Pepsi secures top role in soccer
Pepsi-Cola yesterday said it would sponsor the national soccer league for the next five years, in the second substantial mainland commercial sports deal in two days.
The move is aimed at catching its great rival, Coca-Cola, which is out-performing it handsomely in the mainland market.
It signed an agreement in a Beijing hotel with the China Football Association (CFA), under which the 14-team league will be renamed the Pepsi-Cola Premier Soccer League. The season begins in about two weeks.
The matchmaker was sports-marketing firm IMG, which also brokered the sponsorship deal for the first five years of the league's life until last year, when Marlboro was the lead sponsor.
Marlboro pulled out because of increasingly severe restrictions on tobacco advertising and other reasons.
The value of the Pepsi contract has not been officially released, but IMG is believed to be paying the CFA US$11 million a year and is receiving $4 million a year from Pepsi.
'We had competitive discussions with both Pepsi and Coke,' IMG's managing director for southeast Asia, Breck McCormack, said.
'Pepsi prevailed. They made a better offer.
'Sometimes the second person tries harder.' Swedish telecommunications giant Ericsson was mentioned in an earlier statement as a sponsor but Mr McCormack said that, while IMG was still talking to the company, nothing had been agreed so far.
'There are about 10 to 12 other sponsors for the league, some Chinese, some foreign, who are entitled to two billboards per game and other benefits,' he said.
IMG officials described the sponsorship as the best in mainland sports, with 14 teams nationwide, matches each week during an eight-month season, and live broadcasts nationwide and throughout Asia.
