Weigh sponsorship risks, rewards early on

Sponsorships are a multibillion-dollar market, and one of the largest and fastest-growing marketing and promotion media today. According to Chicago-based IEG Inc., 82% of companies plan to either maintain or increase their sponsorship spending this year.  By sponsoring an event, a marketer is able to tie the sponsor's product or service with the goodwill or image of the person or event being sponsored.  This can provide tremendous tangible and intangible benefits to the sponsor.  A sponsorship can also be quite lucrative for the event producer.  Just look at the Chicago White Sox, who have made a reported half-million dollars just by changing the start times of its home baseball games from 7:05 pm to a 7-Eleven-sponsored 7:11 p.m.