric, and it plans to have 10 deals total, including for the facility’s naming rights, Baker said. AEG Global Partnerships is asking $6 million a year for those rights.
