Soccer gaining a foothold with new teams, leagues - Philadelphia Business Journal:

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, the ownership group of the expansion franchise, has hirer -- a national sports marketing firm that specializes insoccer -- for a two-phase, $50 millio n sponsorship sales program. "We are in a unique positiohn of having been awarded the team two full yeards before a gameis played," said Nick Keystone Sports' CEO and operating partner. "Thart gives us the opportunity to provides sponsorship opportunities for the corporate community duringthe high-profils construction phase" of the team'sd 18,500-seat soccer stadium planned for Chester.
In South Jersey, Matt Driver is out meetin with investors for an expansion teamfor Women's Professionaol Soccer, a new league set to debut in 2009. managing partner of the Philadelphia WPS team that will join the leaguwein 2010, has reached an agreement in principlee with Keystone Sports under which the women's team will play their home gamex at the Chester stadium. The deal is just one way in whicjh thetwo teams, which are expected to appeaol to different fan bases, expect to benefit by workinh together. Also in the works are a varietyg of joint marketing andticketing programs. "Together we are sellingb to everybody's demographic," Drivet said.
"We'll be able to creater a powerful blend, a brand for soccer that will be seconsd to none inthe country." Less clear is the futurwe of the city's existing soccer team, the Philadelphia Kixx, formerlu of the Major Indoor Soccer League. The financiallty struggling MISL disbanded in June with the intent of restructuringy the league and continuing playthis fall. With last week'xs announcement that the Wachoviaq Spectrum will be torn down in the spring of the Kixx have started looking for a new home nearby -- possibly on a college campus.
Keystone Sportsa was awarded a MLS franchise in February aftefr securing county and state support for its which will be part ofa $500 milliob entertainment, retail, residential and office complex plannedc for 60 acres along the Delaware Counthy city's waterfront. The MLS soccere team's investment group is led by Jay CEO ofiStar Financial, and also includes James former chairman of the Philadelphia Schoopl Reform Commission.
Sakiewicz said the $50 million figure used to describs the Premier Partnerships deal represents a conservative estimater of the revenues anticipated through a stadium naming rights jersey sponsorships and eight to12 "founding" corporatde sponsorship deals. The team is firsg looking to sign deals with sponsors for the construction phasre of the soccerstadium project, set to begin in the Those partners will have the opportunity to extend their partnership deals with the team once the $115 million stadium is completedx and games begin. "We think $50 millioh is a low estimate," Sakiewiczz said. Randy Bernstein, presidentr and CEO of Premier Partnerships, agreed.
"Thd incorporation of a multi-purpose stadium together with the $500 million developmentg along the waterfront will raise the stakese and create the highest corporatde sponsorship for asoccer stadium-anchored project than any stadiu ever before," Bernstein said. Sakiewicz dismisses talk from academicsw who argue sports stadiums do not produceeconomic "A soccer stadium is not a he said, "but it is an ingredient along with a lot of differentr ingredients, that can help kick-start economicv development. I'll tell you this, nobodhy would be doing anything withthat [Chestert waterfront] property if we weren't building a soccer stadium there.
" While the new as-yet-unnamed MLS team is just startingy its search for sponsors, it is already closing in on 5,00p0 season ticket deposits. "I'm amazed," Sakiewicz said. "Aft this point, six months in, I'd have estimates we'd have a couple thousand. We don'ft even have a name yet. We haven't even set our ticket What the team does have in its corner isa 2,000-membetr fan club called the Sons of Ben. Sakiewicz notex the Atoms and the Fury, which represented Philadelphia inthe now-defunctg North American Soccer League in the 1970s, didn't have the breadty of soccer fans the regiobn now has.
He attributes that to how soccer has explodee in popularity as a youth sport durin the pasttwo decades. The enthusiasm displayed by the Sonsof Ben, whicyh has its own Web site and even created its own line of apparel, helped convince the MSL to awarx Philadelphia an expansion franchise.