It was a decade ago that…

Don King was the 65-year-old promoter of the famous heavyweight fight between Evander Holyfield and Mike (big-bite) Tyson. Famous as a fight promoter, King also controlled (and knew how to leverage) the sponsorships to the fights, too.

For example…King has always been interested in more than just selling advertising. “I’m interested in empowerment. That’s what this country is all about!” And so, for all of King’s fights over a two year period, the sponsorship for his fights were moved from Budweiser to a new brew—St. Ides Gold.

The little-known San Francisco beer company was the sponsor for all the pre-fight commercials plus had its logo on the ring mat and ring posts, thereby being in the background for all the TV shots and newspaper photos around the world.

King said he worked on a proposition with the brewery, “I worked 24 hours a day, seven days a week for them!” And well he did, because in exchange for King providing a heady exposure for the beer company (the sponsorship rights) King got an equity position (part ownership) in the beer company.

For years boxing has been one of Las Vegas’ big economic drivers. Years ago, to get boxing’s bad boy, Mike Tyson, the MGM Grand agreed to make some astonishing concessions to Don King.

King, together with his partners, received all the revenue from ticket sales, TV rights and other promotions. In exchange, the hotel was counting on favorable publicity and extra gambling revenue from the high rollers who lingered after the fight was over.

Barter agreements such as these and many other types are covered in the FastStart Program:
FASTstart

Read the Tuesday Barter Report, and research all nine years back issues in BarterNews.com:
TUESDAY

We have 29 other stories on professional athletics for you:
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This entry was posted on Wednesday, March 19th, 2008 at 11:14 pm and is filed under Professional Athletics. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.