Major Sponsor Announcement Scheduled for Media Day

According to the Atlanta Dream, owner Kathy Betty will make a "major sponsor announcement" tomorrow. In attendance:

Atlanta Dream Owner Kathy Betty
Atlanta Dream President & COO Toby Wyman
Atlanta Dream Head Coach & General Manager Marynell Meadors
Representatives from major sponsor

Who knows what this means? Do we dare hope for a jersey sponsorship? "Major" can mean anything in the WNBA, but if the Dream wanted me to start salivating, it worked.

Kroger to Become Official Sponsor of Indiana Fever

According to the Associated Press.

Kroger and Pacers Sports and Entertainment made a joint announcement on Wednesday. The deal includes advertising on television, radio, print, billboards and the Internet. Kroger also has a deal with the Indiana Pacers.

And nothing was said about the Fever wearing Kroger's brand name on their jersey. It looks like three WNBA franchises - Phoenix, Los Angeles, and Indiana - should be sitting pretty.

Bass-Ackwards About The Fever

Bob Kravitz over at the Indianapolis Star can't even find anything nice to say on opening day. His article is titled "Enjoy what is probably the final Fever season.

Kravitz has his feet planted firmly in Yes-But-Land. After a few caveats - Kravitz provides plausible deniability with a few phrases about how its good for the Fever to exist - he gets to what he really wants to write about.

"If you're a decent businessman, and you're hemorrhaging money while your WNBA franchise is doing nothing to improve your bottom line, where do you cut yourbudget? For all of the franchise's good works on and off the court, the Fever is a Simon mall that can't draw shoppers. In the end, it's going to be about basic business arithmetic."

No point in clicking the link, because Kravitz clearly Didn't Do The Research. The decent businessman - Simon - is probably one of the wealthiest men in America. His screaming about the Fever is part of his extortion racket with Indianapolis - basically, he wants the same sweet deal for himself that the city granted the Colts. Simon is paying a cost of $1 a year to rent out Conseco Fieldhouse; clearly, poverty is not far from the multi-millionaire's door.

It's basically a game of "Give me want I want, or I'll show you how poor I am...I will make the horrible sacrifice of killing the Indiana Fever just to show that I mean business!" Maybe Simon should worry about the franchise that's hemorrhaging money before he worries about the one that's merely leaking it. Getting rid of the Fever to cure the Pacers is like a surgeon looking at a man stabbed in the stomach and shouting, "Nurse, I need a band aid to fix this man's paper cut stat!"

We can tell whose side the Indianapolis press is on. Poor Fever.

P. S.: Kravitz looks at the franchise sponsorships that Phoenix and Los Angeles have found. My prediction: the Fever will not find a franchise sponsor. It's not that they won't be able to find one; rather, it won't be allowed to happen because that way Simon can plead poverty more effectively.

P. P. S.: Kravitz asks with regard to suggesting a franchise sponsor for the Fever. "Can I suggest Victoria's Secret?" (My answer: "Sure, if you want to show the world you're a douchebag.") If you read the comments, the bulk of the commenters make the obvious cost-cutting suggestion - keep the Fever and get rid of Kravitz.

The Phoenix Lifelock - A Proud Tradition

Scott Ostler over at the San Francisco Chronicle brings some historic perspective with regards to the Phoenix Lifelock and Los Angeles Farmers:

"Memo to knee-jerk WNBA haters laughing at the Phoenix Mercury and L.A. Sparks for wearing a sponsor on their jerseys, instead of team-name/city: It's a grand tradition. The Detroit Pistons began in Fort Wayne, Ind., as the Zollner Pistons, named for their owner and his business. Also in the NBL, no joke, were the Akron Firestone Non-Skids, the Akron Goodyear Wingfoots and the Toledo Jim White Chevrolets."

I don't think they were laughing so much as they were terrified, like a bunch of old people yelling at the girls to Get Off Their Lawn.

The Los Angeles Farmers?

No sooner did the Phoenix Mercury become the first team in the WNBA to wear the sponsor's name on its jersey than the Los Angeles Sparks become the second team in the WNBA to do so.

The lucky business is the Farmers Insurance Group of Companies. Not bad, but as you can see, it's going to look as if the Sparks are the Los Angeles Farmers.

They will be paying more than a million a year for the naming rights. So it looks like two teams in the WNBA have their salary costs paid for at least a couple of years. As far as I'm concerned, the more the merrier.

Packers Thinking of Putting Logos on Their Jerseys

From Sports Business Daily. The article is hidden behind a paywall, but you can get the gist from the title.

