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Rays

Seeking partners, and making deals

By LOUIS HAU
Published January 29, 2006

Tropicana, Pepsi Bottling Group, Progress Energy Florida and the St. Petersburg Times are among the Tampa Bay Devil Rays' biggest sponsors.

All signed multiyear deals with the Rays that include broadcast ads or ballpark signs that appear to be priced far above corresponding market rates, which have fallen in line with the team's declining fortunes. Rays vice president and chief sales officer Mark Fernandez downplayed the importance of the numbers, saying they were part of "incomplete worksheets" that don't include all the elements of a sponsor's agreement with the Rays.

"I haven't looked at anything and thought, "Oh my God, that sponsor is paying a crazy amount of money for what they get,' " he says.

Representatives for Pepsi Bottling Group and Tropicana declined to comment on specific details of their Rays sponsorships, saying only that they remained committed to the team.

A pressing issue facing the Rays is what type of deals the team will be able to negotiate with these big-money sponsors once their current agreements expire. It is a question of particular relevance for the Times and Progress, whose pacts expire at the end of this year and next year, respectively.

The Times had a four-year deal with the Rays that expired at the end of 2001 and subsequently signed a five-year pact, which expires at the end of 2006.

Richard Reeves, vice president of advertising and marketing at the Times, observes that "you don't have people in the seats," so the exposure that the newspaper enjoys at the ballpark and on TV is less than originally hoped.

But Reeves says the Rays have proved to be flexible partners. For instance, the team allowed the Times last year to set up a booth at the Trop where fans could get their photo taken and printed on a mock front page of the newspaper. The Rays didn't charge the Times for the space.

Reeves says he expects the Times to renew with the Rays after its current sponsorship pact ends, citing the newspaper's continued interest inadvertising at major shopping malls and performancevenues in the Tampa Bay area, such as InternationalPlaza, Baywalk, Ruth Eckerd Hall and the FordAmphitheater.

"What's important to our advertisers is that weare growing our audience in the Tampa Bay area,"Reeves says. "The more you can push (the newspaper's) brand into different geographic and demographic groups, the more you're hopeful of expanding that brand."

Progress poses a different challenge. The company has historically enjoyed unusually close ties with the Rays. The utility's former chief executive Jack Critchfield was among the key figures involved in helping bring a Major League Baseball franchise to the Tampa Bay area. In addition, former Rays managing general partner Vince Naimoli is a former member of the utility's board of directors.

But it is a relationship that was inherited, not actively sought, by the utility's corporate parent, Progress Energy Inc. of Raleigh, N.C., which was formed via the 2000 merger of Carolina Power & Light and Florida Progress.

The company's sponsorship of the team was originally motivated in part by expectations that deregulation soon would enable Florida consumers to choose their electricity provider, something that never came to pass.

Three years after Progress Energy Florida changed its name from Florida Power, the company has yet to replace the outdated Florida Power name on the $1.3-million ceramic walkway it built outside Tropicana Field.

JoAnn Miller, Progress' director of brand and marketing communications, says it's too early to determine what form Progress' sponsorship of the Rays might take afterthe current agreement expires.

"We're pretty committed to this relationship," she says. "In the end, we feel like we get good value out of it."

[Last modified January 28, 2006, 01:54:03]