for Heineken
Heineken sponsors U.S. Open for four years
JBm W
rand Slam
Jim Courier
At the beginning of September
the U.S. Open was again
played. Via its corporate spon
sorship contract, Heineken was close
ly involved in this tennis champion
ship which - together with Wimbledon,
the Australian Open and Roland
Garros - forms the Grand Slam series.
Heineken will be sponsoring the
event for at least four years.
Only a few weeks before the start
of the event, the final i's were dotted
and the t's crossed in the contracts
which give Heineken the title of
Corporate Sponsor of the 1992 U.S.
Open. This prestigious tournament
always attracts the world's very best
tennis players to Flushing Meadows
Park in New York.
Under the corporate sponsorship
deal Heineken is allowed to place two
advertising billboards alongside each
of the tennis courts on which the
championship is played. Heineken is
also the Official Beer of the
Tournament.
This sponsorship will have enor
mous publicity value. The big
expected gates of more than 500,000
visitors pale into insignificance when
compared with the publicity gene
Steffi Graf
rated via television broadcasts. For
the recently played tournament
Heineken was guaranteed at least 25
hours of live television coverage via
CBS - one of America's biggest
networks - plus at least a further 80
hours of live coverage of the tourna
ment via USA Network.
An added benefit of the sponsor
ship is the air time that was made
available to Heineken for broadcas
ting a large number of Heineken
commercials on both CBS and USA
Network. To boost the overall impact,
Heineken's importer in America, Van
Munching Co., Inc., had also
booked air time in the commercial
breaks between the live TV broad
casts of the U.S. Open.
T II K \V O II I. I) O I II I I S I k I N