Bud Marketing Head Out
November 19, 2008
Tony Ponturo, vice president of global media and sports marketing at Anheuser-Busch Cos., has announced that he will retire from his position effective at the end of the year. The announcement comes on the heels of the regulatory ok given to the merger between InBev and Anhesuer Busch. Ponturo was the point man in signing the Bud Light Deal with the UFC and had been laudatory of the fight company in recent articles in Marketwatch and the Sports Business Journal.
This is an interesting situation to monitor with regards to MMA because of the earlier reports by Darren Rovell and MMAPayout.com that one of the first areas for possible cuts would be to the vast array of sports sponsorships. The huge dollar figures budgeted for sports sponsorship was seen as a ripe area for trimming. While the UFC deal is smaller in comparison to some of their other deals, it too could be affected if their is a change in philosophy with a new head of sports marketing coming in. Some chatter in the industry suggests that the announced 3-year deal between Bud Light and the UFC might have an early exit clause that can be exercised by Bud.
