• by Karl Greenberg , April 7, 2009

For the first time, Cerveza Tecate is expanding beyond Spanish-language media to reach Hispanic and non-Hispanic fans of the fistic science. The media deal with ESPN gives the White Plains, N.Y.-based division of FEMSA/Heineken prime real estate on the network's Spanish and English-language boxing content on TV, online and on radio. The brand gets title sponsorship of the Tecate Friday Night Fights Studio within the Friday Night Fights telecasts weekly on ESPN2 and Spanish-language ESPN Deportes.

Tecate will advertise on ESPN Deportes' original production of "Viernes de Combates." This month, it also began running 30-second ads in Spanish during all of ESPN2's Friday Night Fights. Tecate will also have brand integration in broadcasts with its "Con Caracter" (With Character) brand theme part of both networks' Friday Night Fights telecasts as well as on ESPN Deportes Radio's afternoon program Zone ESPN.

Tecate also gets presenting sponsorship of ESPN Deportes' "Golpe a Golpe," the network's weekly boxing studio show co-hosted by future Hall of Famer Marco Antonio Barrera and Jorge Eduardo Sánchez. The cerveza brand will also sponsor boxing updates on ESPN Classic and on ESPN Deportes' SportsCenter. Online Tecate will have brand exposure on ESPNdeportes.com and ESPN.com's boxing home page.

The deal also inspired a secondary arrangement wherein Oscar De La Hoya's Golden Boy Promotions inked a deal with ESPN that puts seven Golden Boy events on ESPN's Friday Night Fights. The first Golden Boy Promotions event as part of Friday Night Fights will be aired on Friday. Tecate inked a multi-year sponsorship arrangement with Golden Boy in 2006, and has since been the most visible sponsor of mega-fights like de la Hoya versus Floyd Mayweather, Jr., de la Hoya versus Filipino star Manny Pacquaio last year, and next month's bout pitting Pacquiao against titleholder Ricky Hatton. Per Tecate, around 62% of viewers of professional boxing matches are Hispanic.

Carlos Boughton, brand director for Tecate, said the deal fell together serendipitously after ESPN cancelled its Spanish-language "Solo Boxeo" programming last year. "You had a brand [Tecate] looking to increase its participation in boxing, a media outlet putting out new boxing programs and a promoter that wants to promote fights," he says. "In the wake of the cancellation of 'Solo Boxeo,' we set out to find an alternative; we talked to a number of media and production companies about relevant boxing properties."

The RFP went out, and in the end the one that aligned best was ESPN's proposal. "It had a very complete package with weekly shows, news and commentary, capsules on ESPN Classic ... and in terms of relevance for the sport, ESPN is probably a unique case in being a multimedia company covering pretty much everything from broadcast to online to print to radio," he says.