SBJ Marketing: Déjà vu all over again for Yogi Berra

Fractured aphorisms, like "a nickel ain't worth a dime anymore," are more often associated with Lawrence Peter Berra than his on-field accomplishments. That’s an injustice, since Yogi’s playing career was impressive enough to be unassailable. It included 10 championship rings as a player and two more as a coach, along with 21 World Series appearances -- a statistic that grows from astounding to incredible upon consideration that it means Berra played in or coached 17.8% of the 118 World Series contested.

A documentary film on Berra, "It Ain’t Over," will open across 100 screens in New York and California on May 12, which would have been the 15-time All-Star catcher’s 98th birthday. Additional markets are planned for later. Consider it a means of placing Berra in more exact historical perspective. When fans debate the best catchers in the history of baseball, names like Bench, Rodriguez, Fisk, and Molina inevitably arise. Which one leads those names in career RBIs? The same guy who said, "The future ain't what it used to be."

Lindsay Berra carries two titles connecting her with the 98-minute documentary from Sony Pictures Classics -- executive producer and Yogi’s granddaughter. "I just want a new generation of baseball fans, and even non-baseball fans, to be introduced to him as a human being instead of as a cartoon character," she said. "We’d like to get him back in the picture as one of the greatest catchers and one of the greatest players of all time. The fact that his last game was in 1965 and he was doing commercials (in character) 35 years after that obscured his abilities on the field."

On the commercial side of things, the hope is that Yogi’s appeal can also be rehabilitated. For the more recent generations, he was as renowned as a pitchman as he was for his malaprops. Other than his celebrated Yoo-hoo connection, which dates from the 1950s, Berra’s endorsement portfolio over the years included a remarkable array of brands: Aflac, Ballantine Beer, Camel cigarettes, Pepsi, Stove Top stuffing, Visa and Entenmann’s pastries.

"What makes Yogi relevant now, besides his baseball accomplishments, is what too many don’t know about him off the field," said Ed Schauder, an attorney for Nason Yeager Gerson Harris & Fumero, who first met Yogi in 1994 and has been handling licensing and other legal matters of the Berra estate for more than a decade. "He won a Purple Heart at D-Day, was a great family man and had this tremendous work ethic. All those things are in short supply now.”

These days, there are standard deals with some of the biggest MLB licensees like New Era for caps, Topps and Panini for cards, Majestic/Fanatics for apparel and FOCO for bobbleheads.

Some more recent agreements include a six-figure deal with Datavault Holdings for Berra’s NFT rights and IP in the metaverse, a watch deal with Artinian/Game Time and a "Yogi Berra Rock'N Ball" Italian red wine from Dreadnought. There’s also a Yogi-branded chocolate bar debuting imminently from Chocolab, which also marketed premium bars (MSRP $10 for a four-ounce bar) for personalities like Ru Paul, and brands including Dior and the Four Seasons.

"The Yogi Berra bar just made sense for us," said Chocolab founder Mike Bundlie, who will sell the candy DTC via the internet (with hopes to sell them at MLB venues). "We’ve been looking at the success the Reggie bar had, and we’ll do it with more premium ingredients."

Schauder been in contact with Yoo-Hoo, which then still had Berra on its website, but could not strike a deal. An idea for an "It Aint Over ‘til It’s Over" flavor with Ben & Jerry’s also hit a wall (the bottom of the carton was to have said "It’s over").

Schauder, who helped engineer a Berra U.S. postage stamp issued in 2021, is also working on getting Berra included in next year’s version of the popular MLB: The Show video game, another Sony product. Other categories on the wish list include spirits (high ball, anyone?), a QSR and any brick-and-mortar retailer that would trade on Berra's "If you see a fork in the road" saying.

The dream is getting a feature film to complement the documentary. An option was taken on that four years ago, but the film was never produced.

ANC has been named sports agency of record for retailer Discount Tire, which touts itself as "the world's largest independent tire and wheel retailer," with 1,000 stores across 35 states.

ANC will and serve as the exclusive ad sales representative and strategic planner for the brand’s TV-visible signage and sponsorships at pro and college sports facilities across the country, including the Dodgers, Astros, Hawks, Cardinals (MLB), Big 10 Conference and the World Baseball Classic.

Longtime MSG and BSE sponsorship sales exec Amos Varon is joining AI-based video tracking and social media analytics company Videocites as CRO. Israeli-based Videocites tracks video use for brands, properties and.

NBA Equity owns a stake in the firm, part of $10 million Series B funding completed in March, led by Velocity Capital, along with Series A investor Infront Sports & Media.

• Speedway Motorsports has sold out of the seven premium suites on the frontstretch at North Wilkesboro Speedway for the NASCAR All-Star Race, though those were mostly packaged with broader sponsorships with NASCAR’s premier sponsors -- Coca-Cola, Geico, Busch Beer and Xfinity -- plus Chevrolet and Tyson Foods, the latter of which will title sponsor the Craftsman Truck Series race taking place earlier that weekend, reports SBJ's Adam Stern.

• The NFL’s first TV sponsor in 12 years, TCL, is thinking social first with its activation plans, and it's also considering bolt-on deals with EA Sports, Amazon Prime Video and YouTube, reports my colleague Ben Fischer.

• Giants EVP/Business Operations Mario Alioto, who has been with the ballclub for 50 years, will end his time with the team when this MLB season concludes. Among his many achievements: Helping engineer the oversized Coke bottle icon in left field at what is now Oracle Park.

• The competition is heating up among agencies to rep WNBA players, as are endorsement deals, notes SBJ's Liz Mullen. One example: N.Y. Liberty G Sabrina Ionescu has deals with 2K Sports, AT&T, Autograph.io, Beats by Dre, Boardroom, BodyArmor, Kendall Automotive Group, Fanatics and Nike.

• Included in the $100 million in sponsorship revenue the AEG Global Partnerships team has generated for ASM Global are cross-portfolio deals with Mobilitie, ABM, Honeywell, DoorDash, and Clorox, notes SBJ's Bret McCormick.

• The NBA released an earlier-than-usual marketing campaign this week called “We Are All in the Finals," which features a cinematic approach and high-profile names across sports and genres, reports SBJ's Tom Friend.

• CrossFit has a new deal with Momentous to be the official supplements and sports nutrition sponsor of CrossFit and the CrossFit Games through 2025.