Where Are The National Advertisers and Sponsors? I was reading today in Bob Larson’s Daily Tennis News (www.tennisnews.com) that the ATP tour is signing Corona Extra to a five year contract worth seventy million dollars to be the premier sponsor for the men’s ATP Tour. This got me to thinking about national sponsors for platform tennis. Where are they? If you look at the recent issues of Platform Tennis Magazine by in large all the advertisers are “sport specific”. You have Viking, Wilson and The Paddle Company that represent equipment manufacturers. You have Reilly Green Mountain, Premier Platform Tennis, Bulletworks and Advantage that represent court builders. You have instruction, and clothing and equipment retailers represented by Performance Paddle Camps, the Ultimate Experience, and PaddleTennisSports.com and PTMonline.com. The fact is our wonderful sport has not been able to attract and keep “national” sponsors who are outside of the sport. Back in the heyday of platform during the 1970’s, we enjoyed sponsorships by Tribuno (Passport Scotch), Coca Cola, Hertz to name but a few. When Platform Tennis Magazine first came into being eleven years ago, there was a hope that the circulation would get beyond the magic hurdle of 10,000 per issue to start attracting major advertisers. With the first issues of the new four-color magazine there were ads from Bolle (sunglasses) and Cross Pens; sadly those supporters were short lived. Most recently, the sport had Marsh Insurance as a title sponsor of the Men’s and Women’s National Championships for several years. Today, we have no such national advertisers. Is our sport too small to attract national advertisers? Are the advertizing rates too high or the tournament sponsorship requirements too large to garner interest by today’s major companies? Does having national advertisers or tournament sponsors really matter? Please let me know your thoughts. what do you think? let me know! info@platformtennisnews.com |
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