Anderson: Refusing sponsor not good for Ohio State, Michigan
Friday, October 29, 2004
By Shelly Anderson, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette
Can you believe Michigan and Ohio State?
The schools just turned down a deal for a sponsorship of their annual rivalry football game. The SBC Michigan-Ohio State Classic would have brought each school a little more than $500,000 over the next two years.
What in the name of underwriting were they thinking?
A half mil down the drain. For what? A little integrity?
The teams are going to play their ballyhooed game every year anyway.
If some company is willing to fork over checks with a lot of zeroes to have its name splashed around the home stadium and on TV during the game, take the money and run. Or throw, or punt. Whatever.
Ohio State athletic director Andy Geiger issued a statement earlier this week gushing about the setup.
"Once this agreement is finalized, this rivalry's sponsorship will result in new scholarship revenue for student-athletes in all 36 sports, support for the Ohio State Library campaign, as well as a special housing grant to Campus Partners and the University's South Campus Gateway Redevelopment," Geiger said in the statement, illustrating that he can really stretch a tainted dollar.
There was just one problem, by the name of Mary Sue Coleman.
She's the school president at Michigan. According to the Detroit Free Press, Wolverines athletic director Bill Martin forgot to tell -- or perhaps that should be ask -- Coleman about the SBC deal. She found out when she started getting a flood of flak from alumni who thought Michigan was selling out.
So she told Martin to nix the deal, after both schools had announced it.
What a killjoy. Doesn't she know that big-time, major-conference college sports already have sold their amateur soul? I believe the winning bid went to Dirt Devil vacuums.
It's not like this deal would have broken new ground. SBC already sponsors the annual Red River Shootout between Oklahoma and Texas.
I've never heard of SBC, but my initial guess was that it stood for Selling Blatant Commercialism.
It turns out SBC Communications Inc. is a Fortune 500 company with strong ties to Cingular Wireless and other outfits.
Can you hear them now?
Oh, sorry.
That's another cell phone company.
Perhaps SBC will try again with other college teams. If not them, someone surely will.
Companies must feel that they are getting profitable returns on their sports sponsorship deals. Just look at how those deals are proliferating.
For the World Series games this month, in addition to the main sponsors, there were professional patrons for different parts of the telecast.
There was a sponsor for the pregame lineups. There was a sponsor for the play of the game (that one was a Tom Hanks movie, of all things). There was a sponsor for the post-game show.
Thank goodness for that last one.
With no commercial after the last out, I wouldn't have had any idea that there had been a transition from the actual game to a post-game show without a sponsor's logo flashed on the screen.
In college football, we long ago passed the point of no return of sponsorships for bowl games. A lot of them don't just have a sponsor attached to their name; the sponsor IS the name.
I'm waiting for the Kellogg's Cereal Bowl with the Snap, Crackle & Pop block of the game, or the Campbell's Soup Bowl with the Chicken & Stars tackle of the game.
Just think of the possibilities if individual teams or matchups started hooking up with sponsors. Marketing honchos at places such as H&R Block and UPS Ground could have a field day.
The Mid-American Conference and McDonald's could stage the Big MAC championship game. Borders book stores could sponsor any number of games between teams from neighboring states.
We could see the Southern Comfort Alabama-Tennessee Classic. Or the Capitol Records Cal-Stanford Clash. Maybe the Harvard-Yale Rubik's Cube Rumble. Perhaps the Arizona-Arizona State game brought to you by Tumbleweeds Comic Strip.
The Pitt-West Virginia football game already is called the Backyard Brawl. Doesn't that just cry out for a sponsorship from, say, Weber grills?
By the way, I work without a commission.
If the athletic directors at schools such as Ohio State and Michigan were so willing to jump into a sponsorship deal for their annual game, it's only a matter of time before schools that don't have quite the high profile or big bucks scramble for their own deals.
Personally, I can't wait until Pitt and Penn State resume their football rivalry someday. By then, lucrative sponsorships for rivalry games are sure to be the norm. I can see it now: The Pitt-Penn State Sheetz 'n' 'at Showdown.
