CHRONICLING ECU & C-USA SPORTS
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View
from the 'ville
Thursday,
May 4, 2006
By Al Myatt |
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Partnership with ISP
redefines selling of ECU
©2006 Bonesville.net
The average fan who tunes in to the Pirate
radio network this fall may not notice any major difference as Jeff Charles
describes the football action once again.
But the network will have undergone a
significant change, officially effective July 1, with East Carolina's
new affiliation with ISP. The letters
stand for International Sports Properties. The company calls itself
"America's Home for College Sports."
ISP is now making itself at home in
Greenville.
The transition means Charles will no longer be
a self-described "one-man band" in terms of assembling the network and
selling its advertising. Instead, he becomes a major player on the ECU
franchise in the far-reaching ISP family.
"What they bring is more bodies to help us do
the work," Charles said. "They've set up an office in Greenville with three
fulltime people. I'll have more help doing a lot of things and I think
that's good."
The bottom line for the Pirates joining forces
with ISP is that it made financial sense to athletic director Terry Holland,
whose ongoing reorganization of the department is designed to maximize
resources for the overall program.
"ISP is a very aggressive marketing firm,"
Holland said. "They are the largest sports marketing firm for colleges in
the country. When we started out looking, we said, 'Let's find somebody
that's cozy, that understands eastern North Carolina, knows who we are and
what we are and can do a good job of selling us.'
"What we found was a large, aggressive firm
from North Carolina with a CEO (Ben Sutton) that's from Murfreesboro and it
seemed to be a great match because we think we're aggressive, too. We want
to be aggressive in everything we do so I think it's an outstanding match
for us.
"It's given us a chance to do some things
already that we've never been able to do before. They will be doing
everything they can to promote East Carolina athletics and East Carolina
University as a whole."
ECU joins an impressive group of college
programs for which ISP handles multimedia rights. The Winston-Salem based
company also is involved with Alabama, Auburn, Baylor, Boston College,
Brigham Young, California, Cincinnati, Clemson, Georgia, Georgia Tech,
Houston, Marshall, Miami (FL), Ohio, Pittsburgh, South Carolina, Southern
Mississippi, Syracuse, Tulane, UAB, Central Florida, UCLA, Vanderbilt,
Villanova, Virginia Tech, and Wake Forest.
"The main thing they'll do is give us a little
more of a national profile," Holland said. "We'll be able to piggyback some
things here in eastern North Carolina just as they will for some of their
other properties — deals with larger corporate sponsors.
"They'll also do a great job just because of
the manpower that they have throughout the country," Holland said.
ISP has 25 regional offices and has more than
150 employees on its staff. Its umbrella, while concentrated in the
Southeast, has recently gone nationwide with its extension to the west
coast.
The ISP network includes more than 500 radio
affiliates and more than 100 television outlets.
"They'll be able to make a lot more (sales)
calls," Holland said. "They'll just be out on the road a lot more."
Craig Curtis, who formerly worked in marketing
for ECU will continue similar responsibilities but he will be on the ISP
payroll.
"There will be more people selling here and
throughout the country and ISP will help us with national sponsors," Charles
said.
Holland noted that ISP has agreements with
nine other Conference USA schools.
"Not only will they sell more advertising,
they put us in some pretty elite company and give us the ability to network
with other schools in common projects," he said. "In some cases those might
be fund-raising projects, but they might be in terms of scheduling and other
things that are important to us."
With the addition of a major player like ISP,
it is reasonable to think that such a relationship might make ECU more
appealing in terms of an enhanced conference affiliation in the future.
There isn't a whole lot that ISP doesn't do in
terms of promoting its college partners. The company does official
university publications, radio and television programming, Internet sites,
game event promotions and stadium and arena signage.
"The thing the average fan might notice is
that there might be a little more signage, a little more excitement in the
stadium," Holland said. "It will free some of our other people to think
creatively about what we can do to enhance the whole game atmosphere — not
just during the game but before and after the games as well."
Charles used to perform many of the functions
by himself that the ISP team will now handle.
"Jeff will remain on our payroll but he will
be working directly with ISP because Jeff does a lot of sales already,"
Holland said. "He is, of course, the voice of Pirate athletics and that's
very important to them. That's part of what they're selling is Jeff Charles,
so he'll be selling them and they'll be selling him."
Obviously, there's a similar reciprocity
anticipated between ECU and ISP — that a new partnership will be beneficial
to both.
"We are thrilled to have East Carolina as part
of our ISP family of schools," said Sutton, ISP's president and CEO. "There
has always been tremendous enthusiasm and support surrounding Pirate
athletics.
"With the leadership of Terry Holland and the
administrative team he is building, the future of the overall program is
extremely bright. We are excited to be a part of that future."
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02/23/2007 12:30:14 AM
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