While there will be no more NHL hockey revenues for at least the next 12 years beyond this week (not even, by the looks of it, a lucrative seven-game Stanley Cup Final to go out on), the 2014 FIFA World Cup is temporarily cushioning the blow for CBC/Radio-Canada.
Jim Kozak
Jim Kozak, director of sales, Olympics and sports partnerships for CBC Revenue Group, told Marketing this week that the broadcaster has already hit its revenue targets for the month-long tournament, albeit with a different advertiser mix from the 2010 tournament in South Africa.
While sponsorship activity accounted for less than a third of the CBC’s World Cup revenue four years ago, Kozak said that figure is closer to 50% to 60% for this year’s event. “It’s much more balanced than it was in 2010,” he said. “What we’ve seen is a lot of the FIFA partners and some other partners jump onboard in terms of broadcast sponsorships.”
The public broadcaster announced eight official sponsors for the tournament, including global sponsors Coca-Cola and Adidas, as well as major brands that include Budweiser, Bell and CIBC.
Coca-Cola will be title sponsor of both the halftime program, Coca-Cola at the Half, and the telestrator segment Coca Cola Inside the Game. Adidas is the title sponsor of the Adidas Prime Time Show—a two-hour magazine-style show featuring match highlights and expert analysis. The athletic apparel company is also presenting an in-show feature called the “Adidas Play of the Day.”
Johnson & Johnson will be presenting sponsor of the pre-game show, while Chevrolet will sponsor the post-game show. Budweiser is returning as title sponsor of the “Budweiser Man of the Match” feature, while Hotels.com is the presenting sponsor of “Football, A Beautiful History,” a feature documenting the World Cup’s history and cultural significance.
CIBC’s sponsorship package, meanwhile, maintains a grassroots focus with CIBC Soccer Nation, a seven-city viewing party that features stops in Vancouver, Edmonton, Calgary, Regina, Montreal and Ottawa before concluding with a two-day event in Toronto on July 12 and 13.
Bell is the presenting sponsor of the CIBC’s FIFA World Cup App for both iOS and Android devices. The app will feature six live-camera feeds for all 64 World Cup matches, enabling viewers to toggle between various viewing angles.
Kozak said the CBC hopes to surpass the 2.6 million downloads of its Sochi Olympics app. “[Interest in] football in Canada is skyrocketing, so I think it’s an achievable objective,” he said.
Some partners negotiated category exclusivity based upon their category value, said Kozak. CBC determined a minimum-spend threshold for each category, with clients ensuring exclusivity by spending to that amount.
Kozak said earlier this week that the CBC still has about 30% of its spot inventory remaining for the 64 matches, although it has been selling “feverishly” in the days leading up to Thursday’s tournament opener between the host nation Brazil and Croatia. “We hope to have nothing left,” he said.
Marquee matches, including the semi-finals and the July 13 final, are nearly sold out, said Kozak, with most of the available inventory in the group stage matches. Kozak wouldn’t disclose rates, but sources have pegged the asking price for a national 30-second spot in the final at between $100,000 to $125,000 (which one buyer told Marketing “is as high as I have heard for anything in Canada”), with spots in the tournament’s earlier stages ranging from $12,000 to $25,000, depending on timing, et cetera.
Brazil is just one hour ahead of Toronto, which also means that CBC will be able to maximize audiences for primetime matches. CBC sold this year’s World Cup against the audiences it achieved during the 2010 World Cup in South Africa (which is six hours ahead of Eastern Standard Time), where matches averaged 1.2 million viewers 2+ and 500,000 viewers A25-54.
“We’re very confident that we’re going to blow our audience estimates out of the water,” said Kozak. “If we’d used anything else, I don’t think the market could have borne the price.”
CBC Television will carry 56 English-language matches, with another eight on Rogers Sportsnet. In Quebec, Radio-Canada will carry 46 matches, with TVA Sports picking up the remaining 18.
Kozak said he’s happy for the marketer support in a big year for marquee events, with the Sochi Games and now the World Cup. “The reality is that marketers have had to make some decisions, and we’re ecstatic they chose to come onboard with the World Cup,” he said.
