It’s hard enough to lose such a huge game as the FIFA Women's World Cup Final after having a pair of one-goal leads extremely late in the match and then in the overtime. But a few members of U.S. Women’s National Soccer Team will feel the loss in their wallets as well.

Ad Age reports that the team probably lost $10 million in endorsements by losing the Final in penalty kicks to Japan. Forward Abby Wambach and goalie Hope Solo may be household names right now, but they may have lost out on $3 million or $4 million annually on marketing deals, the publication notes.Continue reading...

While baseball fans sat and watched ball after ball after ball get hammered out of the ballpark on Monday during the 2011 State Farm Home Run Derby, part of the Major League Baseball All-Star Game festivities, execs at the insurance company, which has sponsored the Derby since 2007, must have been sitting back and enjoying themselves.

The broadcast from Phoenix attracted almost 7 million viewers to ESPN, according to Nielsen, giving a big boost to the State Farm Brand. The insurer received about $45 million worth of brand recognition during the game, estimates Front Row Analytics, a division of marketing, research, and naming-rights firm Front Row Marketing Services, estimates, according to TheBigLead.Continue reading...

While Toyota's logo was prominent as Derek Jeter discussed his history-making 3,000th hit with reporters on Saturday, it was Verizon that found itself a surprise benefactor of New York Yankees shortstop Derek Jeter's historic home run and 3,000th hit on Saturday.

The hit happened to be a home run and was grabbed by 23-year-old Verizon employee Christian Lopez, whose kind act of just returning the ball to Jeter and not holding it ransom or selling it for big bucks has put a good glow on his employer as well.Continue reading...

Nike's blog marked Derek Jeter's highly anticipated 3,000th hit with a video that puts the achievement (he's now the 28th player to hit 3,000, and the first to do so in a New York Yankees uniform) in statistical perspective.

General Electric has decided to go “faster, higher, stronger” for another decade.

The 119-year-old brand co-founded by Thomas Edison has agreed to extend its Olympics sponsorship with “a four-games deal worth hundreds of millions of dollars,” according to the Associated Press.

As with past Olympics, when it owned NBC to help reinforce its branding, viewers worldwide will get to see the GE logo in every place possible through the 2012 London Olympics, the 2014 Winter Games in Sochi, the 2016 Olympics in Rio de Janeiro, and the 2018 Winter Games and 2020 Summer Olympics. The latter pair has not had their host cities selected, the AP points out.

The other current sponsors that will be involved with the Olympics through 2020 include Coca-Cola, Dow, Omega, Proctor & Gamble, and Visa.Continue reading...

The Kia Optima is a mid-size, four-door sedan, but it can apparently carry the weight of a whole lot of young, soon-to-be NBA players.

As the official automotive partner of the NBA, Kia is not just a sponsor but a “presenting partner” at the 2011 NBA Draft, taking place tomorrow at the Prudential Center in Newark, New Jersey.

NBA rookie of the year Blake Griffin, whose slo-mo car-hopping dunk (above) has been a viral hit for the automaker since it was released in February, was today named the brand's official pitchman.Continue reading...

At the 2010 World Cup in South Africa, 36 women were ejected from a game (and two arrested) simply for wearing orange dresses, it seemed. A little extreme? Not when the women were practicing a little ambush marketing, showing the colors of beer maker Bavaria, a direct competitor to World Cup sponsor Anheuser-Busch InBev’s Budweiser.

Corporations have a long history of gaining a little attention for themselves at such massive events even if they aren’t the official sponsor. After all, such sponsorships can cost a lot of dough. For example, Cadbury spent £20 million ($32.45 million) to be a Tier Two sponsor, according to The Independent. 

So how do the 2012 Summer Olympics organizers plan on stopping 100 people from showing up at an event dressed with Hershey’s Kiss hats?Continue reading...

In the best pro sports branding tie-in of the year, Stanley Cup-winning NHL goalie Tim Thomas showed up at Gillette's World Shaving Headquarters in Boston to say goodbye to his "playoff beard" in a charity event.

Thomas can be seen foamed up with the Gilette safety razor scraping his face in a video from Boston's ABC news affiliate, which is not embeddable because, apparently, WCBVtv news producers hate the web... and Gillette.

The 110-year-old Gillette brand is still headquartered in Boston even though it was acquired by Procter & Gamble in 2005. Gillette's name, of course, permeates Boston-area sports. The brand has naming rights for the Gillette Stadium just outside Boston, home of the New England Patriots football and Revolution soccer teams.

Gillette wasn't the only brand getting a tie-in boost from Lord Stanley and his hallowed cup o' hockey.Continue reading...