ADVERTISING & MARKETING : NFL Players and League Bump Heads Over Ads : Two rival campaigns underscore a long-running, high-stakes debate over how the marketing pie should be divided.

By GREG JOHNSON

Sept. 3, 1999 12 AM PT

TIMES STAFF WRITER

On the field, such National Football League stars as Steve Young, Brett Favre and Dan Marino enjoy reputations as keen competitors who keep their eyes on the end zone. But the quarterbacks were all playing for the same team early this summer when DirecTV enlisted a handful of athletes for commercials promoting its NFL Sunday Ticket programming.

When El Segundo-based DirecTV’s commercials began running in August, players were clad in official NFL jerseys, and the advertising campaign was chock-full of the league’s distinctive trademarks.

The campaign is in decided contrast to an Adolph Coors Inc. promotion that also broke in the summer and featured a different squad of NFL players. As soon as the brewer’s campaign appeared, the NFL sought and won a preliminary injunction prohibiting Coors from using a key league trademark.

The difference? DirecTV’s commercial involved players who are members of the NFL Quarterback Club, a player-owned marketing company with close ties to the league. Coors’ campaign is being conducted with Players Inc., a for-profit marketing company created by the NFL Players Assn., the players’ labor union.

Sports marketers say the lawsuit stems from long-standing friction between the league and its players. “The union already has control over most of football’s game-related revenue,” said one sports-marketing insider. “Now they’re watching the players union elbow its way into the marketing side. And the league clearly doesn’t want them there.”

The two advertising campaigns underscore a prickly and long-running debate over when an athlete’s business interests end and a league’s financial considerations begin. There’s a huge sum of money at stake, because the debate touches upon everything from sponsorships and product endorsements to trading cards and computer games.

Big-name athletes always have been free to strike up business deals with corporate partners. But players and their leagues are still arguing over how the marketing pie should be split. Among the issues being debated: Whether players can wear official jerseys in advertisements, who should share the wealth when groups of players are involved in ad campaigns, and what happens when players and leagues sign conflicting deals--say, for different beer or cola companies.

The NFL and its players began negotiating an answer to the thorny issues early in the 1990s, when players were demanding more control over how their images were being used.

Similar issues bubbled to the surface during the NBA’s recent labor negotiations. NFL coaches now have their own marketing company, and professional golfers early this summer unveiled plans to band together to bolster their sports-marketing revenue.

Players maintain that their value in the market rises when they actively pursue group deals with corporate partners. And corporate marketers in turn appreciate the promise of a one-stop shopping center that limits the number of middlemen needed to complete a deal.

“The QB Club allowed us to tie everything we need up in one nice, tight package,” DirecTV Vice President Thomas M. Bracken said. “It includes usage rights, personal appearances, point-of-sale . . . everything. It’s streamlined the whole thing for us.”

As they build bridges to the corporate world, Players Inc. and the QB Club also are broadening their business interests. Players Inc. recently opened a restaurant in Orlando, Fla., the first of a planned chain. The company also plans to begin shipping a line of sportswear to be sold in upscale stores.

QB Club is creating a foundation that will house charities operated by player-owners. It also has taken an equity position in Thingworld.com, an Internet media company.

NFL players began pushing for a greater share of the sports-marketing pie several years ago when a group of quarterbacks led by Bernie Kosar created Quarterback Club. The company subsequently hired the NFL to handle its marketing and licensing deals.

Gary Gertzog, a senior vice president with NFL Properties, said QB Club and the NFL give sponsors what they want: “What I hear out of so many of our business partners’ mouths is that they’re looking for authenticity. Granted, a company can go out and hire a player to appear in a commercial, but they’re not going to be able to feature that player using team trademarks and footage from NFL Films.”

In 1994, the NFL Players Assn. formed Players Inc., a for-profit company that handles sports-marketing deals for 4,800 active and retired players. In addition to seeking corporate sponsorships, Players produces radio and television programming and arranges personal appearances by groups of players.

“What we’re doing is creating opportunities for all players,” said Players President Doug Allen. “We’re doing what players always have done--it’s just that we’re doing it much more effectively as a for-profit company.”

Bob Williams, president of Burns Sports Celebrity Service, a Chicago-based sports-marketing company, credits the players with being “proactive. . . . It used to be that players could sit back and be reactive--wait for people to come to the door, knock it down and throw offers at them.”

Players Inc. reported 1998 revenue approaching $35 million--money that’s split among players, the players association and a retirement fund. The privately held QB Club doesn’t discuss its finances, but insiders say revenue easily exceeds $10 million--money that’s returned to players.

As the DirecTV and Coors campaigns suggest, Players and QB Club view each other as competitors.

Quarterback Club’s elite ranks are limited to 40 players at a time, a cap that’s written into the NFL Players Assn.’s labor contract with the league. Members of the club, working closely with the league’s marketing arm, determine which athletes will join their exclusive ranks.

Sports marketers say QB Club--which, despite its name, has been expanded to include such stars as running back Terrell Davis--tends to lure the game’s best-known players. “It’s the 80/20 rule,” said one industry insider. “Eighty percent of the contracts are going to go to 20% of the players. And those are the ones the Quarterback Club has.”

Allen counters that Players Inc. has its share of big-name players, including Randy Moss and Mark Brunell, as well as rookie quarterback Tim Couch.

Williams, who competes against both QB Club and Players, wonders whether corporate sponsors can get the best deals possible by working through player-owned companies. “If players are doing their jobs right, they’re going to get the best possible deal,” he said. “But that will be a deal that benefits the players.”