Heels Fans...

It was a matter of time. How do you guys feel about this? It seemed nice to go to an arena and not see all the corporate crap. Guess years of operating at a loss added up.

Wachovia signs up UNC

Under an eight-year, $9.1 million deal announced Tuesday, Wachovia Corp. will be the first corporate sponsor to hang permanent signs in the basketball home of the UNC Chapel Hill Tar Heels.

For 20 years, the Dean E. Smith Dome eschewed the corporate logos that pepper most sports venues. Only recently had a select few companies, including the Charlotte bank, started displaying their names electronically on the video board inside the fabled "Dean Dome."

Wachovia's annual payments to the university will start at $1 million this year and gradually rise to $1.3 million in 2013, according to the contract, a public record under state law. In return, the bank gets marketing in the arena and other sports venues, tickets to games and other benefits.

The new signs made their debut at Tuesday night's game against Cleveland State. Two 6-foot by 8-foot signs adorn video boards in the arena, and Wachovia can run messages on a 40-foot courtside electronic display.

Dan Fleishman, the bank's director of sponsorship and alliances, hailed the deal as a way to reach customers and prospects at games and during regional and national TV broadcasts -- without competition from other advertisers.

"It's truly an uncluttered marketing platform that I consider to be TiVo proof," he said in an interview.

The nation's No. 4 bank by assets became the official financial services sponsor of the university's athletic department in 2003. That agreement, which included commercials during radio and TV broadcasts, will be extended under the new deal.

The university has been exploring ways to add on-site sponsorships with quality companies in a "tasteful, Carolina way," UNC Director of Athletics Dick Baddour said in an interview. "Clearly, Wachovia exceeded all of the specifications."

UNC, coming off a national championship season in basketball, will use the sponsorship to pay for improvements to sports facilities, including the basketball arena, and student-athlete programs. The university has room for one more Dean Dome sponsorship, but Baddour said he couldn't say when or if another would occur.

The deal is the latest sports sponsorship for Wachovia. Earlier this year, it signed agreements with the Charlotte Bobcats and two NBA teams in Texas. The bank spent about $193 million on advertising in 2004.

 

I'm going to go close out my accounts now.

It's a way of life for athletic departments now. I wonder if there is a price for a corporate name to be put on the court after Dean passes on?

 

Who knows. He never did want his name on the building. Humble man he is.

 

Works for me, more money to the program.

 

its better than that O'Reilly auto parts sign at Cameron. that sign looks completely out of place.

 

If its done right and doesn't stick out like a sore thumb, then I could care less. I don't have a problem with instadium Ads, but I don't want them tackying everything up.