Baseball Sponsors Eyeing the Exits

With strike-wary baseball fans threatening to desert the game, can advertisers and corporate sponsors be far behind?

The grand old game may soon find out, if preliminary television ratings and comments from some of its richest supporters are any indication.

One day after the Major League Players Assn. angered fans from coast to coast by setting an Aug. 30 strike date, Fox Saturday Baseball lost 33% of its television audience Aug. 17.

Although not all the loss could be attributed to fan ire, viewership plummeted to 3 million from 4.2 million the week before.

Some of the game’s corporate sponsors are feeling restless as well, wondering how committed they should be to a sport that is on the verge of its ninth work stoppage since 1972.

“Frankly, the senior vice president of advertising and marketing told me there would be reluctance to renew” in the future, said Kay Jackson, director of public relations for RadioShack Corp.

The Fort Worth-based electronics giant is one of 18 firms that paid a collective $170 million to the league last year for the right to use baseball trademarks and intellectual property in national marketing campaigns.

For some sponsors, their fees pay for advertising time on national baseball telecasts.

Other companies, such as Miller Brewing Co., which fork over money for stadium-naming rights and form their own alliances with individual teams, also may reevaluate their ties if players stay off the field, said Marc Spiegel, sport marketing public relations manager for Miller.

Miller’s name is on the new stadium in Milwaukee, and it sells beer and has signage in 10 other parks, he said. That promotional real estate won’t be as valuable if nobody shows up, or if fans are so upset that they stay away after labor peace is restored.

“In terms of new agreements or extending agreements with Major League Baseball teams, there will be a period that companies will want to see what kind of impact there was from the strike,” Spiegel said. “You know, from reading things and listening to people, I think there’s a big question mark as to how the game would ... I don’t know if ‘recover’ is the appropriate word. Will people continue to come back to the stadium? A lot of people are saying they will not return.”

Dean Bonham, chief executive of the Bonham Group, a Denver-based sports marketing firm that has negotiated $800 million in sponsorship agreements for corporate clients, said baseball’s lingering labor woes make it less attractive to corporations looking to put their name on stadiums and their executives in luxury suites.

“There’s so much animosity and negative image associated with baseball today, the value of sponsorship ... is less than the value you could get investing in other sports,” Bonham said.

If the strike happens, Bonham said, he expects it to be a long one and that it will take years before fan attendance comes back to 2002 levels.

He also predicts that corporate sponsorships, which often include the use of luxury suites or premium seating, will fall off because going first-class to the ballpark will be less of a treat.

“The psychology doesn’t work if you take them to a virtually empty ballpark,” Bonham said.

For now, sponsors such as Miller are thinking about shifting their advertising dollars to football telecasts if baseball goes on strike.

RadioShack and PepsiCo Inc., both leaguewide sponsors whose contracts give them refunds or other compensation for strike-canceled baseball games, say they are eyeing other sports. But they may be too late.

Both Fox and CBS executives report more than 85% of commercial time for pigskin telecasts is sold, leaving little inventory left.

Advertising executives at Walt Disney Co.’s ABC network and ESPN cable channels declined to comment on whether advertisers were trying to shift their money.

“If such a scenario happens, then we will take the appropriate steps to protect our advertising clients,” said Alison Lazar, spokeswoman for ESPN’s national advertising sales.

A spokesman for baseball sponsor Viagra, the virility drug, couldn’t say whether it would redirect its advertising dollars to other sports. But he said the brand would refrain from running its ads featuring Texas Ranger star Rafael Palmeiro.

“If they’re not playing baseball, it just doesn’t seem appropriate to run them,” said Geoffrey Cook, spokesman for the Pfizer Inc. drug.

Perhaps most affected by any strike would be MasterCard International, a longtime baseball sponsor that has spent lavishly on a baseball promotion that asks fans to vote for the game’s most memorable moments.

Fans are being asked to choose among 30 moments, with their top 10--and ultimately their penultimate selection--to be announced before the fourth game of the 2002 World Series.

And as part of the sweepstakes promotion, selected cardholders will be given a “once-in-a-lifetime” opportunity to share in the celebration at the championship game.

Now that there may not be a World Series, said Bob Cramer, MasterCard’s vice president for global sponsorship, contingency plans are being developed to reward winning cardholders and announce the sport’s most memorable moments--during the strike.

Still, Cramer said he’s optimistic that the threat of a strike will disappear and MasterCard won’t have to use Plan B. “We have a couple of options we’re preparing, [but] we’re not banking on it,” he said.