Crowded Field

The National Hockey League reached a tentative agreement with its players’ association July 13 that puts players back on the ice after a 301-day lockout that led to the cancellation of the 2004-05 season.

That’s good news for long-time brand sponsors like MasterCard, whose Canadian division has held on during the long freeze out. MasterCard Canada’s Web site still touts its role as the official card and payment system of the NHL, as well as official sponsor of the annual NHL All-Star Weekend.

For less-entrenched NHL brands like Southwest Airlines the thaw raises a dilemma: Should it renew its sponsorship with the NHL, or will deals with the National Football League and the National Basketball Association be enough to excite its core consumers this fall?

Southwest was the only major sponsor that didn’t renew with the NHL last year. On the day a tentative agreement was reached, Andy Allmann, Southwest’s senior manager-sports marketing, got e-mails and phone calls from NHL VP-Corporate Marketing Andrew Judelson, asking the airline to re-up with hockey fans.

“We really liked working with the NHL, but with the uncertainty of a lockout, coming right after our deal expired, we didn’t want to renew,” Allmann says. “We’d certainly listen to what the NHL has to say now, but we’d have to see what it league has to offer.”

An NHL return may be good for hockey veterans like MasterCard and Southwest, but not for a first-time sponsor, warns Leverage Sports President Ben Sturner. Pricing could be favorable as the league tries to gain post-lockout strength, but the NHL is not at the top of consumers minds, especially in a crowded fall sports scene that includes the NFL kickoff, the NBA tip-off, and grand finales for Major League Baseball and NASCAR auto sports.

“NHL lost a lot of brand equity and fan support because of the lockout,” Sturner says. “Brands need to cut through the clutter of the fall sports scene and find the sport that best fits their consumers.”

If it stays off the ice this season, Southwest still has its annual “Take Your Team to the Super Bowl” sweeps, launching Oct. 1, which allows the grand-prize winner to take 10 guests to Super Bowl XL in Detroit. The package includes tickets to the game, the league’s NFL Experience mobile tour, airfare, hotel accommodations, NFL merchandise and lunch with an NFL player or coach. It will be promoted through Southwest’s Web site, in-game spots by ESPN’s Chris Berman and via the airline’s in-flight magazine.

Gridiron gravy

The NHL can only dream of the brand dollars that flood the NFL. Though most fans pay attention to the NFL from September to the Super Bowl, the league has become a year-round machine for sponsors.

“Consumers have so many ways to connect to the sport, through the NFL Draft, Monday Night Football, fantasy football, and in their every day life,” says Tony Wells, VP-Event Sponsorship & Marketing, Visa USA, an NFL sponsor. “We want to be wherever fans are consuming the NFL, not just at the games, and at the same time be relevant.”

Visa is using a “surprise and delight” theme to hit consumers this season because, Wells says, these emotions are characteristic of NFL fans each Sunday. Surprise and delight elements will be added to its national sweeps, which consumers enter by using a Visa card to win prizes such as plasma TVs, Super Bowl XL-branded gift cards and experiential VIP trips to NFL games. P-O-P, TV and bill stuffers support.

Visa also targets high schoolers when NFL players visit schools this season to talk about financial literacy. Visa research shows that teens don’t want to learn how to balance checkbooks from their parents, Wells says, but learning from a millionaire NFL player, such as Denver Broncos quarterback Jake Plummer, adds to the validity of financial literacy.

Fellow NFL sponsor Masterfoods USA has updated its earlier “Snickers Hungriest Player” program for 2005 with a “Hungriest Fan” campaign. The program now randomly chooses eight fans who collect on-pack codes, correctly answer trivia questions and refer friends to www.Snickers.com a trip to see a Monday Night Football game, where they will appear in a live in-game TV spot.

Around the track

Sponsors involved with NASCAR and its racing teams compete with the NFL’s partners by dangling sweeps that send prizewinners to the top races of the season.

Nextel and sponsors Sunoco and Motorola are currently partnering on a sweeps that awards a grand prize of $250,000 and a tanker truck full of gas to one of 10 contestants who correctly forecasts the Nextel Cup winner. When the top 10 qualifying drivers are identified based on Sept. 10 standings, one sweeps finalist will be chosen and flown to Homestead, FL, for the Nov. 20 race.

QSRs are also chasing the lead. Checkers Drive-In Restaurants has a peel-and-win sweeps this fall that dangles a $100,000 grand prize and five first prize tickets to Homestead. And Blimpie sandwich shops are touting a trip for four to Homestead as grand prize in its Hottest Race of The Year sweeps. Customers who buy the new Champion Combo enter a password found on drink cups at Blimpie.com. Four first-prize winners will get a trip to a 2006 NASCAR race.

The Ming Dynasty

The NBA season starts Nov. 1, and several of its sponsors are pre-empting the U.S. opener by heading to China, home of the 2008 Summer Olympic Games, to talk “B-ball.”

Nokia, the official mobile phone of the NBA in Greater China, offers mobile users there video highlights, team logos and games. It will also participate in China’s first NBA Jam Van tour, which hits 10 cities over the next two months. Nokia will be joined on tour by China Mobile, Red Bull, apparel-maker Li-Ning, Spalding, and news Web site Sohu.com.

“China has become a hotbed for the NBA and its sponsors,” says Wally Hayward, chairman & CEO, Relay Sponsorship & Event Marketing.

Credit Houston Rockets star (and Shanghai native) Yao Ming, perhaps, that some 85% of China’s population say they are NBA fans, and six of the 10 most popular athletes in the country are NBA players, Hayward says.

Now if the 7′-3″ center could just handle a puck….

NEW OPPS

Presented by

Home Entertainment

Serenity

Universal Home Entertainment, Dec. 2005

Joss Whedon, the Oscar and Emmy-nominated writer/director responsible for Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Angel, makes his feature film directorial debut with this story of a small band of galactic outcasts 500 years in the future.

TV

It’s the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown

United Media/ABC, Oct. 2006

Partner with the Peanuts gang for the 40th Anniversary of the classic all-family Halloween special, It’s the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown, airing on ABC. A favorite with children and parents alike, this beloved seasonal favorite uses imagination and story-telling to tell its tale.

Music

LES PAUL: 90th BIRTHDAY EDITION

EMI Music Special Markets, 2005-2006

To celebrate the 90th birthday (on June 9) of the world-renowned electric guitar innovator and performer, Capitol/EMI Music Catalog Marketing joins in a celebration that includes new CD releases, two new books and special events. Produced by Bob Cutarella and Fran Cathcart, Les Paul & Friends, a new all-star collaborative CD, will be released August 30 by Capitol/EMI.

Content by L.A. Office. Don’t miss Road Show 2005! Visit laoffice.com for details.