By Paul Birdwell (paul@roaringforkagency.com)
The Hartford Marathon is now on the hunt for a new Title Sponsor in the wake of ING dropping their sponsorship of the race and the very smart thing that the Hartford Marathon has done is quantify in Dollars & Cents terms what the event is actually worth to the Hartford, Connecticut region.
The Hartford Business Journal has the story:
Hartford Marathon deserves title sponsor, Editorial, Hartford Business Journal
“While still searching for a new title sponsor, the Hartford Marathon smartly released a study last week showing that last year's October race generated $14.1 million in economic value, up from $11 million in 2012.
The study, done by Avon's Witan Intelligence Inc., found that the average party of people attending the race spent $388.47.
That's up from $282.71 in 2012; the average party was also bigger in 2013 at 3.1 people, compared to 2.7 a year earlier. Hotels, restaurants, and small businesses were the beneficiaries.
While not earth shattering, the numbers demonstrate the race, which drew a record breaking 75,000 attendees, is a major event for the city, helping attract hordes of runners and onlookers from across Connecticut, the country, and even outside the United States.
ING, which sponsored the race since 2008, has dropped its title sponsorship on the heels of a rebranding and new marketing strategy. By all accounts, ING was a good corporate sponsor.
Now it's time for another major regional employer to take the helm. The Hartford Marathon deserves corporate support and there has been no better time in recent memory for a company to implant its name and brand on the race.”
All of the above is great but there are a couple of things that we would recommend the Hartford Marathon add to their website to help sell a new Title Sponsorship and those two things would be:
The Demographics of the Participants and Spectators of the Hartford Marathon
The Benefits that come with being the Title Sponsor of the Hartford Marathon
Maybe an email or phone call is in order from the Roaring Fork Agency to the folks running the Hartford Marathon!
Hartford Marathon - www.hartfordmarathon.com
If you have any questions about event sponsorship or venue naming rights contact the Roaring Fork Agency at:
paul@roaringforkagency.com
415 730 - 4854
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Twitter - @RoaringForkAgcy