Beach Volleyball Gets A Collegiate Push Toward Building It’s Brand…

January 16, 2010 by Joe Favorito · Leave a Comment 

Beach volleyball is unquestionably the darling sport of the Olympic Games. Every four years the men’s, and especially the women’s competition, draws one of the largest windows for NBC and has helped make pop culture stars of athletes like Misty May Treanor, Holly McPeak, Karch Kiraly, Kerri Walsh, and many others.  More importantly, the AVP has used the Olympic platform to effectively build a North American tour that even in a slow economy has one of the best examples of sponsor activation and integration of any sport, from Barefoot wines and former title sponsor Crocs to Paul Mitchell hair products and KFC . One could spend a full day at any AVP event and literally move from sponsor to sponsor and never run out of activity until sundown.  Still, even with that platform every four years and a lifestyle sport that thrives in warm weather, the Tour, like any sport,  goes through cycles of high and low activity, and is currently looking to develop the next wave of crossover stars to keep sponsors happy, ticketsellers coing, and TV partners interested.  Also like most sports, the AVP needs a healthy developmental program to fuel that growth and interest, and last year got a much-needed boost when the NCAA approved sand volleyball as a sport starting in 2011.

Match.com Scores Coverage with Phelps, Walsh Polls

August 24, 2008 by Joe Favorito · Leave a Comment 

As brands scramble to vie for the attention, and dollar endorsements for the top athletes coming out of the Olympics, the folks at match.com came up with a great way to glean coverage the old fashioned way…by going to the court of public opinion.  Match.com not only ran polls amongst their very legitimate subscriber base as to who the most eligible Olympians would be…they offered up free subscriptions to the online dating service to signle athletes like Michael Phelps, thus enlisting their product with the name without paying any endorsement fee.  It was a great play for the dating service that scored them tons of free publicity, and if the option is picked up by any of the athletes, will get them even more bang for a buck not spent.  We are sure the “Michael Phelps Nights” by minor league teams will be upcoming and there will be a scramble to protevt the Phelps brand, but the first move by match.com was a very smart one in brand association for no cash.