Michael Lang is president of Lang & Associates, a Toronto-based international event marketing agency with offices in Vancouver, Montreal and Atlanta.

Kirsten Armitage is an account executive with Lang & Associates, and co-ordinator for the Event Marketing column. Contributions, ideas, media releases and feedback should be directed to Kirsten at (416) 229-0060 or fax (416) 229-1210.

It may be the dead of summer now, but autumn leaves are soon to be falling and hundreds of thousands of university students are making plans to return to their studies.

Athletes are preparing for another year of intercollegiate competition, the cheerleaders are perfecting their routines, and the bands are rehearsing their spectacular half-time shows.

Okay, in Canada we don’t hype our intercollegiate sports anywhere near the levels they do in the u.s. Major college sport south of the border is big business.

American television has evolved and exploited a unique and exciting product that delivers huge audiences – audiences that reach far beyond the campuses where the activities are taking place.

In Canada, intercollegiate athletic competition remains relatively pure and is generally confined to the campuses where the games are played.

The audiences that Canadian intercollegiate sport delivers are small compared with those of our neighbors to the south, but this should not deter Canadian marketers from exploring the intercollegiate sport landscape.

University national championships such as the Vanier Cup (football), the University Cup (hockey) and the Final Eight (basketball) are playing to larger and more enthusiastic audiences.

The quality of the competition often surprises the uninitiated. Homecoming tickets to football games on some campuses are hard to find.

From a marketplace perspective, the sponsorship of Canadian intercollegiate sport is relatively underdeveloped. It is very much a niche market with an abundance of opportunities.

There are more than 600,000 post-secondary students and 25,000 student athletes in Canada with universities located in 45 markets across the country and 90 colleges participating in national sport programs.

The typical undergraduate is 18-24 and living on his or her own for the first time. Brand buying patterns can be influenced at this stage as many in this segment will be making their own purchase decisions for the first time.

Colleges and universities in Canada have their own separate national sport administrations: the Canadian Colleges Athletic Association (ccaa) and the Canadian Interuniversity Athletic Union (ciau.)

These two organizations operate and sell sponsorships to their national championship events. Within each national organization, there are a variety of conferences that represent the various regions of the country. They, too, host and sell sponsorships to conference championships and league play.

Each university and college also provides a range of opportunities for local businesses to partner with their programs.

Government cutbacks have led many university and college administrators to look at sport as a way to reduce expenditures. Sport administrators have a great need for outside support in the form of strategic partners.

There may exist an opportunity for the right partner to position a significant involvement in intercollegiate sport from a ‘building sport – building Canada’ perspective.

University sporting events, and campuses in general provide an opportunity for very targeted sampling programs.

MarketSource tours a CampusFest event to 20 schools each year that delivers sample packages and corporate messages across the country guised in a ‘fun fair’ event atmosphere.

Canadian university sport receives strong support from tsn, which covers 20 games per year, including six National Championships and the Howard Mackie CIAU Athlete of the Year awards.

Regional television coverage has been a part of the Ontario landscape through Hamilton’s chch-tv.

While marketers must prepare themselves for the task of dealing with a fragmented delivery system, the right product tied to the right program could deliver touchdown after touchdown.

Strike up the band.