CHICAGO, IL -- (Marketwire) -- 01/02/13 -- Sponsors interested in putting their name on the first championship game of college football's new playoff system should be prepared to pay the highest rights fee ever for a collegiate sports property.

An in-depth analysis by ImageTrack (www.sponsorship.com/imagetrack) -- a new service for monitoring sponsorship integration and advertising recently launched by WPP Group sibling companies IEG Consulting and Kantar Media -- projects the title sponsorship fee will be around $35 million.

"That figure is about double what each of the three current title sponsors and one presenting sponsor of the BCS bowls currently shell out," said Mark Ording, Vice President, Client Leadership, IEG Consulting.

The annual fees paid by Discover, Allstate, Tostitos and Vizio for the Orange, Sugar, Fiesta and Rose bowl games, respectively, are estimated by IEG to be between $15 million and $20 million. Those deals include title to the BCS championship once every four years and ad spots across ESPN's college football broadcasts.

At $35 million a year, the new football championship title sponsor would spend roughly the same amount as current NCAA Corporate Champions AT&T and Coca-Cola, currently the highest spenders on college sports sponsorship. Each of those companies has a year-round rights package that includes a major media buy during March Madness broadcasts of the Division 1 men's basketball tournament.

Although not officially announced, it is a foregone conclusion that ESPN's $5.64-billion, 12-year deal to broadcast the top bowls and the new semi-finals and championship game beginning at the end of the 2014 season includes the right to sell title sponsorship positions for all of those games, as the cable network currently does for the BCS bowls. Thus the $35 million would include a season-long media buy across the cable network's college football programming.

Crunching the Numbers
To project the potential price tag for the new championship game, ImageTrack powered by Kantar Media began by analyzing the media exposure earned by the title sponsors of the 2011 and 2012 BCS championships.

The total advertising equivalent value for Tostitos' title of the Oregon-Auburn match-up in 2011 was about $83 million. For last January's Alabama-LSU title game, Allstate earned $104 million in total exposure, a 26 percent increase from the previous season.

When ImageTrack accounts for the exposure value of sponsor identification versus a full commercial message conveyed during an ad spot, the value earned by Allstate was roughly $28 million versus $23 million for Tostitos, a 20 percent increase.

"The 2012 game performed better for the title sponsor despite the fact that there was less exposure duration and fewer mentions of Allstate than for Tostitos the previous year," said Richard Brinkman, Kantar Media's Head of KantarSport. "That is due not just to a rise in ad rates, but because of the higher audience numbers for the marquee matchup of two SEC powerhouse teams."

This year's BCS showdown between undefeated Notre Dame -- arguably the college team with the largest national following -- and Alabama should deliver sky-high exposure numbers based on the projected audience, Brinkman added.

Couple those figures with the excitement generated by the new playoff system and the foundation is set for a significant price hike for the new standalone championship game, according to IEG Consulting.

"When we incorporate the exposure values into our analysis of actual sponsorship fees paid for comparable events and include recent trends in pricing for major sports properties, we conclude that the fair market value for the 2014 season championship will be substantially higher than the current BCS sponsor packages," Ording said.

BCS Game                 Total Visual    Verbal     Sponsorship  Advertising
                           Exposure     Mentions       Value        Value
2011 Rose Bowl presented
 by VIZIO                     1:07:39           17  $11,302,413  $41,280,140
------------------------ ------------ ------------ ------------ ------------
2011 Tostitos Fiesta
 Bowl                         1:26:38           31   $8,462,841  $29,308,029
------------------------ ------------ ------------ ------------ ------------
2011 Allstate Sugar Bowl      1:47:01           58  $13,922,398  $47,702,589
------------------------ ------------ ------------ ------------ ------------
2011 Discover Orange
 Bowl                         1:28:41           43   $8,287,217  $27,582,920
------------------------ ------------ ------------ ------------ ------------
2011 Tostitos BCS
 Championship                 1:44:12           35  $23,293,578  $82,841,229
------------------------ ------------ ------------ ------------ ------------
2012 Rose Bowl presented
 by VIZIO                     1:33:23           20  $17,413,124  $67,709,006
------------------------ ------------ ------------ ------------ ------------
2012 Tostitos Fiesta
 Bowl                         1:34:59           47  $17,424,000  $57,079,990
------------------------ ------------ ------------ ------------ ------------
2012 Allstate Sugar Bowl      1:46:09           52  $14,461,086  $48,419,160
------------------------ ------------ ------------ ------------ ------------
2012 Discover Orange
 Bowl                         2:00:00           44  $10,252,286  $37,130,068
------------------------ ------------ ------------ ------------ ------------
2012 Allstate BCS
 Championship                 1:34:42           28  $27,953,254 $104,050,258
------------------------ ------------ ------------ ------------ ------------

About ImageTrack powered by Kantar Media
This sophisticated online tool tracks, measures and values broadcast and advertising exposure received by sponsoring brands.

Although analyzing broadcast exposure is not new, ImageTrack introduces a number of game-changing elements that take this component of sponsorship measurement to an entirely new level, making it much more valuable to sponsors and rightsholders.

ImageTrack's deliverables begin with televised sponsorship exposure data tracked by Kantar Media's state-of-the-art media measurement software Sportsi™. This allows users to see exactly how much broadcast exposure they earn and what the specific sources of that exposure are. In addition to exposure and audience data, ImageTrack includes two proprietary data sets that no other service can offer.

The first is sponsorship rights fees. Supplied by IEG -- the industry's most trusted source for sponsorship intelligence and analysis -- data on each sponsor's fees gives essential context to media exposure values that are meaningless on their own.

The second is advertising expenditure, compiled by Kantar Media -- the gold standard in ad spending reporting.

The addition of this critical information transforms ImageTrack from a single-source media monitor into a multi-dimensional service that accurately documents the value of sponsorship and advertising exposure.

About IEG Consulting
IEG Consulting leads the way in sponsorship intelligence. With over 30 years providing insights, evaluation, and guidance, our teams bring unparalleled perspective and proven methodology to every challenge.

We partner with top brands and properties to create fresh strategies, evaluate opportunities and maximize results. Our clients rise above competitors, meaningfully engage audiences and achieve lasting impact.

A unit of WPP's GroupM, IEG, LLC is connected to specialty sibling communications companies in media, digital and activation. GroupM is the leading global media investment management operation that also serves as parent company to WPP media agencies including Maxus, MEC, MediaCom, and Mindshare.

For more information about IEG and the sponsorship industry, please visit www.sponsorship.com or call 800/834-4850 (outside the U.S. and Canada, 312/944-1727).

About Kantar Media
Kantar Media provides strategic advice and competitive intelligence to the world's leading brands, publishers, agencies and industry bodies, helping them navigate and succeed in a rapidly evolving media industry. This includes analysis of paid media opportunities; counsel on brand reputation, corporate management and consumer engagement through owned media; and, evaluating consumers' reactions in earned media.

Kantar Media provides clients with a broad range of insights, from audience research, competitive intelligence, vital consumer behavior and digital insights, marketing effectiveness and online influence. Our experts currently work with 22,000 companies tracking 3 million brands in 50 countries.

www.KantarMedia.com

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