Soccer Scores Big Time Sponsorships

Cable World, March 20, 2000 by Mike Reynolds

It was also a busy off-season for Major League Soccer and for Paul Phipps on the sponsorship side of the pitch.

The soccer circuit's EVP of corporate partnership and club services and staff scored several new deals and inked renewals with a number of key official sponsors to boot.

MLS netted four-year sponsorship agreements with New York Life Insurance Co. and Aquafina, extending through the 2003 season. Under terms of the pacts, the latter becomes the official bottled water of MLS and its 12 teams, while New York Life is the league's official life insurance company. Moreover, NYL is the title sponsor of the circuit's grass roots Dribble, Pass & Shoot youth skills competition.

The league also upgraded its relationship with Kellogg Co. from a corporate partner to the official sponsor level. As for renewals, Budweiser, Honda and Pepsi are all back on board with multi-year extensions. Other official sponsors on MLS' roster: MasterCard, Yahoo! and Snickers.

Phipps said MLS official partner deals run into the "seven-figures" and beyond per year.

On the corporate partner level, toy maker Lego has joined the MLS team and will present an interactive traveling truck show, highlighted by a 15-foot Lego soccer arena, that will reach all 12 MLS cities over the course of the 2000 campaign.

Meanwhile, the pitching is not over. Phipps said MLS remains in discussions with AT&T, and is negotiating with "two to three others" for the telecommunications category. Additionally, conversations continue with Gillette for several products, including razors and its Duracell and Oral B brands. Discussions are ongoing with Gatorade for the isotonic segment, and with Toys R Us as the national retailer.

Although MLS TV carriers do not interrupt game play with commercials, MLS official sponsors have media components built into their packages. In the case of the Disney networks, expression manifests itself in the form of the sponsor's logo being affixed to an on-screen game clock for certain intervals, as well as through traditional :30s in half-time, pre-and post-game segments. Phipps said all media positions are accounted for on the Disney-owned nets.

For its part, Telemundo will air commercials during the aforementioned non-playing periods, and sporadically incorporate 10-second crawls replete with advertiser identification. At press time, Phipps said Budweiser was committed and that two or three other deals were pending. Telemundo/MLS are both selling this inventory.

On the regional front, TV carriers are able to include categories that do not conflict with league sponsors. As such, Phipps reported that local clubs and TV carriers have enjoyed success enticing grocery chains, banks and local soccer-related dot.coms to purchase air time.