University of Houston Athletics
UH Athletics Enters Partnership With National Collegiate Sports Marketing Company
May 29, 2002
The University of Houston's sports marketing efforts will expand to a national level following today's announcement that the department of athletics has entered into a partnership with ISP Sports, one of the country's leaders in the collegiate sports marketing industry.
The agreement provides the Winston-Salem, N.C., company with the exclusive multi-media rights to all sales and marketing opportunities associated with Cougar Athletics for the next 10 years, including the UH radio network for all sports, television programming, print advertising in various athletic department publications, and all signage in university athletic facilities. In return, the university is guaranteed an annual rights fee and will share in additional revenues as well.
"We are pleased to partner with ISP Sports to market our program in what is becoming an even more competitive region in terms of attracting entertainment dollars and providing greater exposure for the University of Houston Athletic Programs," UH Director of Athletics Dave Maggard says.
"ISP has a proven track record and is known throughout the country as a first-rate operation. We believe this will be a great asset to our program and look forward to a very strong partnership with a highly professional company."
Houston is the 16th major NCAA athletic program to align itself with ISP Sports. Other schools that currently partner with the company include the University of Central Florida, Cincinnati, Georgia Tech, Marshall, Ohio, Southern Mississippi, Tulane, Vanderbilt, Virginia Tech and Wake Forest.
Additionally, ISP is a joint venture partner with Learfield Communications of Jefferson City, Mo., as the multi-media rights holder for Alabama, Clemson, Missouri, Syracuse and Villanova.
"We are delighted to be associated with a program of such high standards and great athletic tradition, and one that has an extremely positive future behind the leadership of Dave Maggard," ISP president and CEO Ben Sutton says.
"ISP Sports has very solid and productive existing associations within Conference USA, one of the premier conferences in America, and we are excited about establishing a new relationship in that family and developing a true corporate partner program in the Houston market on behalf of the University of Houston."
Mark Josephson, who has served the UH athletic program as a marketing coordinator since September of 2000, will join the ISP sales and marketing staff in Houston as an account director, while Stacy Hall, who has worked in a similar capacity at Florida State the past three years for Host Communications, is the property general manager.