CIF Back to Square 1 on Sponsorship : Prep sports: Organization rejects firm that had aggressive proposal for statewide corporate funding.

BURLINGAME —  Annie Steel was excited at the prospect of leading the California Interscholastic Federation into a new era of marketing.

Her strategy called for a more organized, aggressive approach to corporate sponsorship, which she said could bring in $6 million per year before the turn of the century. With dollars for high school athletics shrinking, Steel said such funds are vital to the survival of the CIF.

Apparently CIF leaders agreed, because they paid Steel Marketing Partners of San Diego, headed by Annie Steel, $45,000 last year to come up with a statewide marketing plan.

Steel and CIF members met often to work on ways to make the organization more attractive to potential sponsors. When a plan was finally finished, Steel hoped her company would get the go-ahead to implement it.

But last week, the CIF State Federated Council pulled a surprise, praising Steel’s strategy but rejecting her company. In a close vote, the council chose to open bidding to other marketing firms, hoping to reduce the $350,000 Steel said she would need to start a corporate program.

“I feel very, very bad for the CIF,” Steel said. “I want to see them succeed. But they need corporate sponsorship, otherwise they’ve kissed their own death warrant. Funding is a critical situation for them, and it’s only going to get worse.”

It’s not a new story for the CIF, which governs California high school athletics. The organization got its feet wet in corporate sponsorship six years ago when it hired Don Baird, who had initiated corporate funding for high school sports in Oregon. Today, his company, School Properties, Inc., of Yorba Linda, represents 19 states.

Baird’s first order of business in California was to sign Reebok as a statewide sponsor. Reebok initially committed $75,000, but now is in the middle of a three-year contract worth $1.5 million. Pepsi-Cola is the other statewide sponsor, also in the middle of a three-year contract worth $600,000.

For their financial commitments, Reebok and Pepsi-Cola get to attach their names to CIF-sponsored playoff events in all sports and to advertise free in programs.

School Properties takes a 20% commission on those accounts, leaving $560,000 per year for the CIF. That money is divided among the state’s 10 sections, the larger sections getting bigger shares.

Although School Properties will continue to service the Reebok and Pepsi-Cola contracts through the 1992-93 school year, it apparently has no future with the CIF. The company is no longer seeking business for the organization and is not expected to be asked to bid on the statewide marketing plan.

CIF officials apparently believe there is potential for more corporate dollars.

“This is not a negative thing for School Properties,” said Thomas Byrnes, CIF commissioner. “But our council felt it was time to move forward with someone else. We do need to move quickly, however, because the funding crisis is only going to get worse.”

So far, corporate sponsorship has barely been tapped.

The Southern Section, the largest in the state, has an annual budget of $1 million. About 20% of its budget comes from corporate support. The Southern Section gets $100,000 from the CIF Reebok and Pepsi-Cola accounts and another $100,000 from the section’s own corporate accounts.

The $200,000 has helped the Southern Section keep its membership dues down.

The North Coast Section in Northern California is the only other one that seeks corporate dollars on its own. The eight other sections rely on statewide sponsors.

Baird agrees that the market has barely been tapped, but blames it on the complexity of the CIF.

“Why should a company put the money up for the whole state when it sees it can go into the Southern Section for a fraction of the cost?” he said. “It is very frustrating, and I’ve tried to convince the CIF to change its format. But I couldn’t convince them enough.

“There are 10 tribes, and you can’t service 10 entities. My proposal was to have a system, whereas the CIF worked as one entity. But its been like pulling teeth from a saber-toothed tiger.”

Steel said she also told CIF officials that her plan would eliminate corporate sponsorship for individual sections. She said that unless the state acted as a single entity, it would never work.

She proposed that a CIF committee be formed to work with Steel Marketing Partners and have the power to make quick decisions.

The $350,000 setup cost would have established an office to seek corporate sponsorship and be responsible for the servicing of those accounts. The eight-person staff could eventually become the property of the CIF, and Steel Marketing Partners would then have become merely a consultant.

Steel’s company would have taken a 15%-20% commission, depending on the size of the account.

“We felt the CIF had considerable potential in this area, over what they’re doing right now,” she said. “That’s not to destroy what they’ve done, but to build from where they are.”

Steel said her company is no longer interested in doing business with the CIF, because it has invested too much time already.

And for the CIF, it’s back to the drawing board. Whichever company it eventually hires will have its own idea how to bring in business, but that company is unknown now and the State Federated Council will not convene again until next October. That leaves corporate sponsorship in limbo.