Discover Squeezes Orange Bowl Title Sponsorship Deal With ESPN
Discover Financial Services has supplanted Federal Express as the title sponsor of the Orange Bowl, which ESPN will televise under its Bowl Championship Series package.
Under the deal, terms of which were not disclosed, the college football contest will become titles as the Discover Orange Bowl from 2011-14. Discover, now the official card of the Orange Bowl and the BCS, will also serve as the title sponsor of the BCS National Championship Game in 2012, when it will be played in the Orange Bowl in South Florida.
The pact also encompasses multimedia integration of Discover as part of ESPN's coverage and marketing of college football during the regular season.
For Discover, the ESPN/BCS pact represents another commitment to the sport: it has media/sponsorship deals with NBC's coverage of Notre Dame and the Big Ten Network.
ESPN spent about $500 million, outbidding incumbent Fox for the rights to the 2011-14 BSC package, comprising the Orange, Sugar, Fiesta and Rose Bowls, as well as the national championship games. The latter rotates through the aforementioned bowl games.
ESPN, which is responsible for inking title sponsor deals for the BCS bowls, will televise those contests, will be the exclusive home to those contests, starting next January.
FedEx announced in May that it was ending its 21-year ties to the Orange Bowl.
Meanwhile, Allstate has renewed as title sponsor of the 2011-2014 Allstate Sugar Bowls and the 2012 Allstate BCS National Championship Game.
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