Coca Cola plays hard ball

Advertising Age, June, 1998

LIKE VICTIMS OF A fender bender, massaging their necks and complaining of whiplash, Corporate America is grousing about the prices of today's prized sports sponsorships. "The numbers are getting bigger-sticker-shock type of numbers," says Joseph Tripodi, exec VP-global marketing for MasterCard International, a longtime World Cup sponsor that's angling to ink a new eight-year deal but wary of the cost. Coca-Cola Co. earlier this year signed the kind of World Cup deal MasterCard wants--and paid $80 million for it.

It's also Coca-Cola that has taught sponsors to stand up to sports rights holders. Flush from signing a $24 million-a-year sponsorship with Sprint in 1996, the National Football League wanted to renew Coca-Cola at $30 million a year, double its old deal....

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