Sony Ericsson Believes in Tennis
What the $20 million sponsorship means to you
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Contact: Liza Horan
330 Third Ave.
New York,
212-682-6829
liza@tenniswire.org
09/02/06 - By Liza Horan, Editor
New York--All of tennis lucked out in 2004 when handshakes sealed the deal for Sony Ericsson's title sponsorship of the needy women's tour. It was a successful first step in the "journey" between tennis and the electronics company, as Dee Dutta, CVP and Head of Marketing for Sony Ericsson. The latest step is a $20 million name change of the Key Biscayne, Fla., tournament from the Nasdaq-100 Open to the Sony Ericsson Open.
It's clear that tennis, as a worldwide platform to showcase its technology, is working. And this fact does more than any other single move to further everyone's goals in the tennis business because it's originating from outside our world. An independent source is identifying tennis as a major means to grow their business.
The sport's credibility as enterprise to connect with consumers through a vibrant, passionate, active and healthy way has reached a new level. This happens each time a corporate sponsor invests in a tournament or TV commercial, whether it's American Express, Continental Airlines, you name it.
So, if your job is selling pages in TENNIS Magazine, filling commercial air time for the Wimbledon broadcast, pushing sponsorships for the league nationals, gathering endorsement deals for your player clients, lobbying for more tennis products in your retail outlet, reaching for more government funding for your park program, or getting more column inches from your editor, put the $20 million sponsorship deal of the Sony Ericsson Open at the top of your list of why tennis is relevant, happening and worth it.
I wanted more evidence of why tennis is the right buy for companies extending their reach and making a statement, so I asked Dutta why the sport was the right platform--was it the fact that tennis is a worldwide sport, that it has star power, that the live action suits itself to electronic communication with fans?
Here's his answer: "When we went into our tennis partnership with the WTA which was in the start of 2005, I had three key goals. One was to extend the brand globally, and tennis is a premiere global sport that allows us to do that. Our second thing was to make sure that we captured the passion and the innovation of tennis. And the third thing was for us to be able to showcase innovation. Sony Ericsson stands for innovation. We are in the business of innovation. Therefore, the innovation has been the byword of our involvement. That's one of the things that (Sony Ericsson WTA Tour CEO) Larry Scott and I have worked very closely together to make sure that we keep this momentum of innovation that respects the spirits and values of the game.
"Having learnt all of those things over 18 months, when the team at IMG and Butch (Buchholz's) leadership came to us with the opportunity to get involved in a premiere event such as Miami, this was too good an opportunity. They have a vision about what we want to do, which is to create this "Glam Slam." IMG have great expertise in fashion and in entertainment, and Sony and Sony Ericsson have a good understanding of music and the whole entertainment arena. To bring these two companies together was a truly momentous opportunity. To do it with the tennis as the core, this was a dream come true.
"So that's why we're here today, because I believe that this was a partnership that was ready. I think we couldn't have done this maybe a year ago because we hadn't understood. We needed to learn about tennis. We needed to understand the dynamics of it, what value we can add. I believe as a sponsor we have a responsibility to the development of the sport. We have to make sure the sport under our stewardship as long as we're sponsor grows, develops; that we don't just take things out of it, we put something back into it. And if we're going to be putting something back into it, that's going to be for the positive.
"So all of those things we had to learn. Could we contribute something positively into this sport? Once we said the answer was yes and we
had the right property, we will invest. That remains my policy throughout the thing. Assuming we have the right things and we can do something with it, you know, we're not in the business of handing a check over, putting our name on it and saying, 'Goodbye, see you next year, I'll drink the champagne with you.'
"I'm more in the interest of, 'What can we do? How can we improve
the fan experience? How can we improve the viewer experience? How can we improve the player experience?'
"These three things I've been saying since my involvement with tennis, and that remains the core principals of our involvement in tennis and will be something we carry through into the Miami tournament."
Sony Ericsson has put its money where it's mouth is.
