• Wall Street Journal, Wednesday, August 5, 2009 10:31 AM

The National Football League is announcing a multi-year sponsorship deal with Procter & Gamble today that will allow it to put an "Official Locker Room Product of the NFL" label on products including Old Spice deodorant, Febreze deodorizer and Head & Shoulders shampoo, Suzanne Vranica and Matthew Futterman report. The deal is the costliest in P&G's history, the company says.

"The days of the sporting leagues just looking to the beer and financial-services companies for sponsorship money is over," says Greg Luckman, president of the sports and entertainment marketing arm of WPP's GroupM.

The deal has been in the works for three years. Mark Waller, NFL svp for sales and marketing, and his team eventually convinced P&G that there was enough of a natural connection between "tough players and tough products" for P&G to become one of the league's 21 major marketing partners, Vranica and Futterman write. P&G gets the right to use the red, white and blue NFL logo on a bevy of P&G products, including Dawn dish soap and Charmin toilet paper.

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