For the NBA, after resolving its 149-day labor dispute last month, now comes the hard part: rounding up advertisers.
On Monday, the league will announce it is renewing three of its major long-term partnership deals—with Anheuser-Busch InBev NV, PesicCo Inc.’s Gatorade and AutoTrader.com.
Mark Tatum, the National Basketball Association’s executive vice president of global marketing partnerships, said the league didn’t lose one partner because of the NBA owners’ lockout, which lasted from July to November and shortened the 2011-12 season—which now tips off on Christmas Day—from 82 games to 66.
“Clearly, as a result of the schedule there just wasn’t much NBA inventory in the fourth quarter,” Mr. Tatum said. “That inventory went away, but the demand for NBA advertising, from talking to our TV partners, is incredible—people want to be in those Christmas Day games.”
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