I suspect that the other sports were just looking for someone to step into the limelight and take the hit before bedecking their gear with logos. That "someone" turned out to be the humble Mercury of the WNBA, with the blessings of NBA Commissioner David Stern. Yes, soccer clubs have corporate logos but American soccer doesn't have a David Stern.

Corporate logos might be the road to heaven, or the road to hell. But wherever that road leads, the first milepost of the road was in Phoenix.

Phoenix Aftermath - The Roundtable

Ben York has a good thing going. He got some of the best writers of women's basketball together at the Phoenix Mercury community at Fanster.com.

Greg Esposito (Fanster.com), Kevin Pelton (Basketball Prospectus), Quentin McCall (Rethinking Basketball), Alex Chambers (13 Teams 1 Journey), and the famous Fat Louie (Women's Sports Blog) held a round table discussion there about the new sponsorship deal between Lifelock and the Phoenix Mercury.

The conversation is here. There's some good reading there and I suggest you visit.

As it turns out, this is the second Mercury blog I'll be adding to the ol' blogroll. The other is by Phoenix Stan in his Bright Side of the Sun blog. It's a blog primarily devoted to the Phoenix Suns, but during the off-season one can expect the blog to turn its attentions to the Mercury.

Trust me. Good reading. Check it out.

Corporate Sponsorship Reaches New Heights With Mercury

Diana Taurasi and Cappie Pondexter show off their new duds.

Well, it has definitely happened. LifeLock, the intentity protection company based out of Tempe, Arizona, has just finalized a deal that is "worth at least $1 annually" with the Phoenix Mercury.

What did LifeLock get for its cash? The right to have its company logo displayed prominently on the Mercury jersey. As a matter of fact, the logo obscures the name completely, replacing the name "Phoenix" and/or "Mercury" on the front. The Mercury name has been transformed to a small insignia with a stylized "M". My understanding is that the name "Mercury" will not appear on the jersey...at least not for the next three years.

What was the reaction? WNBA fans were enthralled. As for WNBA haters, they filled the blogs out there with long, long posts about how much they hated the WNBA for doing this, and how much they were steadfastly refusing to pay any attention whatsoever to the WNBA. Sometimes they hit 1000 plus words on the subject. (Cue Gertrude, Hamlet, Act III Scene II.)

Why were WNBA fans enthralled? Simple. With the deal, the Phoenix Mercury can pay its salaries for the next three years. With niche sports threatened with the economic downturn, the survival of the Mercury is made that much more a certainty. As one blog implied, if this deal had been in place in Houston we might still be talking about the Comets chances in the Western Conference.

LifeLock thinks it will be a good deal: supposedly, women are 26 percent more likely to be identity theft victims than men, and LifeLock obviously see this move as advertising to a core demographic. (With LifeLock, I'd get the money up front, though. I'm just saying.)

I expect other WNBA teams to rapidly follow suit. Suppose you're a WNBA owner and someone wants to pay you $3 million dollars to you to wear the name of their company on their jersey. And you're going to turn it down? Are you crazy? Hell yes. Hey, if Phoenix can pull $3 million the Liberty or Sparks ought to be asking at least $5 million for the naming rights.

Furthermore, suppose you're a corporation that wants to look like they respect women and women's sports without too much effort. Hey, throw some club $3 million dollars and get your name in the paper as a Friend of All Women Everywhere. (TM)

This, however, raises the question: what are the Mercury to be called? I've always been of the opinion that someone should be called whatever they wish to be called - unless it just beggars reason (*) - but for young viewers turning to a WNBA game, they're not going to see "Phoenix" or "Mercury" anywhere on the court. All they will see is "LifeLock".

I'll still be calling the team the Mercury in the blog. However, we might see a trend to calling WNBA teams by their city names (Phoenix, Atlanta, et. al.) or by the combination names known in Europe - LifeLock Phoenix, for example. Of course, English football clubs are given nicknames despite the fact that none of them have true "mascot" based names. Arsenal is still called by its fans "The Gunners" even though "Gunners" is nowhere in the club's official name. I suspect that even if there's no trace of Mercury left in the Phoenix uniform, and even if the WNBA abandons club names completely, they'll always be known as the Mercury. But in the meantime...Go LifeLock!

UPDATE: That's a fast update. Guess who might be next with the sponsorship thing? The Liberty.


(*) - There was an episode of the Simpsons where Homer asked someone to "Call me Pope Homer" and the response was "I'm sorry...I just can't."

The LifeLock Mercury?

With WNBA fans going nuts trying to figure out the major announcement coming from both NBA Commissioner David Stern and WNBA President Donna Orender on Monday at 9 am regarding the Phoenix Mercury, longtime WNBA fan pilight has discovered a major clue.

