VIZIO Guaranteed Millions In Advertising Value As Naming Partner For Rose Bowl, BCS Championship

   

             Patrick Rishe, Contributor

I cover the economics of the sports industry.

Business        1/06/2014 @ 9:53PM

VIZIO is the beauty-of-the-ball in terms of sponsorship and advertising value earned from this college football bowl season.

VIZIO sponsored both the Rose Bowl on January 1st, as well as Monday night’s final BCS National Championship game.  If their recent sponsorship engagements are any indication, they will at the very least boost their visibility and brand awareness.

Based on data from ImageTrack:

– The average sponsorship value received by corporations sponsoring the national championship games from 2011 and 2012 was $25.6 million, while the average advertising value for the same period was $93.5 million.  Tostitos sponsored the 2011 game while Allstate sponsored in 2012.

– The average sponsorship value received by VIZIO from sponsoring the Rose Bowl in 2011 and 2012 was $14.4 million, while the average advertising value for the same period was $54.5 million.

In short, if averages hold true for this year’s games, then VIZIO could collectively capture over $40 million in sponsorship value and over $145 million in advertising value.

Of course, these values are influenced by the ratings.  Whereas the Michigan State-Stanford Rose Bowl Nielsen rating was 17% higher than the 2013 game, the ratings for tonight’s Auburn-Florida State clash might fall below recent games if the general demand to watch the game are in line with the lower secondary market demand for tickets that yielded some of the lowest secondary prices in years.

Of course, the ultimate question is whether VIZIO has actually converted all this marketing value into greater sales?  VIZIO did rank first in U.S. LCD TV unit volume market share for the fourth quarter of 2013.  But their innovative success has had them at the top well before now.

Regardless, their success has allowed the company to comfortably afford to occupy a very visible space on the sport sponsorship landscape.

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Patrick is an Economics Professor at the George Herbert Walker School of Business and Technology at Webster University in St Louis, MO, and the Founder/Director of Sportsimpacts.  Follow him on Twitter.