Giving charity is apparently the way to retired tennis great Andre Agassi’s heart. He left Nike eight years ago after a 17-year relationship to join the folks at Adidas, partially because the company was willing to put more financial oomph into Agassi’s foundation than Nike was.

But it looks like the tide has turned back in Nike’s favor and is shooting Agassi back into the spotlight. The company announced Monday that the 43-year-old Agassi is back in the fold, Yahoo! Sports reports, and Agassi celebrated the event by posting an image of himself under a huge Nike swoosh with the caption “Back Home” on his Facebook page—a bit of a dig to nearly 8-year sponsor Adidas.Continue reading...

The 2013 Masters Golf Tournament—one of the few golf tourneys that the world outside of the golf community actually cares about—kicked off Thursday morning as brands watch helplessly, hoping and praying that one of thier golfers is the one pulling on the famed green jacket by weekend's end. 

As Forbes points out, last year’s winner, Bubba Watson, wasn’t a big name outside of the golf world before the Masters got underway last year. Though by the end of the tournament, his main sponsor, Ping, had generated $14.2 million in media value, according to brand analyst and research firm Repucon. That's triple what the next brand, TaylorMade, got out with at $4.5 million. 

The reason the numbers vary so much is because he Masters only allows four minutes of commercials each hour and limits the amount of branding on the course so the majority of brand exposure comes from the golfers themselves and whatever airtime they get. That means sponsors of the world’s top-ranked golfers—Tiger Woods, Rory McIlroy and Justin Rose— along with such big names as Phil Mickelson (No. 9) and Watson (No. 14) will be enjoying the sight of their products far more than those who supply gear to Richard Sterne (No. 49). Unless, of course, Sterne pulls out the game of his life and ends up in or near the winner's circle.Continue reading...

Professional sports teams have such cachet with a certain block of the public that pretty much anything they do can find sponsorship. Aon and Manchester United just signed a sponsorship deal that has the British multinational risk-management, insurance and consulting company putting its name on the team’s training facilities for the next eight years.

Along with that, Aon’s name will also grace the training shirts of the ManU players and be attached to any of the team’s pre-season tours during the next eight seasons, such as “Tour 2013 presented by Aon in Asia Pacific.” If that weren’t enough, Manchester United’s business network will also use Aon for its “talent development, health, risk management, retirement and data & analytics.”Continue reading...

Beyoncé is beyond busy. Following her Pepsi-sponsored Super Bowl halftime show, she presented an award at the Grammys with Ellen Degeneres, she's the cover girl for the March issue of Vogue, she did an interview with Oprah Winfrey and her documentary aired on HBO, not to mention that her "Mrs. Carter World Tour" is almost upon us, kicking off in Belgrade in April and reaching the U.S. in late June. 

The star posted a Warhol-inspired ad to her Facebook page (which has over 43 million likes!) and can be seen striking three poses, highlighting her much-talked about new bleached blonde hair. The caption, in a nod to her soda sponsor's "Live for Now" tagline and the 60's inspiration: "Pop Art inspires me to Live for NOW."

In another made-for-social promo image, Pepsi's $50 million girl channels Monroe and Bardot, clad in a pair of teeny shorts and a tight-fitting white turtleneck. The ads, which promote her upcoming Pepsi-sponsored tour have come under some fire for portraying the vocal star with a visibly fairer complexion.Continue reading...

Back at the start of the year, when consumers were asked what brands popped to mind when they thought of the Olympics, Nike was the number-one answer. Of course, it didn’t matter that Nike wasn’t actually an official sponsor of the event, but why quibble with such trivial details? In fact, Nike did a good job keeping attention on them during the Games themselves with the brilliant pushing-the-rules ad “Find Your Greatness.”

The point is, brands can shell out truckloads of cash to be involved in and event organizers can employ hundreds of “brand police” to ensure their paid sponsors aren’t getting screwed, but that doesn’t mean that when the Olympics end, people aren’t left saying, “I really should drink Coke more often!” or “Wouldn’t it be great to have a little more Panasonic around the house?”

YouGov BrandIndex, a daily consumer perception research service of brands, insists that only two of the partners for London 2012 “broke through in any significant way in consumer perception while a few had “very modest or no significant movement” or even “went backwards,” according to a company release. Continue reading...

If there is one thing a soccer fan likes to have at the match, it’s a beer. And if there’s one thing that big-event organizers love to have, it's major corporate sponsorship.

The former is what led FIFA to inform the next two countries scheduled to hold the men’s World Cup to “drop restrictions on beer sales in stadiums,” according to the Los Angeles Times.

"Alcoholic drinks are part of the FIFA World Cup, so we're going to have them. Excuse me if I sound a bit arrogant but that's something we won't negotiate," FIFA General Secretary Jerome Valcke commented at a press conference in Brazil, the BBC reports.Continue reading...

President Obama's decision to work his jobs speech on Thursday around the schedule of the National Football League's opening day shows that he's still got some keen political instincts. Because this week, in this economy, the NFL seems to be the one thing you don't want to mess with.

Brand marketers seem to have forgiven the uncetainties sown by the league's four-month labor stoppage and are ready to jump back on an advertising bandwagon that has outrun every other marketing vehicle over the last three years.

Certainly PepsiCo is the prime example: Today, the beverage giant and the NFL announced a 10-year extension of their current agreement to go into effect next year. According to the Wall Street Journal, the extension could be valued as a $2.3-billion investment in the continued marketing appeal of America's real pastime.

It's one of the largest sponsorship deals ever in sports and ensures that PepsiCo brands Pepsi, Gatorade, Frito-Lay, and others will be official marketing partners of the league at a cost of nearly $100 million a year.Continue reading...

The Florida Marlins have only existed since 1993, but in that time, their stadium has essentially had five different names: Joe Robbie Stadium, Pro Player Stadium, Dolphins Stadium, Land Shark Stadium, and Sun Life Stadium.

Now the team is moving to a new stadium when next season gets underway (and taking on the name Miami Marlins name as well).

The new ballpark is close to getting a naming-rights deal, according to the South Florida Sun-Sentinel.Continue reading...