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Marketing and Sponsorship

EPL close to picking activation agency for U.S., China, India

An agency of record assignment and a three-year contract to plan and execute global marketing activation for the English Premier League will be decided soon, as an agency beauty contest for the world’s top soccer league is in the final round.

The EPL debuts a new logo (bottom) when the season begins next month.
Having invested in a rebrand that launches officially with the 2016-17 season in August, the EPL is looking to grow the value of its brand overseas, where marketing support trails viewership numbers. Agencies were asked to submit strategic and creative ideas for three key territories: China, India, and the United States, including activations such as trophy tours, large viewing parties and fan festivals.

Sources tell us that Momentum, Octagon, WME/IMG, Wasserman, Leo Burnett and the marketing agency Iris are among the finalists. A decision is expected later this month.

> BEER BATTLE: Anheuser-Busch and the Los Angeles Rams are at loggerheads over lager rights.

Sources within the NFL and A-B tell us that the Rams have rejected the brewer’s offer of $8.8 million over two years for marketing rights to a team that plays in a stadium (the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum) where MillerCoors has pouring rights and a prominent sign.

While acknowledging that A-B’s exclusive negotiating window had passed without a deal, Rams COO Kevin Demoff said, “We’re closer to [having a beer deal] with A-B than not having one.”

Sources with knowledge of the negotiations described the current situation with A-B as being at “an impasse.” One said the Rams were asking for 150 percent more than what A-B was paying in St. Louis, where the brewer was a longtime corporate patron of its hometown NFL squad.

Demoff would not comment specifically on the negotiations but said he hoped to have a handful of sponsorships completed by the time training camp opens July 30 and “the majority of our deals done by the time the regular season starts.”

The Rams’ first game in the coliseum is an Aug. 13 preseason tilt against Dallas. They open the regular season on Monday, Sept. 12.

Separately, sources said a sponsorship deal with Cedars-Sinai Medical Center is all but complete. But any potential Rams sponsorship pact is somewhere between unwieldy and extraordinarily complex. Aside from selling rights for a team with one of the worst records in the NFL over the past decade, the Rams are still understaffed (some national brands have been dealing through Legends, which is handling some sales), and the team also will be playing in a stadium that could charitably be described as antique. With only limited electronic signage to sell within the coliseum, along with IP rights and digital and local electronic media, clearly the best asset the Rams have to sell would be “bridge” deals to their planned new 80,000-seat stadium in Inglewood that’s slated to open in 2019. However, the NFL won’t let those deals be sold before next year, or until it knows if either the Chargers or the Raiders will be co-tenants in the new facility. Neither decision is likely soon.

“Our focus is not on the revenue end; it’s on the relationship end,” Demoff insisted. “We’re looking to find the right partners as we prepare to build the new stadium. We aren’t viewing any of the deals we are doing right now as short-term, even though they have to be contractually.”

Meanwhile, Demoff said that as of last week, the Rams had sold more than 70,000 season tickets for a facility where capacity will be “in the low 80s, with the capacity to push toward 90,000 for unique events,” he said.

> LEGENDARY WIN: Legends has won a shootout among some of the largest sports merchandising companies to administer retail, along with food and beverage, for the new four-story, 40,000-square-foot NFL Times Square attraction, scheduled to open in fall 2017. Described by some as a smaller version of the annual NFL Experience at Super Bowl, the facility is being built with Cirque du Soleil and will include a 350-seat theater. NFL sources said the retail footprint for the project will be a few thousand square feet at most.

Still, with an RFP for merchandising at the next five Super Bowls and other NFL “jewel events” being decided imminently by the league, one well-connected licensing industry source said “we’re all trying to read the tea leaves” as to what the selection of Legends means.

> UNION SOLIDARITY: The National Basketball Players Association is using the NFL Players Association’s Athlete Content & Entertainment media company for web production on its upcoming Player Voice Awards. The awards are based on player voting and include Best Rookie, Comeback Player, Best Off The Bench, Best Defender, Toughest to Guard, Best Dressed, Home Court Advantage, Coach You’d Most Like to Play For, Clutch Performer, Best Social Media Follow, Player You Secretly Wish Was On Your Team, Most Influential Veteran, Global Impact and MVP. The winners will be revealed on various social media channels, including player sites, within a few weeks.

Last year, what was then termed The Players Awards program was broadcast on BET Networks.

The question this partnership brings to mind is whether the NBPA is looking at other NFLPA business models, including its Players Inc. for-profit licensing and marketing unit.

“We’re exploring a lot of opportunities for our players, but we do have a lot of respect for the way Players Inc. does business,” said a coy NBPA CMO Jordan Schlachter.

The NBPA is mulling whether to take back some, or all, of its group licensing rights as part of the possible opt-out of the collective-bargaining agreement later this year, when either the union or the league can announce its intention to negate the current CBA, which otherwise is set to run until 2021.

For more than 20 years, the NBA has paid the NBPA a fee (a record $38 million this season) for group licensing and marketing rights of players.

SOHIGIAN
> COMINGS & GOINGS: Call it a Premier wedding, as Premier Partnerships CEO Randy Bernstein and Aly Montes, the company’s vice president, corporate sponsorships, tied the knot in Beverly Hills June 24. … Vinson Lee leaves the PGA Tour to become an executive vice president at SME Branding, recently acquired by Learfield. Lee, who’s also worked at Circuit of the Americas, Razorfish and The Marketing Arm, will be based in Austin, Texas.

…Veteran property marketer John Sohigian has joined the Professional Bull Riders as vice president, consumer products. He’ll be based at the PBR’s Pueblo, Colo., headquarters and manage the rodeo circuit’s licensing deals and the relationship with MainGate, which runs venue retail and e-commerce for PBR. Sohigian has also worked for the WWE, the NFL and Orange County Choppers.

Terry Lefton can be reached at tlefton@sportsbusinessjournal.com.

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