пятница, 14 сентября 2012 г.

Sports Video-Game Giant Sega Backs Las Vegas Bowl. - Knight Ridder/Tribune Business News

By Hubble Smith, Las Vegas Review-Journal Knight Ridder/Tribune Business News

Dec. 25--In the business world of college football, corporate sponsorship for a holiday bowl game is as important as having marquee teams.

It matters little that the company has any connection to football. The bottom line is how much it will pay to have its name splashed on national television.

That's where Sega Sports, sponsor of today's 11th annual Las Vegas Bowl at Sam Boyd Stadium, has an advantage, said Marc Franklin, spokesman for the company.

Tokyo-based Sega Corp. is a $3.5 billion corporate leader in sports-related video games, including NCAA College Football 2K3.

'Certainly there's increasingly more corporate sponsorship of bowls,' Franklin said. 'The question for the consumer is, `Do the corporate sponsorships make sense?' There's a natural tie between what we do and sponsorship of a bowl.

'Not only do our games provide the excitement and emotions you have on the field, but it's a good fit to expose our Sega sports brand to consumers. It's a captive audience on Christmas Day watching ESPN. These guys are already sports fans.'

Sega is paying $800,000 each to the University of California, Los Angeles Bruins (7-5) and University of New Mexico Lobos (7-6), who meet at 1:30 p.m. today at Sam Boyd Stadium.

Sega took over sponsorship of the bowl last year from the Las Vegas Convention and Visitors Authority.

Franklin said the company was happy with the results. Not so much that Utah defeated the University of Southern California, 10-6, but that the game gained a 4.9 share in TV ratings on ABC. It also had a record attendance of more than 30,000.

'We also found that the bowl itself is a great fit for us. Both of the teams loved playing in Vegas. It provides a great venue to play the game and enjoy the festivities,' he said.

The players were welcomed to town Saturday with a reception at the ESPNZone at New York-New York and media luncheon at the MGM Grand, where the Bruins are staying.

They visited children Sunday at Sunrise Hospital and participated in a 'buffet bowl' and pep rally Monday at the Fremont Street Experience. The Lobos are staying at the Golden Nugget.

Franklin said Sega's game products are targeted at 12- to 30-year-old customers who want to push the envelope for video sports competition, to redefine the boundaries of realism within the sports simulation genre.

'It gives people a chance to live out their dreams and be a sports hero,' he said. 'People really get into it. Especially at college, like in a fraternity house, when someone's playing a game, you can hear people cheering and yelling.'

Sega launched a $35 million advertising and marketing campaign in the fall for its Sega Sports 2K3 lineup of sports video games that can be played on PlayStation2, Nintendo's GameCube or Microsoft's Xbox game systems.

BOWL BREAKDOWN

-- Sega took over sponsorship of the Las Vegas Bowl last year from the Las Vegas Convention and Visitors Authority.

-- Sega is paying $800,000 each to the UCLA Bruins (7-5) and University of New Mexico Lobos (7-6), who meet at 1:30 p.m. today at Sam Boyd Stadium.

-- In last year's game, Utah defeated the University of Southern California, 10-6. The game gained a 4.9 share in TV ratings on ABC and had a record attendance of more than 30,000.

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(c) 2002, Las Vegas Review-Journal. Distributed by Knight Ridder/Tribune Business News.

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