Gridiron Bash News & PR
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SPORTS BUSINESS JOURNAL
02/11/2008 Gridiron Bash pumps up spring footballBy TERRY LEFTON
Staff writer
Published February 11, 2008 : Page 04
MSL’s Gridiron Bash, an amalgamation of spring football practice and live music at some of the nation’s top football schools, will be televised by Fox Sports Net for an hour at 9 p.m. on April 19 and 20.
Saturday night’s show, which will be in FSN’s 65 million homes, will review the parties surrounding the spring football practices. Sunday night’s show will offer recruiting highlights and recaps of the spring games. The shows will originate from the Big Ten Network studios in Chicago, which also will carry the programming.
An MSL official described the business arrangement with FSN as a revenue split with shared production costs.
The fledgling event-marketing play hopes to make the spring football practices as popular as college basketball’s “Midnight Madness” in October. Organizers are planning to take advantage of that popularity by combining the practices with fan festivals and concerts in the football stadiums, for which it will charge $35 to $40.
“There’s always been demand from marketers to activate on college campuses because that’s where a lot of brand choices are made that stick — sometimes for life,” said Lonny Sweet, MSL’s managing director of sports and entertainment.
“We’ve also heard people for years say how much easier college marketing would be if therewere a single place to buy it — that’s what we’re offering.”
Event organizers hope to move a million people through the spring football and musical events. Participating schools include Colorado, Texas A&M, Utah, Iowa, Arizona State, Kansas State, West Virginia, Rutgers, South Carolina, Washington, Tennessee and Penn State, which drew 71,000 to last year’s spring practice. Additionally, MSL said it is finalizing deals with Maryland, Kentucky, Texas at El Paso, Auburn, Alabama and Boston College.
Musical acts booked so far are ZZ Top at Texas A&M, Fergie at Penn State, Counting Crows at Colorado, and the Goo Goo Dolls at Kansas State. Other artists participating, but not yet matched with a school, are Maroon 5, Kelly Clarkson, Dwight Yoakam, Fall Out Boy, Taylor Swift, Montgomery Gentry, Good Charlotte, O.A.R. and the Black Crowes. The schools receive guarantees to host Gridiron Bash, and a bonus if ticket sales reach certain levels.
Title sponsorship for the event has an asking price of more than a million dollars and includes ads on FSN, a large footprint within the various college festivals, along with the standard tickets and hospitality. Other sponsorships start in the mid-six figures. USA Today is an equity partner in the Bash and will be a part of the $3.5 million worth of advertising supporting the college marketing effort. MSL also hopes to create a similar program around traditional college matchups, “The Fall Rivalry Tour.”
The FSN telecasts will feature a sweepstakes that will award a scholarship to one student, which will be awarded during the Sunday show.
