Sports Moguls Make a Pitch for Togetherness

In another example of how big-media markets are changing the way sports moguls court sponsors, Rupert Murdoch and Philip Anschutz have joined forces to create a marketing arm that will pitch baseball’s Dodgers, hockey’s Kings and professional soccer’s Los Angeles Galaxy--along with Dodger Stadium and soon-to-be-completed Staples Center--to corporations seeking sports sponsorship deals.

Described by its owners as an integrated sports-marketing partnership, Los Angeles-based Fox Sports One will offer what company President Kris Rone calls “one-stop shopping” for corporations that want to incorporate these sports entities into their Southern California marketing programs.

The new company “provides Fox Sports One with great economies of scale for national corporations,” said Los Angeles-based sports marketing consultant David Carter. While the professional sports teams and venues will continue to compete for fans, Carter said, Murdoch and Anschutz hope to maximize revenue by providing corporations with “streamlined access to marketing and sponsorship programs in the important L.A. market.”

In addition to his Fox Broadcasting holdings, Murdoch owns the Dodgers and is a minority owner in the new Staples Center. Anschutz is majority owner of the L.A. Kings, the L.A. Galaxy and Staples Center.

Spokesmen for the individual teams and venues say the marketing arrangement is a response to demands from corporate marketing partners who want to be more cost-effective.

“This is what companies like Anheuser-Busch and Pacific Bell want to see,” said Los Angeles Kings President Timothy J. Leiweke, who also is in charge of Staples Arena. “And, frankly, it’s also a continuing evolving of the relationship between Fox and Anschutz as well. More and more, we’ll be seeing ways for the two to work together.”

Walt Disney Co. has fostered the same kind of togetherness in Orange County, where the media and entertainment giant owns the National Hockey League Ducks and Major League Baseball’s Angels. Disney also is the major tenant at Arrowhead Pond arena and Edison International Field.

The new marketing company won’t be seamless. Staples Center--the arena that will serve as home to the Los Angeles Lakers, Clippers and Kings--already has signed most of its corporate sponsors. And, observers said, while the Kings are part of the new marketing arm, the Lakers and Clippers are free to sign their own corporate sponsors. That means it will be difficult for a corporate sponsor to strike an exclusive deal with all of Los Angeles’ sports teams and venues.

And the arrangement doesn’t include sponsorship of television broadcasts. Teams have the right to cut their own deals.

Fans also are certain to keep close tabs on Murdoch as he tries to squeeze more marketing revenue out of Dodger Stadium and its National League baseball club. Rone said she’s well aware of fans’ concerns: “Our overriding goal is to keep the integrity and aesthetics of the ballpark intact.”

Rone, who previously handled sports marketing promotions for retailing giant Target Stores, said the new entity “makes sense . . . because national corporations are looking for better ways to maximize their marketing dollars . . . . When I was with Target, I would have loved nothing more than to have a company like this come to me and say ‘Here’s the way to attack the demographic needs you have [in Los Angeles] . . . with one cohesive program.’ ”

In addition to providing big marketers with broad-based, year-round marketing opportunities, Fox Sports One also hopes to deliver specific demographic groups. The new marketing company will be able to offer package deals involving soccer’s Galaxy and baseball’s Dodgers--two teams with strong ties to Latinos.

“The words ‘integrated’ and ‘one-stop shopping’ are so over-used these days,” Rone said. “But that’s truly what it is in this case.”

The joint-marketing approach mirrors a high-powered cable broadcast arrangement at Madison Square Garden, where advertisers can negotiate with the arena to buy space on cable broadcasts for the Knicks, Rangers, Yankees, Islanders, Devils, Nets and Mets. The joint media department also sells signage inside Madison Square Garden and at Yankee Stadium.

But the bigger-is-better philosophy evident in the Los Angeles marketing deal and Madison Square Garden’s cable broadcast business isn’t going to spread around the country.

“Beyond the top 10 markets, it won’t fly,” Carter said.