Jeremy Lin Enriches Knicks with Sponsorship, Web Sales
The excitement over Jeremy Lin’s new stardom — aka Linsanity — has attracted the first of an expected cavalcade of Asian sponsorships for the New York Knicks with the signing of a deal with Taiwanese tiremaker Maxxis International Friday.
Every Knicks home game for the remaining four months of the NBA season will feature a bright orange Maxxis advertisement on a courtside LED board, according to an announcement on website of Cheng Shin Rubber which markets Maxxis brand tires.
Cheng Shin had had its eyes on Lin even before Linsanity hit beginning February 4 because the company is based in Changhua county, Lin’s parents’ home town. The company didn’t reveal the terms of the deal, but did say that about 2% of the firm’s revenues are spent on sports sponsorships. The group posted revenues of NT$120 billion ($4.05 billion) in 2011, putting the total value of its sports sponsorships at around NT$2.4 billion ($81 million). The contract with the Knicks is thought to be a substantial portion of that amount.
Cheng Shin has also sponsored the Houston Rockets to tap into Chinese fans of Yao Ming and the New York Yankees to get its brand before the Japanese fans of slugger Hideki Matsui.
In addition to being featured on the courtside LED screens and the GardenVision scoreboard, Maxxis will also sponsor a giveaway for fans attending an upcoming game.
“This new marketing partnership shows the power of ‘Linsanity’ and how the Knicks brand can help drive real results for companies from around the world,” said MSG Sports President Scott O’Neil.
It’s the first sponsorship deal of any kind signed by the Knicks since Jeremy Lin became the Knicks starting point guard on February 6 after his February 4 breakout game. But the Knicks have received inquiries from other Asian firms for marketing deals since then.
The excitement over Lin’s Cinderella-rise to stardom has also caused an explosion of online activity on the Knicks’ various sites and social media pages.
Since Feb. 4 NYKnicksStore.com has seen a 4000% increase in online sales, according to the team’s online partner Delivery Agent. Jersey’s bearing Lin’s name has been the NBA’s top seller during that time. Currently about 50 items bearing the Lin name are available on the Knicks’ online store, including jerseys, hats, fashion t-shirts, novelty items and collectibles.
Since Feb. 4 NYKnicks.com and KnicksNow.com has seen a 770% increase in traffic to a total of 13.4 million page views during the following two-week period, a record for the sites. Unique visitors have soared 531% and video views jumped 2,000%, to 1.8 million.
During the week ending Feb. 19 NYKnicks.com was the NBA’s most visited site. Fans participating in live online chats during Knicks games on KnicksNow.com swelled to over 70,000, nearly three times more than before Linsanity began.
Linsanity has also produced 500,000 Facebook likes in the past two weeks for the Knicks site, the most of any team in the NBA, bringing their total to nearly 2 million. About 35,000 followers joined the Knicks on Twitter, for a total of over 230,000—an 18% increase since Feb. 4.