First, note that the Phoenix site is on "lock down". Look at the locking device which you can see at the website:



It sort of looks like a little person with a head and legs, doesn't it. Now, look at the following unnamed corporate logo:



BINGO. We have a match. (*)


So which corporation does the person-lock logo belong to? It belongs to a company callled LifeLock. LifeLock has a sort of bumpy history, but they're in their fourth year of existence. They are based in Tempe, Arizona.

Bleacher Report has already posted the LifeLock connection.

My conclusion: LifeLock is going to be involved with the Phoenix Mercury in a "game changing" way, one so big that it's beyond the ordinary story of a corporate entity acquiring a company. My most recent guess is that the Phoenix Mercury will either:

a) be the first WNBA team to have its name changed to that of the sponsor, to be officially known as the LifeLock Phoenix Mercury or some variation thereof, or
b) be the first WNBA team to wear the sponsor's logo on its journey, or
c) possibly both.

My guess is "c". This is something that is done in Europe all the time - all of the teams there are sponsored by corporations, and wearing corporate logos on the jersey is simply a given. The name of the team usually reflects the corporate name.

Undoubtedly, David Stern is there to give his official and public blessing to this project, as a way of telling potential sponsors, "I, David Stern, approve of this direction." ("And, if you want to sponsor an NBA team, please bring a truckful of money with you. Gracias.")

If this happens, the Pleasant Dreams blog will give its blessing as well. If Lifelock is going to help out the Mercury, I'm going to help out Lifelock. I'll call the team the "Lifelock Mercury" or somesuch. Corporate sponsors who want to sponsor the Pleasant Dreams blog know where to write.



(*) Either that, or the graphic designer for the Mercury's lockdown page is horribly lazy and is just grabbing logos and recycling them. In which case she might be looking for a new job soon. According to other sources, the Suns/Mercury web design team is very competent, so I only give a 1 % chance of this being the explanation.

WNBA Loses Credit Card Sponsor

From the She's a Baller blog:

The WNBA lost one of its biggest sponsors in Discover Financial Services, as the credit card company opted not to renew with the league after its three-year agreement expired this spring.

Discover’s departure comes as little surprise given the economic pressures on the financial services industry, but it leaves the WNBA without one of its most active partners.

Tough times all over. The WNBA picked up Hewlett-Packard and Starwood Hotels. Nike and 1-800-Flowers have renewed, according to the article. However, there's just less money to go around in sports in general, and the credit industry is particularly hard hit.

NBA Tix Sales Flat; WNBA Considering Corporate Logos

She's the Real Thing!

At the Sports Business Journal (paysite), there is an article about how basketball has been able to keep its revenue flat, usually by deep discounting of tickets.

Even though six of the thirteen WNBA clubs are independently owned from the NBA, both detractors and well-wishers look to the health of the NBA for a sense of the health of the WNBA.

Part of the reason that sales are good is because most of the NBA's sales were made before the recession hit. If the recession continues into 2010, we'll soon learn whether the experience of seeing an NBA game is enough to get teams to dig down into their wallets.

The biggest gains at the gate:

New Orleans Hornets: 20.3 percent
Indiana Pacers: 17.5 percent
Philadephia 76ers: 7.0 percent

The biggest drops at the gate:

Sacramento Monarchs: 10.2 percent
Washington Wizards: 7.8 percent
Miami Heat: 6.4 percent

Teams in bold are in cities that also have WNBA franchises. Oddly enough, Washington is probably one of the healthiest WNBA franchises around. The Mystics backers have a lot of money and are willing to spend it. Furthermore, the WNBA team that is on the watch list is the one in Indianapolis. It's not that the Simons don't have money, but its that they're complaining about leaving Indiana unless Indianapolis gives them the same kind of sweetheart deal that the city gave the Colts - and it looks like the Fever is simply hostage to the negotiations.

On News Google, one can only read a sentence or two of articles behind the "pay wall" at Sports Business News - the disappointment comes when you click the link and all you get is a sales pitch. This was one sentence from such a "for-pay" article at SBN:

Now we hear the WNBA is shopping a deal (or deals) under which corporate logos would be sold on the league's game uniforms. The WNBA has not sold such a ...

Frankly, I'm not shaking in my boots. European player uniforms are bedecked with corporate sponsorship. If wearing Coca-Cola's logo keeps the Dream in Atlanta for a few more years, well, "Things go better with Coke!"

UPDATE: The ever-resourceful RebKellians found a free link to the article quoted above. The consensus at RebKell is approval if it ever comes to selling logos on uniforms; I concur.