It just makes good sense. Last year the Chicago White Sox and Chicago Blackhawks created a year-round marketing partnership which gave both teams a strategic offseason platform to promote their brands, athletes and give some added pop to potential shared sponsors at a time when a team may not be top of mind. Yesterday the Cleveland Indians and Columbus Blue Jackets announced a similar partnership, with the difference being a tie between two regional brands, as opposed to a pair of teams in the same city. It is a concept, teams from different sports but from a larger geographic area, working together to develop year-round partnerships, that makes great sense as brands look for more ways to diversify, stay relevant and give partners new ways to work with them in the offseason. More importantly it is probably a smart learning experience for two teams who can find ways to work together in a very competitive environment and test ideas…social networking, group sales, unique business partners, even day to day business relationships…that they may not get to try without a different year-round partner. Now obviously teams with similar ownership backgrounds have worked together with shared platforms, but often times those are in similar seasons…hockey and hoops are the best example. By looking outside the norm and probably swallowing a little pride of ownership, the Tribe and Blue Jackets have created an expnasion of the Chicago platform that seemed to work so well.
Some other good reads…The Washington Times has a good profile of David Falk... the San Antonio Express-News has a profile of Jerry Jones Jr…wsj.com has an interesting piece on the courting of German baseball prospect Max Kepler-Rozycki , and Media Post has a good look at Subway's latest Scrabble promotion.
