Hit Baseball Tour Offers 2006 Sponsorships to Family-Focused Brands
ESI's Principal Family Fun Fest Announces Plans for Growth in 2006
New York, NY (PRWEB) July 16, 2005 -- The Principal Family Fun Fest is the
world largest touring baseball fan festival. Entertainment & Sports
International first produced the event in 2004, visiting 53 minor league
baseball clubs and attracting over a quarter of a million people.
The
tour’s title sponsor is the Principal Financial Group who in 2004 attributed
over $4 million in new business sales to the event. Other sponsors include
Microsoft Xbox, Topps Trading Cards, Fox All Access radio, Turner South and
retail giant Best Buy.
Minor league clubs welcome the event which is
provided free to the team in return for promotional support. It provides added
value to the fans and enhances their game experience. In addition the team is
able to generate incremental revenue from tour related activities and
promotions. In 2005 the tour will visit 56 teams for a total of 61 event days
and is proving to have a positive effect on attendance in many
markets.
ESI is now making plans for an even bigger and better production
for 2006. “We strive to make the event different each year as over 50% of our
stops are repeats from the previous year,” said ESI co-president Joe Owens, “we
have a lot of surprises in store for 2006 and are looking for family oriented
brands to join the tour”.
Sponsors receive a wide variety or benefits
from the traditional signage, tickets and hospitality, to creative activation
concepts specifically designed for the brand by ESI. A unique aspect of the ESI
sponsorships is that they include on-site activation.
“We don’t feel
it’s appropriate to charge a brand for the right to associate with the event and
then to charge them again to leverage the association with consumers”, said
Owens.
2005 has seen another innovation for the tour which allows The
Principal to bring it’s sponsorship into the stadium from the parking lot. ESI
created the Principal 401-K Challenge, a competition among teams to be the first
to reach the 401 “K” or strikeout mark at home during the season. Baseball
America Magazine is maintaining statistics for the competition and fans can vote
for their favorite at www.prinicpal.com/funfest and qualify for a $5,000 grand
prize. Sponsor Best Buy is also executing in-stadium promos in selected markets
with hundreds of gift cards as well as a Microsoft Xbox system and game being
offered as prizes.
ESI is in the process of contacting companies with
several sponsorship packages designed to fit every brand budget. The 2005 tour
is on target to reach over 350,000 people at events and millions more through
media and promotions and ESI anticipates that 2006 will be an even bigger year
for the tour. “Our goal is to create awareness and sales opportunities for our
sponsors by providing an event that supports an important element of the
community, the local minor league ball club”, said Owens. “Our event is unique
in that it truly a local marketing opportunity that is national in
scope”.
ESI hopes to have its lineup of sponsors and teams for 2006 ready
for announcement at the Winter Baseball Meetings in December. The 2006 Principal
Family Fun Fest will launch in April and continue through the end of the season
in September.
The Principal Financial Group? (The Principal ®) is a
leader in offering businesses, individuals and institutional clients a wide
range of financial products and services, including retirement and investment
services, life and health insurance and banking through its diverse family of
financial services companies. A member of the Fortune 500, the Principal
Financial Group has $168.7 billion in assets under management and serves some
14.9 million customers worldwide from offices in Asia, Australia, Europe, Latin
America and the United States. Principal Financial Group, Inc. is traded on the
New York Stock Exchange under the ticker symbol PFG. For more information, visit
www.principal.com.
Entertainment & Sports
International (ESI) is a partnership of two experienced sports and entertainment
executives who have worked with some of the best known entertainment brands of
the past two decades. From offices in New York and West Palm Beach, Fla., the
company creates and produces distinctive and proprietary sports and
entertainment properties and events. www.esimarketing.com
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Source : http://www.prweb.com/releases/2005/7/prweb261969.htm