Under the new deal, Pepsi takes over naming rights to the more than 100,000-square-foot plaza just inside Lincoln Financial Field’s main entrance, which has been known as HeadHouse Plaza and will henceforth be Pepsi Plaza.Īs with every new deal these days, content rights are more clearly delineated, and, with an eye toward possible fan-less or reduced-fan games, possible make-goods are more clearly specified.Īnother intriguing development for this, or any beverage sponsorship across sports, is what post-COVID beverage service at sports venues will become. The Eagles had been with Coke since 2012, and Pepsi’s prior sponsorship with the team was for nine years, dating from the team’s 2003 move into Lincoln Financial Field. ■ WEARING OF THE GREEN: Eight years after Coke displaced Pepsi as a corporate sponsor of the Philadelphia Eagles, the tables have been turned: Pepsi has regained exclusive soda rights with the team, in a deal that we’re told is all but completed. Given the current state of affairs across the overall economy and the sports economy, we’d surmise that the carbonated soft drink category will remain open at MLB this season - if there is one. Then the pandemic hit, closing many of Pepsi’s retail and restaurant channels of distribution. With Snapple also failing to renew with MLB, the door was open for Pepsi, an MLB corporate patron from 1997 until Coke took over the category rights three years ago, to return. Pepsi already has league sponsorship rights with the NBA, NFL and NHL.

Atlanta’s beverage of choice quietly failed to renew its national MLB sponsorship rights early this year, more because of budgetary concerns than anything else, a source familiar with Coke’s marketing tells us.Ĭoke has held the majority of MLB team sponsorships for some time, but with teams’ digital and social media rights firmly controlled by the league, Coke signed a deal garnering it league rights just before the beginning of the 2017 season. If the game does return to its fields of dreams, it will be without Coca-Cola as a national MLB sponsor.

W ith the long-standing enmity between Major League Baseball and its union as evident as ever, we’re increasingly pessimistic about whether MLB diamonds will be operational this year, with or without fans.

Soft drink sponsor of bet