Gravity, Gorge Games Generate Goods; NTS Swings Golf Properties onto Net - Gravity Games, Subaru Gorge Games, Net Tour Strategies - Brief Article

Brandweek,  May 7, 2001  

Tags: game, strategy

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With action and adventure sports continuing to increase in popularity both, the Gen Y-targeted Gravity Games and the Gen X-focused Subaru Gorge Games have enlisted a series of new partners to expand their brand awareness as well as their reach.

The Gravity Games, in its third year staging such events as freestyle motocross, skateboarding and street luge, take place in Providence, R.I., from Sept. 1-9, with taped coverage airing Sundays on NBC from Sept. 30-Nov. 25.

A grass roots push will come from the new Amateur Skatepark Challenge, traveling to six cities to give fans a chance to try various events. The winner from each city will compete in a national contest at the Games. College Television Network, with a reach of 1.4 million at 1,700 colleges, will provide live music entertainment and produce a 30-minute showcase of the performances for multiple airings. Also, Midway Home Entertainment will develop video games for PlayStation and PS2, beginning with a BMX title, for fall.

Returning sponsors for the Games, created by Emap USA and managed by Octagon Marketing, include Irish Spring, Speed Stick, Norelco and Mongoose. Sponsors do heavy activation on-site with sweeps and sampling, Norelco is running a national online contest dangling trips to the event. All get ads in Emap's action sports pubs and in-broadcast spots. NBC will run tune-in ads beginning this summer during sports and teen programming.

The Subaru Gorge Games, with kayaking, windsurfing and adventure races, has signed new sponsors SoBe and Irish Spring to one-year deals. The Games take place in Hood River, Ore., July 14-22 with highlights airing on NBC in late summer. Subaru is running ads in vertical pubs, Sports Illustrated, Outside and Men's Journal, and in National Geographic Adventure, a media partner. Nautica, in year two of a three-year deal, will blanket store windows of local retailer Meier & Frank with outdoor product in June and July, and tag the sports fest on its local radio spots. L.L Bean will run a page on the Games in its summer catalog and sponsor a fly fishing clinic at the event's fan festival; other partners such as John Paul Mitchell Systems, CitySports, Yahoo! and American Airlines, also will have presence.

TV ads promoting the Games, owned and operated by Octagon, will air in the Northwest on ESPN, OLN, TLC, USA and Discovery; NBC will run tune-in spots nationally.

According to Net Tour Strategies president & CEO Kirk Pagenkopf, the three challenges facing golf properties are maximizing exposure on a year-round basis, growing fan base and finding new revenue streams. He also says golf is virtually sold out, with limited opportunities for sponsors to get involved. His solution, currently embraced by 24 PGA Tour events, is to use the Internet to create a natural brand extension for sponsors and events.

Overland Park, Kan.-based NTS creates Web sites free of charge for the typically small-staffed tournaments, getting a variety of sellable assets in return. NTS sells advertising on the sites, as well as in the "CyberGuide" pamphlets it creates and distributes at each tournament, reaching two million fans per year. NTS, after contracting with vendors such as Gear for Sports and Antigua on event merchandise, also produces catalogs for distribution to sponsor employees and handles product fulfillment.

NTS keeps the sites relevant beyond the tournament by serving as a source of local golf info.

"We build a site that is local, compelling and sticky that can drive traffic," said Pagenkopf. "This is a mechanism to build the brand of the sponsor and for tournaments, a quantifiable way to justify a [fee increase]."

The Celebrity Players Tour is NTS' latest partner, joining such clients as the AT&T Pebble Beach Pro-Am and the Sony Open. NTS also has just started a relationship with eBay offering product and play experiences relating to its clients.

Extra Innings: Shalagh Blanck to Velocity Sports & Entertainment, Westport, Conn., as an associate in meeting planning and hospitality functions ... With 25 NFL teams to outfit next year and all 32 teams for 2002, Reebok is in the process of signing about 300 NFL players to endorsement deals. Most will handle local marketing duties, joining high-profile endorsers like Jevon Kearse, Doug Flutie, Joey Galloway and Edgerrin James.

COPYRIGHT 2001 BPI Communications, Inc.
COPYRIGHT 2001 Gale Group