Marketplace Round-Up
The MINNEAPOLIS/ST. PAUL BUSINESS JOURNAL’s John Vomhof Jr. reports the
T’Wolves are launching “one of the most comprehensive sponsorship
Web sites in all of professional sports.” The site “will allow corporate
partners to browse the team’s sponsorship inventory and view real-time updates
on the fulfillment of their contracts,” including “which broadcast
advertisements, arena signs and in-game promotions they have received and which
they still have remaining.” The effort is the “first of its kind in
the NBA, and the league is encouraging other teams to follow suit” (MINNEAPOLIS/ST.
PAUL BUSINESS JOURNAL, 3/30 issue).
DICK’S: Dick’s Sporting Goods CEO Ed Stack appeared
on CNBC’s “Fast Money” last night to discuss his company’s
rising stock price and its philosophy to shun fashion trends and concentrate on
the serious sports fan. Stack: “We took a different approach to growth as
opposed to a number of people prior to us who kind of jumped all over the country
and didn’t really realize the geographical and seasonal differences in this
business. We’ve just kind of continued to grow the business in concentric
circles from upstate New York and Southwestern Pennsylvania and have just continued
to grow the business about 15% a year” (CNBC, 4/2).
PUMA: Puma will enter the Volvo Ocean Race in ’08-09 with
its own boat. The company will also be the official supplier and the official
licensee of replica merchandise for the event (Puma). In Baltimore, Candus
Thomson wrote the entry of Puma, which has its int’l HQs in Germany, and
int’l PR based in Boston, “casts some doubt on whether Baltimore and
Annapolis will serve as a U.S. port-of-call for the fourth time.” Race organizers
“have long indicated a preference for ports with ties to syndicates,”
and Boston and Newport, Rhode Island, “have been mentioned as possible U.S.
stopovers” in the past (Baltimore SUN, 3/31).
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