The PGA Tour yesterday announced a new three-year, China-based partnership with Bose Corporation, making Bose the first company to acquire PGA Tour category rights outside of the U.S. Bose will be the Tour’s official marketing partner in the home theater system, home audio system and headphone categories in China. As an official marketing partner, Bose will have the rights to PGA Tour and Champions Tour marks to promote products in China, Hong Kong, Taiwan and Macau. PGA Tour Global Commercial Officer Tom Wade said the sponsorship further expands the Tour brand in the Chinese marketplace. Bose’s subsidiary in Shanghai, Bose Greater China, will activate the sponsorship (Michael Smith, Staff Writer).
THE BEST A MAN CAN GET: The SPORTSBUSINESS JOURNAL's Terry Lefton reports Procter & Gamble’s Gillette brand has signed ATPer Roger Federer “to a three-year extension of the tennis star’s endorsement agreement.” Federer has been a Gillette endorser since ‘07, when he was part of the brand’s global “Champions” campaign. That effort was “dropped in 2011.” Federer is “scheduled to shoot some ads for Gillette under the direction of BBDO, France, this week in Zurich” (SPORTSBUSINESS JOURNAL, 4/1 issue).
A BILL OF HEALTH: In Ft. Lauderdale, Michael Mayo notes Broward Health, which “collects nearly $150 million in property tax from Broward residents north of Griffin Road, has given" Dolphins QB Ryan Tannehill an endorsement deal to "pump up its brand.” The three-year, $331,000 deal is “maybe too much, considering no other tax-assisted hospital district in South Florida pays for celebrity endorsements” (South Florida SUN-SENTINEL, 4/2).
