Editor’s note: This story is revised from the print edition.
Starwood Hotels and Resorts is close to taking the wraps off a multiyear, leaguewide sponsorship pact with Major League Baseball. Looking to take advantage of the buzz generated by MLB postseason play, an announcement is slated for next week. Sources said Starwood was looking at media buys for the MLB postseason.
As is the case with every hotel sponsorship deal, directing room nights for the business MLB can guarantee to Starwood from its “jewel events” like the All-Star Game and World Series was a critical part of the deal. Also important was leveraging MLB experiences, tickets and merchandise against Starwood’s Preferred Guest frequency/loyalty program. Another factor driving the deal: One agency source told us that there are Sheratons within a few miles of every MLB park.
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Starwood is building a Sheraton hotel as part of the Cubs’ Wrigley Field renovations.
Photo by: STEVE GREEN / CHICAGO CUBS
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Sheraton will receive the bulk of the marketing activity planned in support of the new deal, which we’re told is heavily weighted with digital and traditional media from MLB and its rights holders. Other brands among Starwood’s 1,200-plus hotels include the
Westin,
W and
St. Regis chains.
Sources said Dana Rosenberg, Starwood vice
president of global partnerships, directed the negotiations with MLB, along with
IMG Consulting, which handles Starwood out of its Chicago office.
Other Starwood sports sponsorships include the U.S. Tennis Association/U.S. Open and the NHL, along with four of its teams. Starwood’s MLB team portfolio, which seems certain to expand, already includes sponsorships with the Baltimore Orioles and St. Louis Cardinals. It also has sponsorship rights with the Chicago Cubs and is building a Sheraton across the street from Wrigley Field. The boutique hotel will serve as one of the anchors of a $500 million-plus renovation in Wrigleyville financed by the Cubs ownership, which will add entertainment and retail destinations to the Wrigley Field area.
MLB’s last hotel sponsorship was with InterContinental Hotels Group, which used MLB to support its Holiday Inn brand from 2006 to 2011.
Other first-time sponsors brought on board by the new MLB regime this year include Esurance, The Hartford, Falken Tire and Maytag. With the sales season beginning in earnest as the postseason wanes, MLB is looking at an offseason during which it will look to renew or replace sponsors in the wireless, banking and auto categories, in which the incumbents are T-Mobile, Bank of America and Chevrolet, respectively.
> HELP DESK: State Farm Insurance, one of the NBA’s most active sponsors, is integrating its “National Bureau of Assists” marketing platform into the NBA’s new flagship store in New York City. In the new three-story, 25,000-square-foot Fifth Avenue store, scheduled to open in time for holiday shopping, will be a concierge desk, which will be branded as a “State Farm Assist Center.” Chris Brennan, NBA senior vice president of global retail development, said services offered will include personal shopping, with the goal being one of delivering any NBA-licensed product not available inside the store walls to customers within a day.
> COMINGS & GOINGS: In a reshuffling at WME-IMG, the two most senior employees at its Catalyst PR arm have left the company. Senior vice presidents Bret Werner and Bill Holtz, whose contracts are up at the end of 2015, have exited, while fellow senior vice president Ted Fragulis and the rest of the Catalyst team remain part of WME-IMG’s Global Partnerships Group. Catalyst, which has 40-50 employees, was acquired by IMG in late 2012. After the WME acquisition of IMG in 2014, “there just wasn’t the commitment within the company to build a PR/communications practice that there was before,” one agency source said.
Terry Lefton can be reached at tlefton@sportsbusinessjournal.com.
