Sports Business Network
Headline Central December 25, 2003

"It would appear corporate America can't get enough of the bowls. As the NFL regular season winds down, the college football bowl season takes center stage -- a record-setting 28 games beginning with the New Orleans Bowl last week, expanding in earnest with the Mazda Tangerine Bowl on Dec. 22, and ending 20 days after it begins with the Nokia Sugar Bowl to crown the BCS national champion. The business facts have remained fairly constant over the past three years:

The 28 bowls have a record collective payout of over $202 million. 

Thirteen of the "niche bowls" pay less than $1 million to their respective schools (though above the NCAA mandated minimum of $750,000); 11 bowls pay between $1 million and $2 million; the SBC Cotton Bowl pays $3 million; the Capital One Bowl pays $5.1 million per team; the four BCS bowls pay $14 million-$17 million to the eight participating schools and their respective conferences. 

The year marks a period of relative corporate sponsor stability. Twenty-one of the bowls have corporate names attached. New sponsors such as Gaylord Hotels (Music City Bowl), PlainsCapital (Ft. Worth Bowl), EV1.net (Houston Bowl), and Sheraton (Hawaii Bowl) have been added to the corporate roster.
 
Only the Humanitarian Bowl (the bowl with the unique Jan. 3 niche and a minimal $750,000 payout) and the Rose Bowl remain without corporate affiliations.
 
Four sponsors have effectively taken over the brand of their respective bowls: GMAC, Insight.com, Continental Tire, and Outback. 

Four bowls receive substantial money from the tourist industry and public sector in exchange for public naming rights: New Orleans Bowl; Las Vegas Bowl; Motor City Bowl; Silicon Valley Bowl. 

The categories of "Corporate America bowl naming" break down like this:

The finance category leads the way with seven bowls:
PlainsCapital Ft. Worth Bowl 
MasterCard Alamo Bowl 
Wells Fargo Sun Bowl 
Pacific Life Holiday Bowl 
AXA Liberty Bowl 
MainStay Independence Bowl 
Capital One Bowl 

The car category is close behind with four sponsors:
Mazda Tangerine Bowl 
Toyota Gatorade Bowl 
GMAC Bowl 
Continental Tire Bowl 

The food category is next with four:
Diamond Walnut San Francisco Bowl 
Chick-Fil-A Peach Bowl 
Tostitos Fiesta Bowl 
Outback Bowl 

The phone and service industry category is next with three:
SBC Cotton Bowl 
Nokia Sugar Bowl 
FedEx Orange Bowl 

The high-tech industry has reduced its commitment substantially over the past five years, with two bowls remaining:
EV1.net Houston Bowl 
Insight.com Bowl (Phoenix)

 Thankfully for cynics and pundits, Poulan Weedeater remains on the outside looking in after a glorious run as sponsor of the Independence Bowl. Diamond Walnut is hanging in there with its San Francisco Bowl sponsorship, earning the title as the bowl with the most bizarre name.

The 28 bowls with 56 teams invite mediocrity, at least statistically. Four teams have six losses; 10 bowl qualifying teams have 5 losses; and the combined record of all bowl participants is 482-200 (the 200 losses being the most in recent memory).

Clearly, the 21 sponsored games demonstrate that Corporate America can be happy with various levels of investment in their respective bowls. Joyce Julius & Associates research reveals that the recall of bowl titles is one of the most successful corporate investments through a sports calendar year.

In addition, the local and national exposure over the period leading up to the bowl is substantial for Corporate America as well. The Chick-Fil-A Peach Bowl, for example, earned $2.6 million in exposure last year, up 250 percent from two years before.

The SBC Cotton Bowl had $22.8 million in exposure, up from $6.5 million in 2002.

At the other end of the scale, Tostitos enjoyed $76.6 million worth of exposure in last year's Fiesta Bowl, compared to $27.4 million three years ago (and easily justifying its six-year, $30 million deal as bowl sponsor).

Specific case studies seem to prove this trend as well. MasterCard took over for Sylvania as the title sponsor of the Alamo Bowl, with a three-year deal estimated at $1.5 million per year. Texas-based financial services company PlainsCapital signed a two-year deal to launch the inaugural Ft. Worth Bowl this year. This last week, Auto Zone signed a multiyear deal to become title sponsor of the Liberty Bowl, committing approximately $1 million annually beginning next year
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On the other hand, MainStay declined its option on the fourth year of its agreement, meaning that the Dec. 31 Independence Bowl will be the sponsor's last (maybe Poulan Weedeater will be back after all). Sega Sports exercised its option to void the final year of its three-year contract to sponsor the Las Vegas Bowl this year, though bowl organizers seem optimistic about finding a replacement. While "sponsorship musical chairs" is not as prolific as with naming golf tournaments, the branding of college bowls becomes a significant chore for sports marketers.

Games like the Outback Bowl and GMAC Bowl have "sold their branding soul" in order to generate substantial income. Obviously, bowl organizers seek the longest-term deal with the least intrusion on their history and tradition; corporate marketing directors attempt to leverage their situation into a larger involvement.

Overall, Corporate America seems happy, and the business is destined to stay that way unless or until there is a major BCS-driven shakeup from above before 2006.

Of the 21 games that existed in both 2001 and last year, 14 saw ratings declines. Bowls like the Silicon Valley Bowl (down 42.9 percent), Motor City Bowl (down 40.6 percent), and the Music City Bowl (down 28.1 percent) were hit significantly, though bowl organizers are especially sensitive to honoring their conference tie-ins this time around.

Obviously, team payouts are almost directly related to the nature of the television commitment, and bowl organizers covet the long-term stability that ESPN and ABC seem to create. That family of networks televises all but two of the 28-bowl roster (with CBS televising the Sun Bowl and Fox televising the Cotton Bowl). Corporate researchers agree that bowl games provide a unique opportunity to reach the high demographic viewer.

According to Scarborough Research, adult bowl game viewers are 14 percent more likely than the general public to buy a car, 33 percent more likely to have mutual funds, 28 percent more likely to have a money market account, and 20 percent more likely to do online banking. As long as this trend continues, even relatively insignificant TV ratings by normal standards would very well satisfy most bowl organizers.

Many cynics argue that these bowls serve little useful purpose. They note that attendance has decreased across the board; the Alamo Bowl attendance dropped 22.3 percent; Silicon Valley Classic down 66.7 percent; New Orleans Bowl down 29.6 percent; the Houston Bowl down 16.4 percent; and the Tangerine Bowl down 24.1 percent.

More to the point, however, realists understand that the "niche bowls" serve an incredibly useful purpose for smaller conferences and non-BCS teams (especially in fundraising, team morale, and other intangibles)
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As long as the ratings are arguably stable, look for ESPN Regional Television to continue to take equity interests in staging more and more bowl games (they operate the Las Vegas Bowl, Sheraton Hawaii Bowl, and PlainsCapital Ft. Worth Bowl now). Also look for Corporate America to continue the broad level of sponsorships, after the inevitable individual "sponsorship musical chairs" continue over time.

Most important, as the Dec. 31 Diamond Walnut San Francisco Bowl ushers in the New Year on the East Coast, the wacky bowl season proves once again that Corporate America is a critical underpinning in the business of sports.