CIF Seeks Salvation in Business World : Athletics: With a new marketing approach, officials hope more money can be generated through corporate sponsors.

Fifteen years ago, the California Interscholastic Federation’s Southern Section made history when it agreed to promote a soft drink in exchange for the company’s underwriting the cost of all of its awards.

The deal might have saved the Southern Section only a few thousand dollars, but it broke ground where no one had dared venture before. Corporate sponsorship was new to high school sports in the 1970s. Educators were unsure of how to deal with the business community, and corporations were equally unsure of the marketability. Ample public funding for prep sports also made such relationships superfluous.

The situation began to change in the 1980s, however, as costs soared and funds dwindled. And for the first time, states began seeking the corporate dollar.

California has been a pioneer. In 1986, the CIF, which governs all prep sports in the state, hired School Properties, Inc., of Yorba Linda to help secure corporate dollars. The company immediately signed Reebok as a statewide sponsor.

Reebok initially committed $75,000, but recently completed a three-year contract worth $1.5 million. Pepsi-Cola, another statewide sponsor, recently ended a three-year deal worth $600,000.

The money was divided among the CIF’s 10 sections, the bigger sections getting bigger shares. The Southern Section, the state’s largest, annually received $124,000, 10% of its budget.

Reebok and Pepsi-Cola received top billing at all sectional and state playoffs as well as free advertising in event programs.

What began as comfortable arrangements, however, eventually began to unravel. CIF officials, sensing that the sponsors were not going to renew their contracts, terminated their relationship with School Properties earlier this summer.

In fact, the CIF decided to change gears two years ago. It paid Steel Marketing Partners of San Diego $45,000 to come up with an aggressive statewide marketing plan.

When Steel presented its plan to the CIF state council in May of 1992, the council approved the plan, but rejected the company as the one to implement it.

“I feel very, very bad for the CIF,” Annie Steel, the company’s president, said after the meeting. “I want to see them succeed. But they need corporate sponsorship, otherwise they’ve (signed) their own death warrant.”

Steel Marketing Partners has since dissolved.

For the CIF, it was back to the drawing board. They believed a successful marketing campaign was possible, they just needed the right company to make it work.

“The present-day reality is that we need to familiarize our name with corporate names,” said Margaret Davis, associate commissioner of the CIF. “Some people have questioned whether this is a good and healthy relationship, but the economic reality is that we can’t debate that at this point.”

More than half of the state high school associations in the nation received corporate money last year, but none came close to the $700,000 generated in California.

Still, CIF officials think that figure should be higher, perhaps two or three times higher. Finding the right people to generate the funds was a challenge. When the bidding was opened last year, 120 marketing companies submitted applications.

That number was eventually cut to six finalists and then to two. Marketing and Financial Management Enterprises of Woodland Hills was chosen over CAT Sports of Carlsbad last March.

M&FM; is headed by Chet Swenson and Bob Seagren, the former Olympic pole vault champion who attended USC. Although the two have years of experience in sports marketing, they admit they have acquired a “major project” with the CIF.

One problem is that although the CIF has been receiving corporate dollars since 1986, it has never been very aggressive, or organized, in its pursuit. Nor have corporations been knocking on the door.

“Because high school sports have not been accessible to companies in the past, they don’t understand the advantages of promoting their products in this area,” said Swenson, who attended Van Nuys High. “It is our job to educate them on the advantages.”

Another hurdle is uniting a state that promotes individuality among its sections.

The CIF is the most complicated high school governing body in the nation, made up of 10 sections that vary greatly in size. The Southern Section, for example, has three times as many schools and athletes as the next biggest section.

The state CIF office in La Mirada, headed by Commissioner Thomas Byrnes, organizes state playoffs in select sports and tries to keep peace among the sections. It leaves most of the governing to its members.

The autonomy has hurt the CIF in marketing endeavors, however, because the Southern and North Coast sections have had their own marketing directors, who have signed numerous corporate sponsors of their own, at a fraction of the cost statewide sponsors pay.

That may have been a major reason Reebok ended its relationships with the CIF this summer. Pepsi-Cola is currently renegotiating its contract.

“I couldn’t attract new sponsors when they saw other companies going into select market areas for a lot less,” said Don Baird, president of School Properties, Inc. “It was very frustrating for me, and something I tried to convince the CIF to change for years.”

Change has arrived. The CIF has set up a Marketing and Management Committee, made up of representatives from each of the sections. This group’s duty is to work closely with M&FM;, and it has the authority to make quick decisions on behalf of the CIF.

The sections have also been told to back away from possible sponsors that have statewide potential.

For the Southern Section, which covers most of Southern California, the loss of Reebok has been painful. It hopes to ease the crisis by raising $150,000 of its own from local sponsors.

So far, M&FM; has not signed any corporate sponsors.

“It took us several months to identify what the CIF has to offer and then see what we can and can’t offer businesses,” said Seagren, who attended Pomona High. “We researched what other states were doing, as well. We’re confident our plan will keep California the leader in this area and a model for other states to follow.”

The plan calls for two or three statewide sponsors that will work together by cross-promoting their products.

Swenson said that getting companies that can help one another is a way to keep everyone happy.

“Companies are not looking to give away their money for nothing,” he said. “They don’t look at this as a donation. They want assurance they will have direct results. They need to be able to monitor their investment.”

Seagren said he has had serious conversations with about 40 companies since March and that he expects to have an announcement about some new sponsors in the next month. He hinted that one may be a major oil company.

Seagren and Swenson agree that there is solid potential in the high school sports market and believe that Reebok and Pepsi-Cola got productive deals for a small investment.

“They basically got steals,” Swenson said. “This is the biggest state in the country with the best athletes. The potential is astronomical.”