ADWEEK's Anthony Crupi reported ad space for college football broadcasts is "selling faster than ever," and the "biggest windfall has been at ESPN." ESPN President of Customer Marketing & Sales Ed Erhardt is close to "being out of sale with the Saturday night broadcast package, 'ESPN College Football' on ABC." Spots in the primetime college games "cost $100,000 a pop." In addition, Erhardt said, "We have very little inventory left in the BCS. A lot of the baby bowls and BCS games move really fast because there are so many season-long deals. A lot of postseason inventory is baked-in." Crupi noted "auto dollars are driving the college football market, as are beer and insurance," but movie dollars also are "pouring in, especially in the December and January games" (ADWEEK.com, 8/24).
DIAMOND IN THE ROUGH: The PGA Tour FedExCup Playoffs began today with the first round of The Barclays, and Barclays CEO Bob Diamond said sponsoring the event is an "opportunity for us to spend time with our customers and clients." Diamond: "It’s a good event, it helps in our overall branding of Barclays in the U.S.” The bank is sponsoring the tourney through '16 (“Closing Bell,” CNBC, 8/24). Meanwhile, Diamond said what golfer Phil Mickelson, who endorses Barclays, has been "able to do as we have tried to build our brand here in the U.S., in terms of representing Barclays and spending time with our clients and customers, has been fantastic." Diamond: "He brings out the best of the game of golf" ("Golf Central," Golf Channel, 8/24).
ENERGY BOOST: Chesapeake Energy has renewed its deal to title sponsor the Capital Classic, a basketball doubleheader between West Virginia Univ. and Marshall Univ., "for $50,000 annually over five years." That is up $10,000 per season "over the past five years" of the deal (Charleston DAILY MAIL, 8/24)....The Blue Jackets have signed a multiyear extension of their partnership with Columbia Gas. The Columbus-based company is an original corporate partner of the NHL club (Blue Jackets).
GRAMMAR SCHOOL: Old Navy is "reprinting thousands of college T-shirts to correct an embarrassing error." The shirts for dozens of schools that debut this month were missing the necessary apostrophe in "Let's" (L.A. TIMES, 8/25). NBC’s Natalie Morales noted students "are flocking to Yahoo to mock Old Navy’s new college T-shirt that flunked basic grammar” ("Today,” NBC, 8/25). TIME.com's Allison Berry writes under the header, "Old Navy's Grammar Gets Sent To The Back Of The Class" (TIME.com, 8/25).
