Event Recap: Scott Malaga '89

The ILRSBS E-Board with Scott Malaga, 9/21/12

On Friday, September 21st, the ILR Sports Business Society hosted former Cornell Big Red football captain, Scott Malaga ’89, who now serves as the Senior Vice President of Strategic Partnerships at Intersport.

As SVP, Strategic Partnerships, Malaga oversees the sales efforts for the Sponsorship & Event Marketing division at Intersport, which is a sports, entertainment, and media marketing company based in Chicago.

Before joining Intersport, Malaga had over fifteen years of experience in sports marketing, and most recently served as the Chicago Fire’s SVP of Corporate Partnerships.

Club members were provided with a unique presentation from Malaga, in which he discussed career path, and outlined the field of sports marketing with specific case studies from his career.

“You could’ve invited someone who spent 25 years with the Yankees, or someone who spent their entire career at the NHL, and they’d focus mainly on that. Sports marketing is a very broad industry, a broad term, and a broad definition. I have had many stops along my career in numerous areas of the sports marketing spectrum, and those experiences are what you can learn from me.”

On his collegiate years:

Malaga graduated from Cornell in 1989 as a business management major and dual sport athlete. While playing centerfield on the baseball team, he was also the captain of the Big Red football team. Malaga was the starting running back for the team that won the 1988 Ivy League Championship and is a member of the Cornell Athletic Hall of Fame.

Near his Cornell graduation, Malaga attended an event at the Johnson Business School featuring an executive from the Baltimore Orioles. At the time, the sports industry wasn’t common to enter, so Malaga asked him how he could get his foot in the door. He was referred to Ohio University, where he earned his masters in Sports Management.

On his early years in sports marketing:

Malaga’s first job upon graduating from Ohio University was with a company that bought the licensing rights for Champion Footwear. His main responsibility was to travel to NFL and NBA teams, as well as universities to sign athletes and programs to shoe contracts. To do this, he had to have a strategy. Here, it was to develop relationships with each team’s equipment manager.

“I would fly to Kansas City, rent a car, drive to the Chiefs’ facilities, talk to their equipment manager, and ask about players that didn’t have contracts AND were visible. I’d meet with those players, and if I felt they would give us exposure, I’d sign them to a contract Then I’d drive my car back to the airport, go to Denver, rent a car, meet the Broncos’ equipment managers, do the same thing, fly to Los Angeles - this time rent a convertible - and do the same thing over again. My strategy was to develop relationships with these equipment managers who were accessible and knew what was going on within the team.”

After all of that traveling, and to move closer to his family, Malaga decided to quit his job and move to Chicago. Simply put, he said,

“Don’t quit a job, and this is especially true in sports, unless you have another job lined up. I found out the hard way, spending the next 8 months looking for work.” 

Malaga found a job with Kellogg’s working in their food service division, where he utilized sports to sell their products to distributors and institutions. For example, when Kellogg’s had a deal with a sports entity, he created an incentive-based program that provided X tickets to that entity, for every Y number of cases of cereal sold to their distributors and/or consumers.

On his return to Cornell and beyond:

Though his job at Kellogg’s was somewhat connected to sports, Malaga was looking for something more directly involved. At his five-year reunion at Cornell, he was asked to work in Athletic Public Affairs in a fundraising role for the Athletic Department. He created the Cornell Football Association, which is over 3,000 members strong, and eventually spawned the Ivy Football Association.

However, after 2 years, he wanted something else. So Malaga left the Cornell Athletic Department, and went to work in a revenue-driving role in sports. He had stops at Advantage International, Host Communications, Inc. , and ISP Sports where he mostly sold collegiate multimedia rights. At Host Communications and ISP Sports, Scott was involved in the beginning of the whole “multimedia rights bit in college sports.” He said,

“The trend started developing where companies would take the risk, buy the rights from these big schools, and then resell them. The universities loved it because they were guaranteed revenue.”

Both Host Communications and ISP were bought out by IMG College, which now has a stranglehold on the collegiate rights business.


On his work with the Chicago Fire, and the search for a new jersey partner:

In 2009, Malaga was offered to serve as the VP of Corporate Partnerships for the Chicago Fire. He admitted that he “didn’t know a thing about soccer.” But he always wanted to work on team-side marketing where he could influence ticket sales, marketing, community relations, and corporate sponsorships. He was also enticed by the fact that soccer was an international sport, and that the MLS was a growing brand.

In the beginning of his tenure, the Fire were informed that Best Buy would not be renewing their $2.7 million/year deal to be their official jersey partner. Malaga showed club members the marketing deck that was used to gauge interest from potential brands.

“To find a brand that was looking to spend $2.7 million for a jersey partner for the Chicago Fire, you had to find the perfect storm – we were looking at CMO’s of Chicago-based companies, CMO’s that were looking to utilize soccer, or in international markets, and/or interested in reaching the Hispanic market because 50% of our fanbase was Hispanic.” 

 “We then started talks with Quaker Oats. A guy on my staff who used to work at Coke for 20 years, and he had a friend that was now the VP of Supply Chain at Quaker Oats, who introduced us to their president. The Quaker Oats president is from Mexico, and when running the Quaker Oats brand in Mexico, he made one of their products (Gamesa) the jersey partner for a Mexican soccer club. This was an executive who loved soccer, and saw how much revenue soccer could bring the Quaker Oats brand. Quaker Oats was looking to eat into Kellogg’s market share in Chicago, and they emphasized the values of health, fitness, kids, and nutrition. All of a sudden, we had the perfect marriage.”

