We are just two weeks away from the start of the Sports Sponsorship Symposium in New York City.  If you haven’t seen the agenda yet, take a look now.

Also, if you have any questions that you think should be asked to any of the panelists, let us know.  We want your feedback.  On my end, I’ll be moderating the panel on athlete endorsements and the one-on-one with Jim Courier.  If you have any questions specifically for those sessions, I’d love to hear them.

A few interesting reads caught my eye this morning.

Fun read by Stuart Elliott, who uses the long weekend to file his periodic
“20 questions about advertising, marketing, the media and popular culture.”
A couple of sports marketing questions from Stuart:

Will a soda called Pepsi Lemon N.F.L. Kickoff inspire a soda from the Coca-Cola Co. called Coke Lime N.B.A. Tipoff?

Did Michael Phelps agree to appear on boxes of Kellogg’s cereals like Corn Flakes and Frosted Flakes because the Kellogg Co. promised that Tony the Tiger would change his famous growl from “Grrrrreeeat” to “Eiiiiiiggght”?

BOX OFFICE RESULTS: I am always interested in the performance of the box office because I think it’s an interesting indicator on consumers' willingness to spend and get out of the house for entertainment purposes; and I always like to see how sports matches up with movies. So while we see NASCAR facing some challenges with empty seats along the Sprint Cup circuit, MLB has performed steady all season and is close to setting another attendance record. So it’s difficult to discern much of a trend. At the end of Labor Day, Hollywood took assessment of its summer season and the figures were a mixed bag. While revenue was up due to the success of “The Dark Knight” and higher ticket prices — films racked up a record $4.2 billion in ticket sales — attendance at theaters this summer was actually down 3.5%, to roughly 586 million moviegoers. Was it the economy? Tighter purse strings? Poor film choices? Or just other lifestyle entertainment options taking precedent? Hard to know, but interesting numbers to keep an eye on.