NCAA rules govern Arena ads, setup, uniforms

This weekend’s NCAA basketball games have no script, but everything else fans see will be carefully managed according to precise NCAA tournament manual specifications.

Spokane Veterans Memorial Arena workers have been busy making sure everything is up to snuff – laying the basketball court, setting up behind-the-scenes media areas and covering up non-NCAA-approved advertising.

Detailed sections of the manual describe what kind of signage can and must be displayed, required buffets, how media areas should be set up and what staff will wear.

Most staff will wear long-sleeved, charcoal polo shirts with the NCAA logo. Those at the scorers’ table must wear ties.

“We have costumes. It’s like Disney,” said Matt Gibson, events and booking manager at the arena. “The NCAA doesn’t leave anything to chance.”

The stakes are especially high when it comes to advertising.

The advertising usually seen during Spokane Chiefs games will be invisible.

“Pretty much everything has to be covered up with black fabric,” Gibson explained.

That’s because NCAA corporate champions and partners have the monopoly on their product categories.

Coca-Cola, for example, provides all the nonalcoholic beverages. (Alcoholic beverages are prohibited, anyway.) That includes carbonated drinks, bottled water, coffee and any other kind of beverage in a “non-frozen, semi-frozen or frozen state.” Bottled water will be Coca-Cola brand Dasani.

The Arena already sells Coke products, but the company’s NCAA partnership has proven more problematic in areas that have prominent Pepsi advertising on the backs of seats or even in the venue name.

There is one beverage exception – “unpackaged water drawn from the public water supply.” In other words, drinking fountains are OK.

Other NCAA corporate champions and partners include AT&T/Cingular, Pontiac, DiGiorno, Enterprise Rent-a-Car, The Hartford Mutual Funds, Lowe’s and State Farm Insurance.

The NCAA won’t say how much champions and partners pay, although champions pay more for the benefit of worldwide exclusivity and additional recognition and exposure, said David Knopp, the NCAA’s managing director of corporate and broadcast alliances.

They also contribute by sponsoring fan entertainment and concerts, and donate sporting equipment to youth teams at NCAA events.

That doesn’t mean those companies’ logos are plastered on every surface near the court, though.

“At basketball championship sites we don’t really have signage within the venues. They might be in the concourse,” Knopp said.

Much of the sponsor companies’ exposure comes via television deals with CBS.

The goal is to create NCAA-branded events rather than corporate-branded events, he explained.

The NCAA ships its own items to venues in advance of the tournament – vinyl court decals, folding chairs, disposable cups, water bottle carriers and more, all emblazoned with the NCAA logo.

Local and national businesses that sponsor local teams like the Spokane Chiefs won’t get any airtime during the NCAA games because their ads will be covered.

“I’m fine with it,” said Gus Johnson Ford owner Gus Johnson, who was told when he chose to sponsor the Chiefs that some events might require that his courtside logo be covered.

“They’re very up front about that,” he said.