For a story about sponsors at Tampa Bay Lightning games, we begin aboard the TECO Line/Streetcar trolley. Hop off behind the St. Pete Times Forum, at the Household Finance station.
Take the steps up to the Chrysler-Jeep Plaza, where kids can toss a football through a hole and adults can grab a beer at Shots, a bar sponsored by TECO Energy (Run with us).
Inside the arena, grab a game program, presented by Buy Owner, and find your seat. Maybe you're in Delta's Section 120 or in the Bud Light Party Zone (122-123-124). Kane's Furniture sponsors Section 228, and 207, 208 and 209 are the Alltel Phone Zone. Coke sponsors 322, IHOP has 326, and Kraft and Publix share 312.
Not in a sponsored section? Fear not, Lightning fan, the home team and its corporate sponsors will make sure you don't feel left out. They absolutely, positively will make sure.
For the next 21/2 hours, you are their guest, and they have a ton of bills to pay.
* * *
The PA announcer welcomes everyone to tonight's game, presented by Champs Sports. HealthSouth brings the scratches and injuries, XO Communications the keys to the game. (Sorry, the high-end XO Club - featuring the Nextel Patio - does not get its name from the X's and O's of sport.)
The Lightning take the ice through a tunnel sponsored by Geico, and the team bench is sponsored by Tampa General Hospital. The visitors come through the Wachovia tunnel, their bench sponsored by Kash n' Karry and Smithfield Lean Generation pork.
The video board reviews a team fundraiser, presented by Melita.
Time for the Chrysler-Jeep starting lineups. Nextel dials up tonight's opponent. Tonight's game, the PA announcer reminds everyone, is presented by Champs Sports.
On the video board, Let's Play Hockey, brought to you by Verizon.
Game on. (Yes, between ads, they manage to get in some hockey.)
A break in the action. Welcome the Subway Ice Crew, kids who scoop up ice shavings along the boards and around the goals; visit Subway for your chance to work on the Subway Ice Crew.
The video board features the Delta fan upgrade (winner bumped from the upper deck to Delta's section in the first level), and the lucky fans in Kane's Furniture's Dream Seats.
The refs call a penalty on the visitors, the offender sent to the penalty box, sponsored by Goff Communications, Nextel and CCM. Fans, it's time for the TECO Energy power play. TECO Energy, Life Runs on Energy.
Let's go to Todd in the Alltel Phone Zone, where a fan can win Alltel T-shirts for everyone in his row. Thank you for playing Alltel's Name That Player.
On the video screen, Sunoco Shuffle Puck, a game like three card monte in which fans try to keep track of the puck bearing the hidden Lightning insignia.
The Outback Steakhouse score at the end of the first period . . .
* * *
Ask Joe Fan if he likes that everything is sponsored and he'll probably say no.
But ask if he'd rather cut sponsors and make up for it by paying more for his ticket, the answer is a bigger, fatter nooooooooo.
Sponsors, we love you.
* * *
Between periods, Outback Steakhouse presents a peewee hockey game.
The kids make way for two Zamboni ice resurfacing machines. Nextel sponsors one, Kraft and Publix the other.
Scores from around the league, courtesy of BankAtlantic, Florida's most convenient bank.
Highlights from the first period, by Melita.
Next a sponsoring triple play: a sponsor for a list of sponsored events in a sponsored arena. Bright House brings you coming events at the St. Pete Times Forum, including games presented by PowerAde and Nestle.
Another PA thank-you to Champs Sports, tonight's presenting sponsor.
Before the second period starts, a bathroom break. The urinals are sponsored by Chrysler-Jeep, Hotels.com, Craftmaster Billiard Supply, Geico, UPN 44 and Suzuki. From placement of its sign, it would appear that Flonase/GlaxoSmithKline sponsors the men's room.
* * *
Ted Moore of the Tampa sports marketing firm Moore, Epstein, Moore says teams try to avoid crossing the nebulous line where sponsor messages overshadow the event. Said Moore:
"It has not reached the point of annoyment as much as it's reached the point of acceptance."
Is anything off-limits? Each organization has its own answer.
"Our core business is selling, selling, selling," said Ron Campbell, president of the Lightning and the St. Pete Times Forum. "We're a sales and marketing organization; we just happen to play hockey and put on concerts."
When the Lightning play the Ottawa Senators tonight, more than 100 companies will get their brands in front of fan eyeballs. That's the norm across the league, said Scott Carmichael, the NHL's vice president for marketing and sales, even in Toronto, Montreal and other tradition-rich hockey areas.
Fans nowadays come to arenas expecting to be entertained, start to finish. Campbell said he's not aware of a single complaint of sponsor overkill. Sponsorships bring extras, he said, like the 10 Saturday nights the first 5,000 fans get "action figures" of Lightning stars.
Fans love the free collectibles, and sponsors PowerAde, Chick-fil-A, Nestle and Subway, among others, enjoy the thought that their brands will occupy space on many a Lightning fan's bookshelf for years to come.
Campbell said ownership hopes to sell $21-million in Lightning tickets this year and make $17-million on sponsorships, counting hockey and all other arena events.
