• by Steve McClellan  @mp_mcclellan, November 9, 2011

After years of working together on a project basis, MDC Partners and race car team sponsor (and retired racer) Michael Andretti have formed a new sports marketing and sponsorship company.

Headquartered in Indianapolis, the venture, Andretti Sports Marketing, will operate across the U.S. and Canada, with regional offices established in Toronto, New York and Fort Lauderdale. No word yet on new clients, but talks have already begun with several prospects.

MDC is contributing both talent and resources from two of its experiential agencies to the new venture, including Fort Lauderdale-based Team Enterprises, and Toronto-based BOOM! Marketing.

The practice will include sponsorship activation and management, deal structuring, public relations strategy, proprietary data tracking, marketing consultation, digital solutions and analytics.

Andretti will serve as chairman and CEO, and his longtime colleague John Lopes, has been named president. Lopes will continue in his role as chief marketing officer of Andretti Autosport, a separate firm that specializes in developing and fielding racing teams in the Izod IndyCar Series of races.

The new venture, the parties stressed, would serve clients across the full spectrum of sports in North America. It comes as other agencies have recently also made moves to bulk up on their sports marketing efforts.

Given the appeal of sports to huge numbers of consumers, marketers are spending big-time to get their messages out to fans. According to the Sports Business Journal, the top 50 companies in the space spent $6.6 billion on sports marketing last year, up 27%.

Because marketers are interested in the segment, agencies are also honing their expertise in sports marketing. In August, Havas Sports & Entertainment, a unit of the Paris-based Havas, ramped up the sports part of its offering in the U.S. with the hiring of Mark Rothenberg, who was named to the new post of senior vice president for sports. GroupM's MediaCom unveiled a new unit, MediaCom Sport, and hired IMG veteran Marcus John to run it. Other agencies are also in the space.

At the beginning of the year, Horizon Media formed a new sports marketing and events division, Scout, run by Michael Neuman, while Interpublic has operated Octagon, the sports and entertainment marketing unit, for years.

Commenting on the formation of the new venture, MDC CEO Miles Nadal stated: “Our vision is to continuously find new ways to bring top talent together, across different disciplines, creating innovative marketing solutions and the highest level of ROI for our clients." Nadal said the agency would develop "an industry-leading sports marketing ally both for MDC Partners’ and Andretti Sports Marketing’s clients.”

Added Andretti: “We have consistently brought together the industry’s most talented marketing professionals and sponsorship entities to our winning tradition. We are bringing that same level of best-in-class talent in broadening the scope of our marketing business."