Menu
Colleges

Coors Light gets into college concert game

Coors Light later this month will launch a new concert series with four stops that takes big-name acts to college towns.

Big & Rich, Snoop Dogg, Dustin Lynch and Jerrod Niemann are among the performers who will play the night before three regular-season rivalry football games, as well as the national championship game in Tampa. WME-IMG worked with Coors Light to secure the talent — each is a WME client. The brand also will bring in former greats from those schools to be part of the show.

The Coors Light series kicks off Oct. 28, the Friday night prior to the Baylor-Texas game in Austin. The series also will visit Los Angeles on Nov. 18 for the Southern California-UCLA game, and Columbus, Ohio, on Nov. 25 for the Michigan-Ohio State game. The concerts are planned for the Friday night prior to the games.

MillerCoors has sponsorship agreements with at least one of the schools in each game. The company looked at the magnitude of the game, where it already had school relationships and the ability to reserve a venue for the concert when making its schedule.

Each of the schools, except USC, are IMG College clients.

“The series is really an evolution of what we’ve been focused on in the college space,” said Adam Dettman, director of sports and entertainment marketing at MillerCoors. “We’ve made a big push to use college sports to reach legal-drinking-age fans, and the concerts build on that in a big way so that we can activate more deeply.”

MillerCoors entered the college space in 2011 with sponsorships at more than 20 colleges, using its responsibility messaging and “21 means 21” campaign at the center of its activation. The advertising on the school’s radio network and use of marks at retail helped build the association with each school’s fan base.

But when it came time a year ago for MillerCoors to renew 25 school deals through rights holder IMG College, Dettman and MillerCoors’ strategic agency, Genesco Sports Enterprises, sought unique marketing opportunities. “They really challenged us to deliver on the power of WME-IMG,” said Andrew Judelson, executive vice president of sales and marketing for IMG College.

So they worked together to create the concert series and signed ESPN analyst Kirk Herbstreit to promote the tour and the brand.

The venues for each of the shows will be existing arenas or more intimate clubs. The acts for the CFP championship show in Tampa on Jan. 8 are still being finalized.

In addition to working with WME-IMG and Genesco, MillerCoors also has GMR Marketing for activation, Olson Engage for public relations and 72andSunny for its advertising and digital agency.

In last week’s Associated Press top 10, eight of the schools permit beer sponsorships. Of those eight, MillerCoors has relationships with five of them: Alabama, Ohio State, Washington, Houston and Miami.

SBJ Morning Buzzcast: March 18, 2024

Sports Business Awards nominees unveiled; NWSL's historic opening weekend and takeaways from CFP deal

ESPN’s Jay Bilas, BTN’s Meghan McKeown, and a deep dive into AppleTV+’s The Dynasty

On this week’s Sports Media Podcast from the New York Post and Sports Business Journal, ESPN’s Jay Bilas talks all things NCAA. Big Ten Network’s Meghan McKeown shares her insight into the Caitlin Clark craze. The Boston Globe’s Chad Finn chats all things Bean Town. And SBJ’s Xavier Hunter drops in to share his findings on how the NWSL is making a social media push.

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

SBJ I Factor: Nana-Yaw Asamoah

SBJ I Factor features an interview with AMB Sports and Entertainment Chief Commercial Office Nana-Yaw Asamoah. Asamoah, who moved over to AMBSE last year after 14 years at the NFL, talks with SBJ’s Ben Fischer about how his role model parents and older sisters pushed him to shrive, how the power of lifelong learning fuels successful people, and why AMBSE was an opportunity he could not pass up. Asamoah is 2021 SBJ Forty Under 40 honoree. SBJ I Factor is a monthly podcast offering interviews with sports executives who have been recipients of one of the magazine’s awards.

Shareable URL copied to clipboard!

https://www.sportsbusinessjournal.com/Journal/Issues/2016/10/10/Colleges/MillerCoors-college-concerts.aspx

Sorry, something went wrong with the copy but here is the link for you.

https://www.sportsbusinessjournal.com/Journal/Issues/2016/10/10/Colleges/MillerCoors-college-concerts.aspx

CLOSE