The UFC Looks To Reinvent…

September 2, 2010 by Joe Favorito · Leave a Comment 

The smartest brands are always trying to reinvent themselves in the marketplace. In today’s economy staying fluid and satisfying your audience while looking to engage new partners or customers is key for success.  One brand which seems to constantly be looking for new is the UFC.

My friend Jay died Monday…

August 10, 2010 by Joe Favorito · 8 Comments 

On Monday coming home on the train I got an email from my colleague Rich Sandomir of the New York Times who asked me if I had heard Jay Larkin died.  It was so very sad news.  Jay was one of the few mentors that I had…I learned more from him in a little over a year about learning to manage people and grow  business at the now defunct International Fight League than I had in countless years at Madison Square Garden or other stops.  He was a legend in boxing, a gentleman and a Brooklyn native with a killer instinct and business savvy that as he put it, made Showtime a strong Avis to HBO’s  Hertz. More importantly, he was a devoted father and husband who knew when to have a good time and when to work.  He helped bring professionalism to the most brutal of sports, and he always spoke his mind.

A Kinder, Gentler UFC?

July 24, 2010 by Joe Favorito · 1 Comment 

The UFC has been a textbook example of brand growth using both the digital and traditional space in the past five years, even getting profiled by Mashable on their social media platforms. They have followed a playbook first se (and then abandoned) by boxing and then by the WWE in using traditional TV and media as the driver for large gate pay-per-view events and following that with a very unique experience in-arena. It has been a solid run for the UFC and their fans, who are more fans of their brand probably trhan the overall sport of Mixed Martial Arts.  Still with all the success, the UFC model still has not brought in many new sponsors outside of brands like Bud Light and Harley Davidson, who came on several years ago and gain the great benefits of partnerships overall with Spike TV.  The UFC continues to go to new markets with one-off success, and always returns for the bigger name shows to Las Vegas for experiential weekends.  The company talks about more overseas expansion and continues to do well in the gaming and product sales area, so what’s next?  how does one gain more mainstream exposure, not in news coverage but in consistent larger viewership and gate, and does the UFC need another company to step up as a legitimate, consistent international competitor?  Is the market big enough?

History Channel Pawns Off A Great Promo For Upcoming Fight Night…

November 10, 2009 by Joe Favorito · 1 Comment 

The linking of pawn shops and boxers may not have always been a positive experience, but this week, as part of the promotional campaign for the title bout between Miguel Cotto and Manny Pacquiao, “Pawn Stars” and boxing will share equal billing. That is because The History Channel, working with Top Rank and the Leverage Agency, came up with a very unique cross promotion for the History Channel’s new Vegas reality show which featured the lives of a family of Pawn Brokers and debuts at the end of the month. The “Pawn Stars” logo, series stars and even a sweepstakes will be interwoven into the HBO pay per view broadcast this Saturday night, giving the show a platform in a demo that fits and giving the fight a unique promotional platform in and around Vegas. Media Post’s David Goetzel had an indepth look at the cross promotion, which will also be woven into all of Top ranks advance media buys for the night. In addition to being an interesting media play for both properties, the move fills canvas space and distressed inventory and will also lure casual fans…those who may enjoy reality TV and may not watch a professional fight…into the promotion or the pay per view market. The replay of the fight on HBO at a later date can also benefit from promotion on “Pawn Stars” when it airs later in the month, another way in which a somewhat unconventional but very practical and cost efficient cross branding exercise can work. Now could some see it as a step down for the canvas signage that usually or used to appear at top fights? perhaps. But in a day where everyone is looking for bang for the buck, the championship fight and its reality TV cousin could be the first in a long line of similar ties ins with the reality show and key athletic events in their demo.

Playing On The Global Stage

October 18, 2008 by Joe Favorito · Leave a Comment 

Businessweek this week put out their Top 100 Power Brokers In Sports, and in that was a Top 25 worldwide (meaning outside the U.S.).  The list is a great one for anyone to have on hand as sports becomes more global, and continues to show the domination of motor sports (notably F1 despite its financial issues) and soccer as the world players.  In an Olympic year, the key Olympic players also move up the list, and the presence of Yao Ming (the only basketball element) and Lalit Modi show the continued diversity into the Far East and the power the Indian and Chinese markets will have going forward.  One interesting aspect is that there are only four names probably…David Beckham, Maria Sharapova, Roger Federer and Yao…that the casual sports fan in the United States may know.  The smart marketer or ardent fan will at least know almost all, but as brands expand (no names from the Middle East made the list, something that will change in the future) both globally and into this country (as non-American brands look to capture the sports marketplace here) this list and its offshoots will become increasingly more valuable, and the crossover from this list to the largely American 100 will become much bigger.  The entire list as well as the features can be seen here. 

PGA of America, WNBA Promotion A Hole In One…

June 24, 2008 by Joe Favorito · Leave a Comment 

PR Move of the Day:  One of the issues that the WNBA has always had to battle was playing indoors during those great summer months, and then finding ways to engage the casual fan who would love hoops but just didn’t want to spend time indoors.  The usual promotions are hit or miss, and although the league has done a solid job in building a core of stars recently, the issue of pulling in the casual fan with a little something extra remained.  Today the league partnered with the PGA of America to come up with a very strong way to address the issue, stepping outside of the basketball framework to deliver on a solid promotion.  By providing free lessons with the top club pros (part of the PGA of America), the WNBA gives casual fans a great reason to come to a game and get something they could never have gotten before in the WNBA environment…help with America’s big leasure time activity…the game of golf.  Given commissioner Donna Orender’s golf roots, the connection is a natural, and announcing it the week of the women’s US Open makes even more sense.  Another great element that fits is that it gives the core WNBA fan a little extra as well…logic says if you are interested in women’s hoops, your affinity for other sports is probably high, and now you have the chance to try yet another activity you may have never tried before.  The PGA of America, as the club pros, makes more sense from a branding standpoint than the LPGA as well, so there is little battle for star power.  The “star power” is on the WNBA court, the athletic activity of the day is learning golf.  Well hit, well placed, well timed…maybe tennis can be next.   

Scorin A Bowlin Pitch

May 8, 2008 by Joe Favorito · Leave a Comment 

PR Move of the Day:  With the glut of new age sports…MMA, X Games, online gaming…the traditional niche sports have lost many of the spots where they would normally garner mainstream space, and many of those sports…track, bowling etc…have not made a successful transition to the digital environment.  So finding a way to get an effective mainstream placement and build brand space can be even more difficult and the need to dig deeper to find a very unique spin is thus much more important in the creative process.  We found a great one in Sunday’s Boston Globe courtesy of the folks at Elevate Communications.  The story on an employee of a local bowling alley took us behind the scenes and out of the sports page with a young, hip employee and got the sport and the local client some great brand exposure.  Very nice example of looking well beyond the norm to find a hook.