“10s Whenever” Newsletter Vol. 152

Written by: Staff on 19th March 2014

"10s Whenever" Newsletter Vol. 152 |

The following is a reprinted “Vantage Point” column that was written by Gene Scott and appeared in Tennis Week on May 26, 1987.

Gene Scott’s Timeless “Vantage Point” Regarding Sponsors In Tennis

Sponsorships do not exist to eternity. Some don’t last till Saturday. This is the sad lament of tournament directors everywhere. It needn’t be. Losing a sponsor should be accepted as a business risk just as much as injuries, upsets and rain. If one understands the fragile reasons why corporations use tennis as a marketing or entertainment vehicle, one can also forsee that those objectives can lapse without warning.

The Board may retire (fire?) a President who adores tennis. His replacement might be a golfer. Or the boss may be indifferent to our sport, but understands that its spectators are identical to his company’s customers. Those customers, or the method of reaching them, sooner or later, will change, and all a tournament director can hope for is warning. On the other hand, sometimes the world turns upside down, without notice, a promoter spurns a sponsor.

In a bizarre business turnabout, Pilot Pen was discarded as title sponsors of one of this country’s most glamorous Super Series events at Indian Wells, Calif., and replaced by Newsweek. Ron Shaw, 48, the president of Pilot Pen, a Japanese-based company with its American subsidiary located in Connecticut, concluded, “If we had to get out, we did get out in style.”

Shaw does have a sense of style. He is also direct, ambitious, intense and guileless. His manner (and look) is like a bulldog without wrinkles. Shaw’s entry into tennis is a promoter’s fantasy. He was not pitched by an advertising agency or tennis management firm. He actually went looking for a tournament without a sponsor!

Shaw’s initial experience in the game was almost by accident. “I’m a horrible player and I mean it. I didn’t get involved because I wanted to improve my tennis. In 1982, I invested $5,000 as title sponsor of a USTA Satellite event on the Southern Connecticut courts in New Haven. My interest was not in tennis, per se. It was simply a vehicle to be a good neighbor for our new corporate headquarters and to get our company’s name better known locally. We had no dreams beyond that. I cannot even remember who won our first tournament.”

Pilot Pen received remarkable press coverage in community newspapers those first three years and Shaw’s imagination soon conjured up the fairy tale of his company sponsoring an event of national consequence with clippings across the country rather than spanning the Housatonic River alone.

First, Pilot Pen commissioned a demographic study of who plays and watches tennis. “The results were scary,” Shaw says. “We had previously done research on who buys and uses Pilot pens and the fit was like a glove. Shortly afterwards I went to my advertising agency and teased, “Where in the phone book do I find tennis tournaments for sale?”

ProServ was identified and contacted, and a men’s and ladies’ tournament were offered. Both in Florida. Both were spurned. Then the Grand Prix at La Quinta (predecessor site to Indian Wells) was presented to Shaw. He bit big time. “I had no idea whether the level of commitment was $5,000 or $50,000. I didn’t know if we could afford it. But ProServ came back with a figure of $300,000 for the first year, small increase for two years and an option for three years after that. We were to be the title sponsor. I had learned early on that if you can’t have your name in the title, why bother? Unless you’re interested in an entertainment vehicle, which we weren’t.

Shaw then met with Charlie Pasarell, the event’s founder and director, and there was instant chemistry. The initial relationship between promoter and sponsor is like the honeymoon in a marriage. Both sides are starry-eyed and ebullient. Afterwards you work it out.

“Congoleum, the previous title sponsor had walked away mad,” Shaw revealed. “The Chairman and Donald Dell had a major dispute which both admitted to me later was childish. But they agreed to disagree which left Pasarell five months before the tournament without a sponsor. We came along looking for an event – it was a perfect marriage. Our intent was not to be a pushy sponsor and tell Charlie how to run his operation. Our purpose instead was simply to derive a tremendous amount of press and bring the name of Pilot Pen before people who had never heard of us. And to sell more pens and gain market share.”

In the 12 years Shaw has been involved with the Pilot Pen, it has grown from $1 million in sales to $50 million and a 12 percent market share. In case you’re curious, Papermate is the industry leader (Bic is No. 2) with about 50 percent of the total U.S. business estimated at $500 million. Unquestionably, you’re more curious about the marriage of Shaw and Pasarell.

“It was our goal to continue with the tournament as long as we could,” Shaw continued. “We had never spent as much money on a single promotional project. We were the smallest company ever to sponsor a major tennis event. But it didn’t take me long to realize I had gotten my firm a pretty good deal. Using a clipping service, we measured the inches of ink received and calculated that if we went out to buy that space it would cost $3 million. When that event was played on television in Japan, putting us in the same company with the giant Seiko, we had arrived.

“Soon afterwards Charlie came to me with the blueprints of his wonderful plan for the Grand Champions Resort and asked me if Pilot Pen would stick with him in the move from La Quinta. Of course, I endorsed his idea for a new hotel and spectacular stadium. He talked of expanding the tournament to two weeks and including women which would involve more prize money. Secure in my contract for six years, I said, ‘Let me know what’s involved, we’re delighted with how things are going, maybe we can come up with a few more bucks.’ The relationship was now never better.

“But within two weeks after the ’86 event at La Quinta, Charlie called my secretary and asked to see me. I had just spent a week with him. Why would he want to fly east so soon? Why couldn’t he discuss the matter over the phone? I knew something was up.

“Charlie did come to Connecticut. I had boxes of the newspaper articles written about the Pilot Pen Classic spread around the office. I was a like a kid with a new electronic train. Charlie didn’t smile and didn’t look at the clippings. He was nervous. Something was not good.

“He said he wanted to make the two-week concept happen sooner, and because a lot more money was involved he assumed that we wouldn’t be able to come up with the additional commitment. Prior to coming to my office, he had some meetings with Newsweek to see if they had an interest. They did.

“That was the turning point in the relationship for me. That moment. I looked him straight in the eye and asked him, ‘What do you want me to do, disappear?’ He half nodded. ‘Do you really think I would do that? I have a contract. You have a problem.’ As I reflect, I probably wasn’t polite as I normally try to be. He didn’t handle the situation in a very business-like way, and my reaction wasn’t too friendly.

“I immediately sent a letter picking up my option for three years. The irony is that if Charlie hadn’t come to my office that day, I would have missed the deadline to exercise that option. Both of us had forgotten the time frame was 120 days after the second year, not the third. If he had waited, he’d have been home scot-free. Now I had the tournament through 1990. But what I ultimately concluded was that if I continued, the relationship would have been uncomfortable. The spirit and cooperation wouldn’t have disappeared. I did, however, determine to have a final Pilot Pen Classic in 1987. So we could bow out with grace and dignity – and give an explanation to the public – which all happened.

“For six months we negotiated the terms of a buy out for the three option years. In the contract we agreed not to discuss the terms. “ Tennis Week, from independent sources, learned the settlement was approximately $900,000 which meant that Pilot Pen got its three-year sponsorship essentially for free.

“I wanted to continue sponsoring the tournament. I hoped Charlie would turn down my price. Now that the episode is well past us, I do want to say I like Charlie Pasarell. He is a true gentleman. During the event itself, he always bent over backwards to give us more than we were entitled to in terms of tickets, hotel rooms, etc. I wish him well. I mean that.”

EDITORS NOTE: This story was written by a “Guardian of The Game”, Gene Scott. He was always outspoken and rarely wrong. He loved the game of tennis and he was a leader, visionary, and one of the best athletes to ever play our sport. We brought this one out of the archives.

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