Who's No. 2? Bet on the Whitecaps to beat out the Lions
By Lowell Ullrich, The Province March 17, 2011
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The reintroduction of the Vancouver Whitecaps has almost been textbook material. Textbook marketing. Textbook Vancouver. So far, they’ve been hard to miss despite having not yet played a Major League Soccer game.
They have dressed the statues at Morton Park near English Bay with jerseys bearing the logo of corporate sponsor which has given them life. Another uniform draped the statue of Gassy Jack Deighton at Maple Leaf Square.
Most symbolically perhaps, a Whitecaps scarf was wrapped around one of the lions on the Lions Gate Bridge, and may represent the biggest battle on the city’s sporting landscape in the last decade. That scarf wasn’t choking the lion. To the B.C. Lions, it just might only have looked that way.
There will undoubtedly be a Roberto Luongo jersey at the foot of the bridge when the NHL playoffs again roll around, signifying the overwhelming presence of the Vancouver Canucks. With a franchise valued at $262 million by Forbes magazine and reported profits of $70 million the last four years, the Canucks are the unquestioned leader.
But who is number two? Whether the Whitecaps or football’s Lions are the second-biggest sports show in town is being waged in corporate boardrooms across town and North America, though experts say the game is already over even before the MLS team makes its debut against Toronto FC at Empire Field.
“When the ball kicks off Saturday, the Whitecaps will automatically become the second-biggest sports property in the city simply on the basis of business valuation,” said Vancouver marketing consultant Tom Mayenknecht.
The fight for corporate cash is being waged by executives who had little to do with their respective teams just over a year ago.
Paul Barber, a former marketing head who helped grow Tottenham Hotspur into a $250 million business, parlayed a $4 million sponsorship with Bell Canada into two more founding partnerships for the Caps as their new chief executive officer. Those deals are each worth four times more than the five $250,000 premier deals sold by the Lions, insiders say.
Dennis Skulsky left Canwest Publishing, a $400 million operation before it went into receivership, with a mandate from owner David Braley to grow the business side of the Lions, whose franchise valuation is roughly one-third of the $35 million expansion fee paid by the Whitecaps.
“We’re having a terrific year already,” said Braley, who now competes for sponsor dollars here and in Toronto but no stranger to soccer, having once rescued the Vancouver 86ers. “Let’s hope [the Whitecaps] are successful. It’s not going to cause us to fail.”
Both teams feel there is a big enough fan base to support themselves and note they are partners in a pouring rights sponsorship at B.C. Place Stadium.
But both are going about the battle for corporate support in different ways, and there can be little doubt that so far the Whitecaps are winners.
The Bell deal has resulted in a countdown media campaign which has been as well-produced as anything seen in the city the since launch of the NBA’s Vancouver Grizzlies.
Not every move was met positively. The club this week fielded a note of concern from its $4 million sponsor over a video of a body-painted soccer model on the Caps website.
But the Bell deal, Barber said, positioned the Whitecaps into a reported $1 million partnership with EA Sports. The Burnaby-based gaming giant has been a sponsor the CFL has been chasing for years. Instead, among the national deals signed by the CFL is with Tim Hortons, worth $500,000 annually split among eight teams. The MLS is ahead simply on the strength of bigger numbers.
“[Bell] was a serendipitous sell,” Barber said. “They wanted something to continue in western Canada after the Olympics and they knew how potentially big soccer is with the community. Great brands breed great brands. Not to sound arrogant, but we’ve got to a point where we’re having to work through the number of partners rather than looking for them.”
But though Skulsky said CFL teams are a long way from giving in to selling their corporate soul on a uniform deal, the Lions remain positioned to withstand the return of soccer, having weathered a similar storm in 1974 when the Whitecaps joined the North American Soccer League (see chart). A larger balance sheet is not a guarantee of success.
“There’s room for all of us,” said Skulsky, who joined the Lions in May. “The most pleasant surprise for us is the strength of the brand. We continue building off a base that’s got stability. You’re going to find some [soccer and football] fans where there’s crossover. But sports is one of those things where you have to connect emotionally and if you do that you will be successful.”
In addition to several solid community-based programs, the Lions are also far ahead attracting sponsor interest through TV ratings and their business advisory group, the Waterboys, also gives them an ear to the ground locally.
“How the Lions hold their ground will depend on the leverage they get out of hosting the Grey Cup this year,” said Mayenknecht. Host of a Saturday sports business radio show on Team 1040, Mayenknecht knows both ends of the local market well. He helped launch the Grizzlies marketing as a vice-president and also tried to resurrect a National Lacrosse League franchise.
“The Lions have smaller revenue streams but they have familiarity, tradition and a very strong league,” Mayenknecht said. “There is no question the Whitecaps will not just survive, they will flourish. The real key, and I can’t stress this enough, is how they connect with the soccer community.”
Despite the silky-smooth marketing, not enough of the soccer community has responded to make the Saturday opener a true sellout of 27,500 seats for the Whitecaps, but Barber maintained the club has purposely held back tickets.
A mini-pack season ticket campaign is about to be launched, he said, and playing to a smaller audience fits in with a league business philosophy of looking good for the cameras.
“Supply and demand is carefully balanced in any business,” Barber said. “If there’s too much supply then demand sometimes doesn’t correlate. If you sell out too quickly you limit the ability for people to sample your product.”
Whether the Whitecaps can survive by tapping into a widening ethnic base won’t likely be known for a year or two, or at least until the mainstream paying customer can identify more than a handful of players on the team.
Barber says the Whitecaps will begin slowly though, perhaps realizing the dire on-field forecasts for the expansion side may prove to be true. There will be no running for cover from supporters groups, he said. Email addresses of club executives will be front and centre in the game program Saturday.
“The challenge [at Tottenham] was that there was a real danger of losing touch with the community. We don’t want to appear closed,” said Barber. “We don’t sell cel phones. We don’t sell cars. We sell soccer.”
And if they have to drape a team scarf around iconic city landmarks which also serve as the nickname for a competitor, they’ll do it one fan at a time.
“I go to the same local Starbucks and one day the lady behind the counter says, ‘I saw you on the news; you’re the Whitecaps guy ... and you look so much older in the flesh’,” joked Barber.
“But the fact you’re recognized for what we’re here for is enough for me. She knew the brand. Our work has been about the front office; getting the city excited. Now we flick a switch.” Let the corporate games begin.
lullrich@theprovince.com
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