Nets' Yormark Thinking Outside The Box To Woo New Sponsors
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| Yormark Seeking To Woo Sponsors |
Nets President & CEO Brett Yormark "has a delicate balancing act of filling seats and driving revenue at the Izod Center," while also "wooing corporate sponsors from around the world and building a new fan base for an arena that does not yet exist," according to a money section cover story by Adam Shell of USA TODAY. Barclays in January '07 "signed a $400[M], 20-year deal to put its name" on the Nets' new Brooklyn arena. Yormark "stressed to Barclays that the new arena would one day be a landmark that every tourist visiting [N.Y.] would go to see." Barclays Capital Chief Administrative Officer, America, Gerard LaRocca said, "Yormark treats Barclays like he's still courting us, not like a company that he already signed a deal with." Yormark's "goal is to get fans closer to the team and sponsors closer to their customers." Yormark "created a grass-roots season-ticket sales tool by holding backyard barbecues and cocktail parties at homes of existing season-ticket holders to bring together players and prospective ticket buyers." He also has a program that "allows prospective season-ticket buyers to watch a Nets away game with ex-Nets stars Darryl Dawkins or Albert King in the coach's screening room at the team's practice facility." Since Yormark took over in '05, the Nets' sponsorship revenue is "up 30%, 100 new sponsors have signed up, and the team has averaged more than 2,000 new full-season tickets." Yormark said, "The chase is what gets me up every morning." Shell writes the chase also is "about thinking outside the box whenever possible," and when "seeking out a beverage sponsor for the Barclays Center, Yormark didn't call Coca-Cola." Instead, he called Jones Soda, "a little-known Seattle brand." Yormark said that with the Yankees, Mets, Jets and Giants all building new stadiums, "he has to be aggressive." Yormark: "Everyone is fishing in the same pond for sponsors. My feeling is, 'Why don't I create my own pond?' -- and that is what I did" (USA TODAY, 8/25).
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