Jan. 22, 1998 CHARLES H. LUNDQUIST COLLEGE OF BUSINESS Contact Pauline Austin, (541) 346-3129; e-mail paustin@oregon.uoregon.edu. EUGENE--Marketing whiz Rick Burton hit the ground running when the University of Oregon's James H. Warsaw Sports Marketing Center tapped him as director this month. Burton, an award-winning teacher and successful sports marketer in the private sector, takes over a UO program that already is internationally recognized. Burton and new faculty hire Dennis Howard--recruited from the top spot at the sports management program at Ohio State University--expect to make the Warsaw Center into a household name this year. They began strategizing how to do that in mid-January, when they met with an advisory board that is packed with high-profile players in the $200-billion sports marketing arena. Burton formerly was advertising manager for Miller Lite and was vice president for the sports marketing agency servicing National Football League Properties, the Indianapolis Motor Speedway, Reebok and Gillette. He was assistant director of the Warsaw Center, which is part of the university's Charles H. Lundquist College of Business, for two and one-half years. "Sports marketing has ballooned into a multi-billion-dollar-a-year business," says Burton. "Product licensing alone will exceed $10 billion next year, and sponsorship should hit another $15 billion. With that kind of money at stake, industry leaders are looking to university business programs for the kind of staff they need." The Warsaw Center quietly built its program over the last couple of years--recruiting top academics and professionals for the Oregon campus. It also brought in high-powered speakers such as Stu Jackson, president of the Vancouver Grizzlies; Dan Wieden, founder of Wieden and Kennedy, Nike's advertising agency; and Howard Handler of NFL Properties. "That's pretty wild when you think about it," Burton says. "This is Eugene where, I like to joke, some people in the rest of the country might think we don't have running water--yet we've got the National Football League flying out here to make presentations in our classes." "The uniqueness of this program and Jim Warsaw's vision were ahead of the curve," says Burton. "It's given us a chance to prepare students for a booming industry." The Warsaw Center prepares its students so well that industry leaders like Nike, the NFL, the Portland Trail Blazers and Disney Sports already snapped up 70 percent of the graduates. The UO Warsaw Center was established in 1993 by Jim Warsaw, who spent a dozen years at the helm of Sports Specialties of Irvine, Calif., the world's largest licensed sports cap producer. "Jim wanted to give a gift back to his alma mater, and he wanted it to train people better for sports marketing," says Burton. "It was where he had been and he could see the need to combine real-world street smarts with an academic grounding within an academic setting. That's what the Warsaw Center is about." -30- JAMES H. WARSAW SPORTS MARKETING CENTER ADVISORY BOARD MEMBERS James Barri Executive Vice President Compass Steve Miller Director, Asian Sports Marketing Bank Birmingham, Ala. NIKE Japan Corp. Tokyo, Japan Keith Cutler Publisher USA TODAY, Baseball James B. Noel Asst. General Counsel ESPN, Inc. Weekly Arlington, Va. Bristol, Conn. Ed Ellis President Peter Jacobsen Productions, Bruce O'Neil President U.S. Basketball Academy Inc. Beaverton, Ore. Eugene, Ore. Howard Handler Sr. Vice President, Marketing Jeffrey Pollack President The Sports Business and Fan Development NFL Properties, Inc. New Daily South Norwalk, Conn. York, N.Y. Gary Jacobus Sr. Vice President International Hank Steinbrecher Secretary General/Executive Marketing Group New York, N.Y. Director U.S. Soccer Federation Chicago, Ill. Donna Lopiano Executive Director Women's Sports Teri K. Wagner Director, Marketing ABC Foundation East Meadow, N.Y. Sports-ABC-TV New York, N.Y. Jonathan D. Miller Sr. Vice President, Programming NBC Sports New York, N.Y. #O-6044a/Local,OrDailies,PDX