The 30 NHL clubs put a premium on sponsorships because, according to published reports, they get just $6-million each from the league's national TV contract, compared with NFL national TV revenues of about $70-million per team.
The Tampa Bay Buccaneers' marketing director, Jeff Ajluni, said the team's owners wanted fewer sponsors (less clutter) but with "deeper, more impactful associations." He said the Bucs have only 20 Pewter Partners, the fewest sponsors in the NFL.
The Bucs' deals are exclusive, which is how Republic can present itself as the bank of the Bucs. The Lightning has deals with Colonial Bank, Wachovia and BankAtlantic, plus Harborsidemortgage.com, Eastern Financial Florida Credit Union and Tampa Bay Federal Credit Union.
Winn-Dixie is the grocery of the Bucs. At Lightning games, the Publix Zamboni resurfaces the ice while the Kash n' Karry blimp drops coupons over the crowd. (The naming rights agreement between the arena and the St. Petersburg Times, however, is exclusive.)
Has the Lightning maxed out? Is there anything that isn't sponsored?
"We have a lot of categories we haven't touched yet," Campbell said with a wink. "We should be doing a lot better than we are."
* * *
With the second period about to start, the Sony video board encourages everyone to put their hands together. Clapping fans are Hooters Rooters.
During TV timeouts, the Gold & Diamond Source Lightning Ice Girls tidy the playing surface. The video board says their skintight outfits are provided by Rochelle Renette LLC.
Time for tonight's Bolt Bio, brought to you by Lifestyle Family Fitness.
Replay, courtesy of Champs Sports.
The Centro Ybor Fan of the Game.
The Nextel Rink Race (three animated Zambonis compete on the video board).
The St. Petersburg Times presents hockey rules and strategies.
The team mascot, ThunderBug, sponsored by Nestle.
The Outback Steakhouse score at the end of the second period . . .
* * *
Mike Veeck is the Promoter for Whom (Almost) Nothing is Sacred. (Protests prompted him to cancel Vasectomy Night - winner gets snipped, gratis.)
With an ownership interest in six minor league baseball teams, including the Devil Rays' Charleston (S.C.) RiverDogs, Veeck has had mimes perform replays and staged Tonya Harding Mini-Bat Night.
To poke fun at how anything and everything is now available for sponsorship, Veeck presented We're for Sale Night in Charleston: Fans could sponsor anything in the stadium. "We sold the backs of all our stadium vendors, we sold a breath of air, a single stadium step. . . .
"There's no question it's a problem and we overdo it," Veeck said. "What we're really guilty of is we're not imaginative. If it's just the continuous assault of PA announcements, video board announcements and signage, that's what bothers people.
"If clubs can get by without thinking very hard and taking the sponsors' money, we're going to."
Last year, a fan wrote Veeck a polite but scathing letter accusing him and his ilk of ruining the game. Naturally, Veeck made a promotion of it - Complaint Night - and invited the fan to throw the ceremonial first pitch.
The fan is 53-year-old Michael Grubb, the chief administrator of a medical group in Charleston. He remembers staying home from fourth grade and listening to Bill Mazeroski's bottom-of-the-ninth home run that won Pittsburgh the 1960 World Series over the Yankees. (A World Series game on a weekday afternoon? Preposterous.)
Grubb detests that the "garbage" of sponsorships and silly promos drowns out the heavenly sounds of the game (infield chatter, ball meets bat).
"Everything is commercialized to the hilt because it's such a moneymaking endeavor, driven by the outlandish salaries the players have to have," he said. "I just don't follow professional sports anymore. There's just no point to it."
Said Veeck: "My father (owner and promoter Bill Veeck) used to tell me that for all the people that hate the cheap theatrics, if you do the game just for the purists, you'll be out of business by mid season."
Grubb said he was "devastated" when Veeck informed him that attendance for Complaint Night (a.k.a. Purist Night) came nowhere near attendance for Tonya Harding Mini-Bat Night. There you go.
* * *
Between periods at the hockey game, head to the concourse, where fans can vote in the 2004 Best Buy NHL All Star Fan Balloting, presented by PlayStation 2.
If you're still in line for concessions when the puck drops for the third period, follow the action on an in-arena TV monitor sponsored by Geico.
The third period features the Tampa General Hospital ThunderBug Baby Club; another thank-you to tonight's presenting sponsor, Champs Sports; the Moffitt Cancer Center raffle winner; the Termidor defensive play of the game (Termidor, the best defense against termites); the Absolut Vodka shot of the game.
The TECO Energy Bolt Brigade launches T-shirts into the crowd, courtesy of Sonic Courier.
The Outback Steakhouse final score . . .
Game over does not mean sponsors over. Let's hear it for the Hardee's three stars of the game, and remember, come back for Saturday's game, presented by PowerAde.
Down the stairs, a 13-foot by 51/2-foot sign covers the last wall on the way out of the arena: Taco Bell, Still Open Late.
Outside, on the Chrysler-Jeep Plaza, a slide show on the side of the city parking garage ("the Branded Wall") comes to you courtesy of the St. Petersburg Times (How do you take your Times?).
Have a pleasant evening, and please, drive safely on your way home.
- Times researcher Caryn Baird contributed to this report.
