Marketing opportunities abound

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When Oscar De La Hoya was in his prime as a world champion boxer, his fights had a beer sponsor and maybe one or two other corporate entities along with HBO Pay Per View.

He probably was born too early to cash in on the marketing opportunities that Floyd Mayweather Jr. and Juan Manuel Marquez had for their welterweight fight Saturday at the MGM Grand Garden.

Whether it was Tecate beer, AT&T, Southwest Airlines, Quaker State, Affliction clothing or DeWalt tools and equipment, more mainstream corporate sponsors came on board for the fight. More important, De La Hoya’s Golden Boy Promotions sought different avenues to get the word out on its fights, particularly through new media and specifically through social networks.

“It’s huge for boxing,” De La Hoya said of having mainstream corporate America involved in Mayweather-Marquez. “It’s about building relationships and bringing credibility to boxing.”

Golden Boy chief executive officer Richard Schaefer, who sponsored a seminar Friday at the MGM Grand to discuss marketing boxing, said his company has no choice but to try something different if it wants to survive.

“If you don’t try new things, nothing will happen,” Schaefer said. “We have to cultivate new fans, younger fans, and to do that, we have to be able to reach them the way they’re comfortable communicating.”

That means De La Hoya is on Twitter and Facebook. It means texting to Mayweather’s and Marquez’s fans on AT&T. It means promoting the fight on trailers in movie theaters across the country.

For Tecate, its entire sports marketing budget, which according to brand director Carlos Boughton is seven figures, is devoted entirely to boxing.

“We believe we can be the beer brand for boxing in the United States,” he said. “Soccer is so fragmented, it’s hard to build a brand.”

The real beneficiary of all this is HBO. When Web sites are promoting the fight or movie theaters are showing the trailers, it drives traffic to the PPV.

“I think back to 1991 when you literally had to go door to door to beg people to buy pay per view,” said Mark Taffet, HBO’s senior vice president. “Bringing on these corporate sponsors has allowed pay per view to grow a thousand-fold, and it ensures the growth and vitality of boxing.”

De La Hoya, who said he had almost a million followers on Twitter since he began tweeting on Monday, said he knows this is the only way for boxing to survive.

“This is our game plan, and we’re sticking to it,” he said. “But I think with all these sponsors we have, Richard is trying to lure me out of retirement.”

• KLITSCHKO READY — WBC heavyweight champion Vitali Klitschko said he has no intention of losing to Chris Arreola on Sept. 26 at Staples Center in Los Angeles.

“Chris Arreola is a tough fighter,” Klitschko said of his opponent, who is 27-0 with 24 knockouts. “He’s the official contender, and to be No. 1 is not easy.

“I’ve studied him very well, and I know he had a good amateur background, and, as a professional, he’s undefeated. He moves very well. He has very good, explosive combinations. He has a big punch. He has everything you need to be a world champion, except one thing: He doesn’t have the experience as me. I want to show him my skills in the ring.”

Klitschko (37-2, 36 KOs) said the ultimate goal is to lock up all four belts between himself and his brother, Wladimir, the IBF and WBO champion. Nikolay Valuev is the reigning WBA champ.

“We have so many belts right now, but we’re trying to make history in boxing, two brothers in the same division to have all the titles,” Vitali Klitschko said.

Contact reporter Steve Carp at scarp@ reviewjournal.com or 702-387-2913.