Finance & Business World

Shoemaker K-Swiss Inc. has struck a two-year sponsorship deal to put its brand in about 100 high schools in the four markets, including Pittsburgh. That's according to a new report in Street & Smith's SportsBusiness Journal, a sibling publication of the Pittsburgh Business Times.

Home Team Marketing, a Cleveland-based agency that has aggregated high school rights across the country, sold the deal to K-Swiss. Specific terms were not released, but K-Swiss’ total spend is expected to approach $1 million over two years. The other markets included in the deal are Dallas, Houston and Los Angeles .

David Nichols, executive vice president at K-Swiss, described 2010 as a test program with about 100 schools. In 2011, the list of high schools will grow to about 1,000 in most every major U.S. market. The four markets were selected for the 2010 program to provide a variety of large and small markets that cover the East and West, he said.

The deal provides California-based K-Swiss with branding and signage in the schools’ athletic facilities and hallways. K-Swiss will make a donation of $600 to each school involved in the program this year. There’s also a fundraising component that allows 10 percent of K-Swiss sales to go back to the schools.

K-Swiss (Nasdaq:KSWS) has been known for its tennis shoes and apparel since its founding in 1966, when it made the first all-leather tennis shoe.

“We’ve remained in high-performance tennis shoes, but we’re not really in basketball or the cleats,” Nichols said. “As we’ve moved in the last few years into high-performance running and fitness shoes, we saw this as an opportunity to have an unfiltered voice straight into the high schools.”

For the full report, visit SportsBusinessJournal.com

Source