Stanford University’s athletic department is completing a marketing agreement with Viacom Sports Marketing that would give the company rights to sell the Cardinal’s corporate marketing inventory, sources said.
Bob Carruesco, Stanford assistant athletic director for marketing, confirmed the department is seeking a marketing partner to outsource the rights, but he declined to comment on negotiations with the company with which the school is negotiating.
Sources said the Viacom deal would offer Stanford a guarantee of more than $2 million per year. Viacom officials were unavailable for comment at press time. The company has existing deals with Arizona State, Virginia and Maryland.
Stanford’s decision to outsource was based on its desire to build its corporate partnerships on a “broader national scale,” Carruesco said.
Stanford has between 100 and 120 corporate sponsors. Carruesco declined to say how much the department generates from those sponsorships. He said the school expects to generate more revenue with help from an outside firm.
Stanford’s sponsors do not get facility signage as part of their packages because of a plan established by the university in 2000 to eliminate commercial signs from its facilities. As a result, corporate packages for the Cardinal center on media, such as radio game broadcasts and print-program advertising. Event and game sponsorships, Internet rights, and tickets and hospitality are also available.
Bringing in an outside firm to sell the sponsorships aims not only to increase Stanford’s marketing revenue but also to allow Stanford’s marketing staff to focus on other things, such as ticket sales. Currently, the marketing department, including Carruesco, has four employees, none of whom focuses solely on sponsorship sales.
“If you did a time analysis, we spend about 30 percent of our time on corporate sponsorship sales,” he said.
