MGM seeks sponsor for Grand Garden Arena

Tuesday, June 29, 1999 | 11:09 a.m.

MGM Grand Inc. has hired Envision, a Los Angeles marketing company, to seek a long-term sponsorship deal for the MGM Grand Garden Arena.

The search for an arena sponsor is part of a five-year-old trend that has seen almost every major football, baseball, basketball and entertainment venue link up with a corporate entity, MGM Grand marketing executive Don Welsh said today.

"Whether it's Staples Arena in Los Angeles, Jacobs Field in Denver or another venue, it's an opportunity for these companies to market their services or products to a broad market."

The 17,157-seat MGM Grand Garden Arena hosts 50 to 60 events a year, including championship boxing, concerts, the Fox Billboard Music Awards and the like, he said.

"If you link up with the right company, they can market to a wide range of customers because of the different nature of the events at the arena," he said.

Envisions will be looking "at a very broad spectrum of corporations" as potential sponsors, according to the company's president, Jeff Knapple.

"The potential in this deal is huge," he said. "It means the sponsor will not only have their brand name attached to the venue and access to the global viewing audience of championship boxing, but also to a broad demographic that views other events at the arena."

The partner selected for the arena will potentially have access to other MGM Grand ventures, Knapple said.

MGM Grand executives have recently intensified their efforts to capitalize more effectively on the company's brand name. While they are separate public companies, MGM Grand and the world-renowned MGM-UA studios are both controlled by billionaire Kirk Kerkorian.

"We could have done this ourselves, using solely the MGM name," Welsh said. "But we believe there are synergies in bringing in a company from outside our industry."