On top of your game

Happy New Year!

I am sure I am not the only person who is ready for New Year’s Day this year. At the end of 2008, I wrote in this very blog about what an incredible year it had been for SportsMark as an agency and for the country in general. During 2009, however, the effects of the economy landed with a full head of steam and hit all businesses, all over the world, with a recession for the ages. Sports and entertainment, two industries that many had heralded as being able to withstand the worst of economies, felt it as badly as everyone else…which was a sobering reality to many of us, clients and agencies alike, who have practiced our trade for so long in the sports and entertainment marketing world.

The first half of 2009 was marked with daily doses of bad news and grim corporate earnings, and the effects were directly felt in marketing sectors like sponsorship and hospitality. But those of us who remained patient were able to weather the storm and, in the past quarter, participate in a slow and gradual uptick in both corporate attitude toward the economy, and increased marketing budgets. As we end 2009, there is no doubt that there is a much more positive mindset and vastly increased sports and event marketing activity as we head into 2010.

I think much of this definitely correlates to the market rebound (up 40+% in the past six months), gradually improved company earnings, and greater corporate confidence in 2010 as a true recovery year. So all of that bodes well for the sponsorship and event marketing industry and our business—and it doesn’t hurt that we have both a Winter Olympics and FIFA World Cup™ this year.

2009 was definitely a challenging year for us as well, and no industry came out unscathed. But we came out of this year in much better shape than many companies, and the rationale for that is pretty simple. We have a world-class group of fantastic clients and a strong, well defined agency culture that--in combination--helped us remain profitable this year.

And while 2009 now thankfully heads into our rear view mirror, we have a lot to do and a great deal of opportunity ahead of us in 2010! This is the kind of year that sports fans (and sports marketing executives) dream of, and SportsMark will be running and managing sponsorship, event and hospitality programs at some of the biggest and best sports events of the year, including:

• Super Bowl XLIV in Miami
• Vancouver 2010 Olympic Winter Games
• The NCAA Men’s Basketball Tournament and Men’s & Women’s Final Fours in Indianapolis and San Antonio
• The Masters
• The Kentucky Derby
• The US Open at Pebble Beach
• 2010 FIFA World Cup South Africa™

And those represent just the first six months of the year! So you can see (and probably feel) the excitement that we have here at SportsMark, as we enter into what should be an incredible and prosperous 2010 for us and our great roster of clients.

Speaking of which, on behalf of Steve Skubic and our employees around the world, we would like to thank all of our spectacular clients and wish them great success in 2010. Without our clients we wouldn’t be the agency we are, and we are very grateful to work with some of the very best brands and sports properties in the world. (You can review our client list on the “Our Clients” section of our website.)

For those of you who have taken the time to read this, thank you for your time and support, and from all of us at SportsMark, all the best to you in 2010. Let’s get on with it, because we’re ready!!

Keith