Thursday, January 17, 2013

Sporting Announce Sponsorship Deal with Ivy Funds

Before the announcement that Sporting KC had selected Mikey Lopez with their first round pick in today's Superdraft, the team unveiled their brand new jersey sponsor, Ivy Funds.  Aurelien Collin modeled Sporting's secondary jersey with the new logo on the front of the jersey. 

The rumors had been around for a few weeks now that this would be announced soon.  Overall I think the Ivy Funds logo looks good on the Sporting jersey.  Yes it is currently a little high, but word is that this was because it was a quick mock up, and that on the real jerseys the sponsor will be about an inch lower.  There's been photos posted on Twitter showing the logo on last year's primary jersey with the logo and name right next to each other, unlike today's announcement where the Ivy Funds logo was below the words Ivy Funds

The multi-year deal was mentioned during the draft broadcast as being a 5 year deal worth over $2.5 million a year for the club although none of the club's releases mention the length of the deal or the amount. 

So with the deal in place how does it match up with other deals?  Here's a list of team's and their sponsors and how long, how much they are worth (Thanks to Hot Time in Old Town for the original link on this).

Chicago - Quaker - 3 year, $8 million ($2.67 million a year), signed in January 2012
Chivas USA - Corona -  multi-year, undisclosed amount, signed in January 2011
Colorado - No sponsor, with KC now having a deal, Colorado is the only team to never have a sponsor.
Columbus - Barbasol - 5 years, undisclosed amount, signed in February 2012
DC - Volkswagon - 5 years, $14 million ($2.8 million a year), signed in 2008, with company extension for 2014.
Dallas - AdvoCare - multi-year, undisclosed amount signed in June 2012
Houston - Greenstar Recycling - 5 years, $12.7 million ($2.54 million a year) signed in December 2010
LA - Herbalife - 10 years, $44 million ($4.4 million a year) announced extension in March 2012
Montreal - Bank of Montreal - 5 years, undisclosed amount signed in June of 2011.
New England - United Health Care - multi-year, undisclosed amount in signed April of 2011.
New York - Red Bull - Red Bull owns the club.
Philadelphia - Bimbo - 4 years, $12 million ($3 million a year) signed in January 2011.
Portland - Alaska Airlines - 4 years, undisclosed amount signed in December 2010.
Salt Lake - XanGo  - 3 years, $3 million ($1 million a year) renewed in July 2009.
San Jose - No sponsor at this time, their deal with Amway expired before last season.
Seattle - Xbox - 5 years, $20 million ($4 million a year) signed in May of 2008.
Toronto - Bank of Montreal - 5 year, $20 million Canadian ($4 million Canadian a year) renewed in June 2010.
Vancouver - Bell Canada - multi-year, $4 million plus a year signed in June of 2010.

So looking on the surface, KC would appear to have one of the lower sponsorship deals money wise, but has always been the case, Sporting hasn't wanted a sponsor just to have a sponsor, they were looking for one that fit with them and their plans.  And overall, I really think they found it on this deal.

Watch the video from Sporting regarding the sponsorship below.


2 comments:

Scott Fenwick said...

Hey Mike,

Could you perhaps expand on you comment about Ivy being the right sponsor and a good fit? Why?

Cheers,

Scott Fenwick

Mike said...

I agree with many things in the video. Robb does a good job of explaining it. The key is that it's local. But I also think that after the stuff with Livestrong, it's an organization that comes with little extra baggage.