#agencies

While CAA, Wasserman, Lagardère and other upstarts have created a more fragmented sports agency landscape in recent years, two of the oldest rivals are Octagon and IMG. Now that the latter is officially on the block, could they join forces? Here's what the CEO of Octagon's parent company, IPG, had to say about that possibility last Friday in a Q&A with analysts...

Q (Daniel Salmon, BMO):You always take a lot of pride in Interpublic's role in sports marketing in Octagon. Would you ever have any interest in any of the assets at IMG?

A (Michael Roth, CEO):
I think we are well represented by Octagon. They're doing a great job. They are certainly a force in the marketplace, and we're comfortable with the work that they're doing and their size.

No indication of interest, but not an...

#activation

As he made his historic run through The Masters, Adam Scott not surprisingly stirred up a lot of traffic for not only himself, but his sponsors too. The graph below shows how Google searches coming to SponsorPitch spiked using the keyword "Adam Scott sponsors" as the weekend progressed going from virtually nil when the tournament started and steadily increasing throughout the weekend to more than 10 per minute yesterday afternoon as Scott sank a 10-foot birdie putt on the second playoff hole to win golf's biggest prize.

Perhaps no sponsor benefited more than Japanese retailing giant, UNIQLO, which only last week signed Australia's first Masters champion to an endorsement deal, the company's first in the sport of golf.

"I am [also] very happy to have won so soon after I be...

#strategy

Last night, SeaWorld Entertainment finalized plans for its anticipated $540 million IPO coming later this week. Below is the most relevant bit on corporate sponsorships from the company's S-1 filed back in December. In particular, it's interesting to note the emphasis with which the company places on not only maximizing short-term revenue from sponsors, but also finding partners that can use their own, existing distribution channels to extend SeaWorld's consumer promotions to a wider range of retail points. In essence, finding partners that can work on its behalf. Though the resulting increase in awareness, ticket sales and such isn't always a direct line to the sponsorship and licensing P&L, the holistic approach to generating consumer demand has been paying off handsomely for the over...

#deals

Their cinderella run may have come to an end on Friday, but the Florida Gulf Coast Eagles are still soaring with the school's first shoe deal. FGC, which up until now has paid for its own Nike gear has followed the likes of Notre Dame, UCLA and Michigan in signing the Atlantic Sun's first multi-million dollar shoe deal Monday. The contract begins with the upcoming 2013-14 academic year and extends through the completion of the 2019-20 seasons with the premium apparel brand agreeing to supply all 15 of the school's intercollegiate athletic teams, including the #13 nationally ranked FGC Eagles Sand Volleyball team.

"Could my life get any better right now?," soon-to-be ex FGC coach Andy Enfield said. "These aren't your father's Rockports."

"This is two elite challenger brands teami...

#ooh #activation

Online tutoring company, The Tutor Crowd, recently came up with a brilliant and somewhat hilarious way to get the word out about its test prep services. Working with brand activation agency, Arc London, the firm is going around London and spell-checking graffiti. The corrections are of course accompanied by a subtle sticker promoting the smart-thinking test prep company's website. Check out some of the examples below and for more visit thetutorcrowd.tumblr.com. H/T: psfk.com

#activationstag

#aboutSP

We're constantly looking for new ways to help our members make sense of the world of sponsorships happening every day around them. With more data and more users than ever on the SponsorPitch platform, it's critical that our members have access to the very latest tools. Tools that can help you synthesize a lot of data fast, figure out what it all means to you, use it to make better business decisions and of course, find your best leads faster™. With that in mind, we're excited to let you know about our latest alliance to enhance SponsorPitch's offerings. The release is below and we'll have more details coming soon!

Block Six Analytics (B6A) and SponsorPitch have agreed to a new partnership that enhances their current sports / entertainment sponsorship service offerings. This ...

#AboutSP

SponsorPitch would be nothing without the loyalty of its now, rapidly approaching 20,000 members. That's one of the reasons that we've tried to keep as much of the network free to you as possible, while still paying the bills and building a growing business.

About two years ago we added a simple jobs board when agencies started to ask us how they could access our growing membership base to find new talent and fill senior level positions. We knew we were on the right track when job seekers around the industry started to refer to SponsorPitch.com/jobs as one of the go-to resources for landing a new gig. With that said, I am super excited to announce that even more SponsorPitch members will get to use it to put their 2013 career goals in motion. We've opened up our Jobs Center for free...

Many of you probably recall our fiercely competitive monthly SPoint contests from last year. Well, we're bringing them back. SPoints™ are SponsorPitch's take on the loyal customer punch card - except instead of free sandwiches you get additional discounts and benefits on SponsorPitch. Whichever SponsorPitch member receives the most SPoints™ during the month of February will be upgraded to professional membership for the remainder of 2012 for free (a value of $350). We'll have other contests in the future, but this is the first one we're running in 2012. Past winners of our monthly SPoints™ rewards include LaTrisha Reid, Mike Mahoney and Bob Gearing.

Here are a few simple ways you can start earning SPoints™ for February:

- Add brands to SponsorPitch
- Add sponsorship decision ma...

Back when SponsorPitch was first launched in 2009, some of you probably recall that SponsorPitch provided the opportunity to create a property profile. From that experience we learned a lot about what works and what doesn't. What information sponsorship properties (sellers) want to display and what information marketers (buyers) need to know. Taking all of this into account, I'm happy to report that as of yesterday, we've launched a new and better way for sales executives to manage a SponsorPitch profile for their sponsorship opportunity. In many ways, our job was easier this time as we took a lot of what you find so useful about finding targeted sponsors in the Sponsor Index and applied the same principles to allow marketers to find targeted sponsorship opportunities in what we're (nat...