NEXTIVA
Cloud-based b-to-b communications firm Nextiva has signed a comprehensive telecommunications sponsorship with the Pac-12 that will put its brand on football coaches’ headsets beginning next week when play resumes in the conference. Twelve-year-old Nextiva has grown to be a more than $125M-a-year business, with more than 1,000 employees. “We’ve grown rapidly and now it’s important for us to increase the amount of people who know about who we are and what we do,’’ said Nextiva CMO Yaniv Masjedi. “It’s a great opportunity for us to get recognition outside the types of businesses we already serve.’’
With the deal, Scottsdale-based Nextiva gets rights within the communications, enterprise phone systems and CRM categories to the conference and its 12 universities, along with Pac-12 controlled media and TV-visible signage at football and basketball games, at campus games, conference championships, the men’s and women’s basketball tournaments and the Rose Bowl. Designations include the Official Communications Partner of the Pac-12 conference, and Official Communications Partner of each Pac-12 university athletic department. AT&T was the last Pac-12 sponsor with rights that included coaches’ headsets.
Allied Sports, N.Y., Nextiva’s agency of record, will handle activation, which is largely to be determined. However, Excel Sports Management helped sell the category for the Pac-12 in a process that began last October. This is Nextiva’s biggest sports deal, but not its first. Pegula Sports & Entertainment sold the company rights to the Bills and Sabres over the past two years.
