Sponsors increase visibility

Pizza and sodas at the neighborhood restaurant are as much a part of

the youth sports culture as team banners and team moms.

Look out to the outfield fence at a youth baseball field and

you’re likely to find signs adorning the chain-link structure. Those

placards often display a company, whether it be a bank, fitness

center or hamburger joint.

Teams survive with financial support from sponsors. The more the

merrier in terms of income.

But some of those sponsors are moving from the fences onto the

jerseys of teams.

Players in the older age divisions of Newport Harbor Baseball

Association suited up for teams like Toes in the Nose, Toshiba Senior

Classic, Outback Steakhouse and Skosh Monahan’s Steakhouse and Irish

Pub last spring.

No longer is a company’s name relegated to stadiums that house pro

sports franchises. Now it’s scripted across T-shirts in youth sports

leagues.

Teams in NHBA’s oldest three divisions, Pony, Bronco and Mustang,

traded in traditional major league team names such as the Dodgers or

Giants for businesses that sponsored them last spring.

Anissa Gurnee, president of NHBA last season, said the name

changing was an attempt to generate revenue and bring communities

together.

Teams in the younger divisions kept major league names.

She said league officials recognized that younger children

typically yearn to play for teams like the Cardinals and Yankees.

She said feedback was primarily positive in a league that included

650 registered players. One restaurant sponsor threw a celebratory

dinner for a winning team along with contributing to opening day

activities.

“We tried to involve businesses our players frequent,” said

Gurnee, who had a son participate in the Pony division.

Out of the 650 players, Gurnee said only a handful of parents

voiced concerns with their children playing for a team sponsored by a

restaurant that serves alcohol.

Costa Mesa City Councilman Gary Monahan, owner of Skosh Monahan’s,

said his restaurant is often packed to capacity on Sunday nights with

families when kids eat for free.

“Parents have the option of going to a different team if they have

a problem with alcohol,” said Monahan, who has sponsored

organizations such as NHBA, Bobby Sox Softball, Costa Mesa American

Little League, along with high school and elementary school

functions. “If I didn’t sell alcohol, my business would fail.”

Monahan, who said he gives money to several charities, added that

well-known places where youth and high school teams celebrate such as

Newport Rib Company, Shakey’s Pizza and Chuck E Cheese’s also serve

alcohol.

“How far do you take it?” Monahan said.

A youth baseball team in Kentucky was sponsored by Hooters

restaurants, a chain of sports bars known for their scantily-clad

waitresses.

Monahan said perception often breeds unrest.

The Hooters example might be an extreme, but sponsorships often

allow a team to survive and provide for its players.

Some parents and administrators with NHBA hail efforts to secure

sponsors, which provide a boost in revenue. Companies paid $1,500 per

team and received a banner to drape on fences and a program ad.

The league finished in “black figures” for the first time in six

years, a tribute to the support of sponsors, Gurnee said.

The added costs funneled primarily to maintaining fields, helping

provide the best playing conditions for the athletes, Gurnee said.

When leagues don’t have sponsors, costs to players increase, as in

Newport-Mesa National Junior Basketball’s case.

Lonnie Nadal, the league’s president, said players must pay double

what competitors in other cities might pay if sponsors aided the

financial burden.

“Some people might consider it offensive to have a bar sponsor,

but other parents might like the cost savings,” Nadal said. “Our

league chooses the more expensive route, but it isn’t the universal

decision.”

Providing children with the best playing facilities is a goal most

parents and coaches have. Discussion swirls about the best route to

that goal.

Corona del Mar resident Jhan Van Hiel, father of All-Newport-Mesa

softball player Holly Van Hiel, played for a baseball team sponsored

by a company in the late 1960s.

But teams don’t have to limit their scope to sponsors, Van Hiel

said.

“Nowadays, especially in Newport Beach, there is money available

to be raised on a donation basis,” Van Hiel said.

Four years ago, he and Gary Tolfa, Corona del Mar High softball’s

booster president and vice president, respectively, helped lead a

drive that culminated in Pacific Coast Fastpitch Softball receiving

nonprofit, 501-C3 status from the American Softball Association.

Why the push for nonprofit status?

“It let us raise money for the league,” Van Hiel said. “The

important thing is to get kids to better facilities, providing good

equipment for them, clinics for coaches so they can get better.”

CdM Coach Nichole Thompson split players into teams and challenged

them to solicit the most money from local businesses last season, Van

Hiel said.

“These people might not give $1,000, but might give $100,” Van

Hiel said.

Van Hiel said the activity fostered competition and pride among

the girls that they contributed to the program.

The ideas to raise money are indeed as endless as the companies

that sponsor teams.

ABOUT THIS SERIES

Today is the third part of a six-part series the Daily Pilot

sports department is producing as we examine youth sports in the

Newport-Mesa landscape and how it measures up in our changing

culture. As we take an in-depth look in the middle of the year in the

middle of the decade, we try to answer several questions affecting

youth athletes, parents and coaches in today’s society, specifically

in Costa Mesa and Newport Beach.

We will attempt to clear the air on several accounts relating to

youth sports in Newport-Mesa in the smack dab middle of the 2000s.

In part three, sportswriter Bryce Alderton reports on the invasion

of corporate sponsorship in youth baseball teams. One team in

Kentucky is named “Hooters” and teams in Newport Harbor Baseball

Association are called “Skosh Monahan’s,” “Newport Auto Center” and

“Toshiba Senior Classic.”

Enjoy the debate.

The sports editor.