A deal was finally agreed upon, and Quaker Oats and the Fire began their collaboration for activations. First, the Fire created the Quaker Corner at the Toyota Park, which was a whole section branded by Quaker Oats, where products were constantly handed out. Another important initiative was the Fire’s integration of Quaker Oats into local Chicago youth soccer tournaments.

“We wanted to expand the reach of the Fire and Quaker Oats broader into the community. Every year, there are four major youth soccer tournaments in Chicago featuring over 450 teams. We not only could reach kids, but there are also parents that are stuck there for the day because each team played multiple games. So I met with all the leaders of the tournaments, and asked to sell into their tournaments in exchange for a small share of our revenue.”

The Fire directly integrated the Quaker Oats brand into this marketing by having signage at over 40 fields, and handing out product to kids and parents throughout the day.

 Read Joe Favorito’s latest blogpost regarding the Fire’s most recent initiative with Quaker Oats

Intersport Presentation: 

 Malaga left the Chicago Fire in 2011 to work in the sponsorship and events marketing division at Intersport, where he focuses on client relations. Upon getting his new position, he said, 

“My career hasn’t been specific in one field, and now, since Intersport offers so much, I can fall back on each experience and apply it in some small way – I know a little about a lot.” 

Malaga shared with us a marketing deck that Intersport sends brands to outline their services in sports marketing. Here is what he had to say about some of these services:

Consulting:

Intersport deals with a number of Fortune 500 clients on some of the biggest stages in sports around the globe. For example, Intersport is the sports marketing agency of record for Taco Bell. They handle all of the consulting, and activations in sports for Taco Bell, including the Taco Bell Skills Challenge during NBA All-Star weekend, a fan activation at the NBA All Star weekend which featured a mock run-through of the skills challenge for fans, and the “Taco Bell: Steal a Base, Steal a Taco” promotion at the MLB World Series.

 “We’re developing strategy for them, we’re negotiating their deals with teams, we’re executing, and at the grassroots level, we’re putting it all together for them.”

Intersport also consulted and led the renegotiation of Papa John’s Official NFl partnership at the conclusion of the 2012 Super Bowl.

Sponsorship Activation: 

Malaga talked about how the recent recession has made it increasingly difficult to prove to brands that sports can provide a return on investment.

“It used to be that a company might’ve just slapped their sign on Wrigley Field and paid a premium to do so. Now, companies really need proof that they will see a return on investment. The way to truly enhance sports marketing is thru activations – which is a word you’ll hear a lot – how can you create an experience for consumers around a sporting event?”

Malaga highlighted a variety of activations Intersport has done with General Motors at the Super Bowl, and at every Monday Night Football stop, in addition to other activations such as conducting the world’s largest game of knockout at the Final Four thru the Buick brand.

Owned Event Properties:

Intersport is also the agency of record for TD Ameritrade, and most recently consulted their sponsorships at the 2012 Olympics in London.

Intersport also helped TD Ameritrade activate their naming rights of the stadium in Omaha that annually hosts the College World Series. In order to gain further value from this deal, Intersport created the College Home Run Derby, a nationally televised event in front of over 20,000 fans in attendance at the TD Ameritrade Park.

Intersport also works with Under Armour for the annual Under Armour All-American Game which showcases 90 of the nation’s most talented high school football players. In this scenario, Under Armour is making an increased effort to reach the high school athlete and enhances the experience for them by hosting a full weekend of events including Combines, Practices, Skills Challenge, and the game itself which was coached by Mike Ditka and Steve Mariucci, and televised on ESPN.

Digital and Social Media:

One thing Malaga stressed was the importance of a social media influence. Intersport implements a strong social media strategy for all of their clients and events. However, he feels that it is widely misunderstood by others in the industry.

“You can have a gazillion Facebook likes if you want and that’s great, but are these consumers engaged with your brand? Sports can maximize the engagement with your brand if done the right way."

Malaga focused on a program on which they collaborated with Papa John’s called the “2011 Papa John’s Dunk of the Yea,r” which won the 2012 Cynopsis Award for Best Social Media Initiative. A description of the program, and it’s effectiveness in social media engagement can be seen below:

Corporate Hospitality:

“ A lot of people don’t talk about this, but every sports entity should include some sort of corporate hospitality. Business isn’t just about B2C (business to consumers) anymore, but also B2B (business to business).”

One example of this is the Double Eagle Club at Augusta – which is owned by Intersport and offers the highest end hospitality at the Masters. Companies can purchase a hospitality package that includes tickets and lodging, which can be used to entertain corporate clients.

The whole experience which starts with getting picked up in a limo, and also includes premium food and beverage throughout the day, cigar rolling, a PGA Pro golf swing analysis, a putting green, as well as the option to rent out a local Augustan residence near the course.

We are all grateful for this unique learning opportunity that Scott provided. Sports marketing is a broad, yet intricate, industry, and many club members had their first exposure to the field from this presentation.

We are thankful that Scott took the time to speak with us, and we look forward to staying connected with him moving forward!