A Casamigos video with George Clooney runs on the videoboard at BB&T Arena in Sunrise, Fla. (Courtesy OVG)
OVG Global Partnerships has signed Belkin, Casamigos, Hulu and Zoom for national sponsorships tied to the Arena Alliance, a group of 26 big league venues across the NBA and NHL.
The agreements, all spanning one to two years, each cover different arenas, but together reach 13 members of the alliance, said Dan Griffis, president of OVG Global Partnerships. OVG Global Partnerships is a division of Oak View Group, which owns VenuesNow.
The annual value of those individual agreements reaches from the high six figures for Belkin, Casamigos and Hulu to the mid-seven figures for videoconferencing firm Zoom, sources said, and all four deals had been activated by midseason in the NBA and NHL.
Those deals follow the massive three-year, $40 million agreement OVG signed with Walmart in 2017 covering 21 arenas. Most important, the new agreements generate revenue for arenas in Denver, Detroit, Indianapolis and San Antonio that were not part of the Walmart deal due to conflicts with existing sponsors in their markets, Griffis said.
For the most part, all five deals fit OVG’s business model for the alliance, which is to bring nontraditional sponsors into arenas to promote their products in front of a wide audience attending hockey and basketball games, concerts and family shows. Casamigos is the exception, given that it falls into the hard liquor category, but OVG’s research showed that fewer than 15 percent of alliance members had tequila sponsors that could pose potential conflicts of interest, Griffis said.
Seven arenas are part of the Casamigos agreement: TD Garden in Boston; BB&T Center in Sunrise, Fla.; Bankers Life Fieldhouse in Indianapolis; Prudential Center in Newark, N.J.; Wells Fargo Center in Philadelphia; AT&T Center in San Antonio; and Capital One Center in Washington, D.C. At those facilities, activation includes serving Casamigos tequila on the concourses and in suites and clubs, supported by marketing materials around the bars where those drinks are sold, OVG officials said.
Casamigos, a high-end tequila whose name translates to “house of friends” in Spanish, was launched in 2013 by actor George Clooney, nightclub owner Rande Gerber and real estate developer Michael Meldman. In June 2017, they sold the company to Diageo for $700 million, a sum that could increase to $1 billion pending sales over the next decade, per terms of the acquisition. Clooney, Gerber and Meldman remain involved in Casamigos, and they recently expanded business to include the brand’s first Mezcal product.
“Given the news of the sale and the fact that they were the hottest brand in the market and had exceptional leadership, it made them a good candidate to reach out to,” Griffis said. “They are scrappy and extremely creative.”
At BB&T Center, Casamigos lines up with the strategy of the NHL’s Florida Panthers to align with blue-chip brands, said Anthony Hill, the team’s director of corporate partnerships. As part of the activation at the arena, Casamigos videos run on the center-hung videoboard and on concourse television screens.
“It was perfect timing for us. It’s a well-recognized brand,” Hill said. “Any time you can get involved with George Clooney, that’s always an asset.”
OVG’s three smaller deals are tech-centric for a smaller number of arenas. Hulu’s deal extends to Moda Center in Portland and Capital One Center, where it will promote its new livestreaming package that includes sports networks and live NBA and NHL games. Activation includes in-arena signage and digital advertising, plus social media promotion.
Belkin, a 35-year-old brand that’s evolved into producing accessories for mobile devices, has a deal to supply charging stations in public and private spaces and to sell connector cables and battery packs at team stores. It’s similar to the displays Belkin sets up inside Hudson News stores, where the vendor is the airport retailer’s biggest client, said Kieran Hannon, Belkin’s chief marketing officer.
Belkin’s deal kicked off at Amalie Arena in Tampa, Fla.; Little Caesars Arena in Detroit; and Pepsi Center in Denver, and company officials expect the agreement to expand to most alliance buildings over the next 12 months, Hannon said.
“It’s such a natural match for us, very authentic,” he said. “People go to games and concerts and they enjoy capturing the moment on their phones. But there’s a tendency to lose that capability when they can’t charge their battery and keep it charged. The fans have told us it’s an unmet need.”
Zoom’s deal, which encompasses TD Garden, Chicago’s United Center, Pepsi Center and Madison Square Garden in New York City, revolves around suite hospitality in which the Silicon Valley firm can showcase its products before potential clients.
The Silicon Valley firm got into sports with local deals at Oakland's Oracle Arena and SAP Center, where the NBA’s Golden State Warriors and NHL’s San Jose Sharks respectively play, Zoom CEO David Berman said. The OVG agreements expand its presence at other arenas across the country as Zoom continues to grow and compete for business against Cisco’s WebEx and Microsoft’s Skype.
“We went with OVG, and with these volume deals, they handle it all for us,” he said. “It makes us look bigger. We don’t have the connections in these other markets.”
First-year gains: Elsewhere within OVG, four facilities showed big gains in their first year under the management of OVG Facilities, the company announced. The Kovalchick Complex, Watsco Center, Two Rivers Convention Center and the Avalon Theatre exceeded expectations by achieving recording breaking years, revamping and streamlining venue operations, and carrying out several venue improvements.
OVG Facilities took over management of the Watsco Center on the campus of the University of Miami, Coral Gables, Fla., and within the first fiscal improved revenue by 80 percent. The venue turned a profit for the first time in its 15-year history.
The Kovalchick Complex, on the campus of Indiana University of Pennsylvania in Indiana, Pa., delivered the highest net operating income in facility history, up 251 percent since the company took over management.
Two Rivers Convention Center and Avalon Theatre in Grand Junction, Colo., also increased profitability, decreased expenses and improved the guest experience, the company said.
“When we started the company, our main objective was to focus on our client's goals and objectives.” OVG Facilities’ senior vice president, Tom Paquette, said in a statement. “We take that philosophy and pair it with our experience, and it’s yielding great results.”