Post by DanMcQ on Jun 17, 2015 22:39:42 GMT -5
www.washingtonpost.com/sports/colleges/georgetown-partners-with-fox-sports-on-marketing-and-sponsorship-efforts/2015/06/17/55e3953e-1218-11e5-a0dc-2b6f404ff5cf_story.html?postshare=1351434597129738
In Fox Sports, Georgetown gets a business partner known for pushing the envelope — creative, bold and unabashed about testing the limits in taking on the hegemony of ESPN and the major networks. Fox Sports introduced the “glowing puck” in NHL coverage, as well as “Scooter,” the animated talking baseball that described major league pitches. Both, alas, were short-lived. But it’s that spirit of “why-not” thinking that appeals to Reed and Dan O’Neil, senior associate athletic director for external affairs, who will serve as the chief liaison.
Said Fox executive Dan Shell, who was instrumental in negotiating the deal: “What Fox can do for a school like Georgetown, beyond traditional corporate partnerships, is really grow the brand locally and regionally. Fox can do a lot beyond just selling.”
That could include a weekly coach’s show for John Thompson III or a broader-based program featuring Hoyas athletes and coaches from a range of teams. It should mean a more technologically savvy game-day experience for fans.
On the second floor of Georgetown’s McDonough Arena, the venerable campus gym that has been strained beyond capacity for decades, a cubicle was recently cleared out to create space for the latest addition to the staff.
Jeff Ajluni is taking on a new, hybrid role: A vice president of Fox Sports, Ajluni will draw his salary from the cable network, but he’s embedded in the Hoyas’ athletics department, along with a staff of two, so he can better cultivate corporate sponsorships and marketing initiatives as general manager of a new entity, Georgetown Sports Properties, a division of Fox Sports.
In a 10-year deal to be announced this week, Georgetown is selling its multimedia rights to Fox Sports. In the deal, Georgetown will outsource its marketing and corporate sponsorships for its radio broadcasts, digital and print advertising, game-day signage and hospitality.
Jeff Ajluni is taking on a new, hybrid role: A vice president of Fox Sports, Ajluni will draw his salary from the cable network, but he’s embedded in the Hoyas’ athletics department, along with a staff of two, so he can better cultivate corporate sponsorships and marketing initiatives as general manager of a new entity, Georgetown Sports Properties, a division of Fox Sports.
In a 10-year deal to be announced this week, Georgetown is selling its multimedia rights to Fox Sports. In the deal, Georgetown will outsource its marketing and corporate sponsorships for its radio broadcasts, digital and print advertising, game-day signage and hospitality.
“You can’t do 21st-century business with 20th-century business practices,” Georgetown Athletic Director Lee Reed noted in a recent interview, adding that the partnership with Fox goes beyond revenue. “Our athletic program is global, certainly national. So to have a national company that is representing a national brand, that synergy made sense.”
The deal will pay Georgetown an estimated $1 million-$3 million per year (more depending on its success, according to informed insiders), punching up the bottom line of Georgetown’s roughly $34.5 million annual athletic budget. Once Fox recoups that investment, revenue-sharing kicks in, with both the network and athletic department benefiting.
The deal will pay Georgetown an estimated $1 million-$3 million per year (more depending on its success, according to informed insiders), punching up the bottom line of Georgetown’s roughly $34.5 million annual athletic budget. Once Fox recoups that investment, revenue-sharing kicks in, with both the network and athletic department benefiting.
In Fox Sports, Georgetown gets a business partner known for pushing the envelope — creative, bold and unabashed about testing the limits in taking on the hegemony of ESPN and the major networks. Fox Sports introduced the “glowing puck” in NHL coverage, as well as “Scooter,” the animated talking baseball that described major league pitches. Both, alas, were short-lived. But it’s that spirit of “why-not” thinking that appeals to Reed and Dan O’Neil, senior associate athletic director for external affairs, who will serve as the chief liaison.
Said Fox executive Dan Shell, who was instrumental in negotiating the deal: “What Fox can do for a school like Georgetown, beyond traditional corporate partnerships, is really grow the brand locally and regionally. Fox can do a lot beyond just selling.”
That could include a weekly coach’s show for John Thompson III or a broader-based program featuring Hoyas athletes and coaches from a range of teams. It should mean a more technologically savvy game-day experience for fans.
There’s the obvious cache of being associated with Georgetown, regarded as a “pillar brand” in sports-marketing parlance, Shell notes. There’s also the strategic synergy of investing more deeply in a property Fox already has a stake in as the broadcast partner of the Big East.
“Georgetown being good is good for Fox,” said Shell, general manager and vice president of USC Properties. “It’s of strategic importance to Fox because of the Big East.”
Fox Sports is a small player on the landscape of college athletics’ multimedia rights compared to IMG College, whose 80-odd properties include Michigan, Texas and Ohio State, and Learfield Sports, whose nearly 100 properties include North Carolina, Indiana and Wisconsin. Georgetown is Fox Sports’ second property, joining Southern California, whose football program was the chief lure when Fox struck its first deal in 2011, soon after signing on for a stake in a $3 billion deal for (then) Pac-10 TV rights.
Ajluni, whose background is in professional sports, has already gotten started reviewing sponsorships in place and identifying brands and categories of brands to pitch on the merits of being associated with the Hoyas.
“They have been running a sponsorship program, and it has gone well,” Ajluni said of the Hoyas. “With the assets and experience we can bring to the table, we’re going to take it up to another level. We have the fuel in our engine; Georgetown basketball has the power and prestige.”
“Georgetown being good is good for Fox,” said Shell, general manager and vice president of USC Properties. “It’s of strategic importance to Fox because of the Big East.”
Fox Sports is a small player on the landscape of college athletics’ multimedia rights compared to IMG College, whose 80-odd properties include Michigan, Texas and Ohio State, and Learfield Sports, whose nearly 100 properties include North Carolina, Indiana and Wisconsin. Georgetown is Fox Sports’ second property, joining Southern California, whose football program was the chief lure when Fox struck its first deal in 2011, soon after signing on for a stake in a $3 billion deal for (then) Pac-10 TV rights.
Ajluni, whose background is in professional sports, has already gotten started reviewing sponsorships in place and identifying brands and categories of brands to pitch on the merits of being associated with the Hoyas.
“They have been running a sponsorship program, and it has gone well,” Ajluni said of the Hoyas. “With the assets and experience we can bring to the table, we’re going to take it up to another level. We have the fuel in our engine; Georgetown basketball has the power and prestige.”