• by Paul Gough , April 7, 2003

Coca-Cola announced Monday a $15 million partnership in just-launched College Sports Television, which not only includes extensive advertising and promotion but also a $10 million stake in the channel. It's the first time Coca-Cola has bought a stake in a cable channel.

CSTV went on the air Monday night following the NCAA men's basketball tournament, with primary distribution on DirecTV and hopes for more carriage agreements soon. And President/CEO Brian Bedol had high hopes for Coca-Cola's deal. "This partnership with Coca-Cola is more than financial. It gives us an opportunity to tap into the legendary marketing power around the unbelievable history and support that Coca-Cola has shown around the college sports community," Bedol said Monday. Bedol noted that college sports were more than men's football and basketball to include 25 sports in three divisions, 1,000 schools and 250,000 student athletes. Coca-Cola has relationships with 80% of colleges nationwide.

It's the Atlanta-based beverage company's second big foray into college sports in the past several months. Coca-Cola recently announced an 11-year relationship to sponsor NCAA championships across all sports. "This particular CSTV partnership really gives us another way to connect our brands with collegiate sports fans, students and student athletes through the excitement and passion of intercollegiate athletics and be able to do so all year long," said Chuck Fruit, Coca-Cola's SVP of worldwide media and alliances. Fruit said its advertising on CSTV will be in support of many of its brands, including Coke, Diet Coke and Sprite. Dasani, Minute Maid and Powerade. "You should expect to see Powerade involved in virtually every one of the sports that are covered on CSTV," Fruit said.

"Advertising will run on CSTV in support of many of our brands. Because the audience for college sports is so broad, it gives a wide variety of our brands a great opportunity to reach their particular audiences. While the conent of the advertising will be appropriate for that environment and that audience, we'll be running all forms of advertising, not just college-themed," Fruit said.

Fruit noted that Coca-Cola's share in CSTV - among the largest of stakeholders in the network - would allow it to "go well beyond advertising by creating an integrated, multifaceted relationship with CSTV." There will be partnerships with cable and satellite operators on the local level, although details have yet to be worked out. There will also be online and out-of-home components.

"We see the real opportunity here to go well beyond just traditional advertising," Fruit said.