by Max Marbut
Staff Writer
Next month will mark the 29th time a women’s professional tennis tournament will be played at Amelia Island Plantation. Since 1980, the event was known as the Murjani WTA Championships, Lipton WTA Championships, NutraSweet WTA Championships and Sunkist WTA Championships before Bausch & Lomb became the title sponsor in 1987. Renamed the Bausch & Lomb Championships, the tournament has become a springtime tradition for both fans and the world’s top competitors on the Sony Ericsson Women’s Tennis Association Tour.
Due to a change in legislation that prohibits the company from entertaining physicians, the contact-lens and eye care products company is ending its 22-year sponsorship of the event after this year’s tournament.
“We’re looking for a long-term alliance with a new title sponsor to help ensure the success of the event for many years to come,” said John Arrix, the tournament’s director. “Potential sponsors recognize what a unique product we have and we actually have a number of good prospects. I think the ideal title sponsor would be a company that is based in Jacksonville – or at least has a prominent presence there. In the golf and tennis worlds, local connection is very important.”
The task of landing a new title sponsor for the event has been assigned to AXIA Public Relations and Marketing. Jason Mudd, the firm’s founder and president, said while recruiting a title sponsor for an established sports event isn’t the kind of work that comes through the door every day, he and his staff are qualified to handle the challenge and excited about the opportunity.
“We actually have quite a bit of experience in sports marketing. At The Players Championship, we handled the public relations for the new Bermuda grass that was used on the course. We actually won an award for that campaign,” said Mudd. “One of our pro bono projects was to help a citizen’s group build a public skateboard park. We’ve also handled some signage agreements at Jacksonville Municipal Stadium and we worked on the Australia Day Challenge rugby match, just to name a few.”
Mudd also said he thinks sponsoring the annual women’s professional tennis tournament at Amelia Island would be a great opportunity for a locally-based company.
“There is a lot of value based on the demographics of the fans,” he said. “Surveys conducted for several years have determined the event has a very loyal audience with 33 percent of the fans attending five or more times. The audience is also 67 percent female.
“We think it would be a great fit for a financial services company because the data also indicates 87 percent of ticket buyers own or are involved in stocks, bonds or mutual funds.”
Mudd pointed out that the game is still wide open, however, and in addition to about a dozen local potential sponsors his firm has identified, he’s getting phone calls from interested companies. AXIA will be entertaining some of the prospects at the April 7 -13 tournament, “So they can get a behind-the-scenes feel for how the event could work for them,” said Mudd.
A potential title sponsor will be investing about $450,00 to put its name on the tournament and will get about $650,000 in promotional and media value, said Mudd.
“It will be a year-round campaign. In addition to the visibility at the tournament site, the sponsor also gets exposure on television, print advertising, outdoor advertising, direct mail and grass-roots promotions. And that doesn’t include the exposure value of news coverage, tickets and corporate hospitality and entertainment possibilities,” he added.
It’s a unique project and Mudd thinks it will lead to business the firm would not have otherwise secured no matter who becomes the new title sponsor of the tennis tournament.
“Revenue diversity is always a good thing. Every company we meet, even if they don’t become the title sponsor, the event will work for them in some way. We’ll develop relationships through this project that will develop in the future,” he said.