Major Sponsors Eying Pacquiao

Writes Bill King at the Sports Business Journal:

When Sandy Sandoval was contemplating who to recommend for the cover of EA Sports’ new “Fight Night Champion” boxing release, the first choice was an obvious one. The brightest star in boxing, Manny Pacquiao, is under contract to appear exclusively in games produced by EA.

Sandoval opted instead to go with Andre Bishop, a fictional character created for the game.

“I love Manny,” said Sandoval, senior director of athlete relations for EA Sports. “He’s been good to me personally and good for the company. He would have been the ideal guy for the cover of our ‘Fight Night’ game. But because of all the layers of people out there representing him or claiming to represent him, I didn’t want to do it.

“The left hand didn’t know what the right hand was doing. I’m not subjecting my company to that.”

It has been a consistent complaint of those who venture into the world of Team Pacquiao, a loosely aligned, often disorganized collection of associates and friends of the world’s most popular fighter, many of whom claim to represent him but few of whom deliver. An iconic superstar of sport, television, music, film and now politics in the Philippines, Pacquiao remains largely untapped commercially in North America, in part because he is from the other side of the globe but also because he has not made it a priority.

That could be changing.

On Feb. 25, his promoter, Top Rank, sent a letter to sponsors and sponsor prospects that began: “We’ve heard frustrations from many companies about their inability to explore personal endorsement and/or corporate branding opportunities with Manny Pacquiao.” Signed by CEO Bob Arum and President Todd DuBoef, it went on to explain that in an effort to eliminate confusion, Pacquiao had authorized Top Rank to handle his sponsorship and endorsement deals. It also introduced a new hire, Lucia McKelvey, a former vice president of golf development and sales at IMG, who will serve as the point person on all commercial opportunities for Pacquiao.

As soon as the letter went out, McKelvey began hearing back from both prospects and existing sponsors.

Read the full article HERE.