OCEAN CITY — The live broadcast of the opening day of the White Marlin Open, including a new half-hour pre-game show, will be sponsored by the Town of Ocean City after resort officials this week signed off on the initiative.
During last week’s Tourism Committee meeting, Fish in OC promoter Scott Lenox pitched a new marketing concept for the 2018 White Marlin Open (WMO) in August. Fish in OC and its partners produce the live broadcast of the WMO each day during the tournament with action at the scale, interviews with anglers and captains, tournament officials and local elected officials.
This year, however, the live broadcast will feature a half-hour pre-game show of sorts each day during the tournament before the scale at host Harbour Island opens for business. Lenox has presented opportunities for local businesses or organizations, or in this case the Town of Ocean City, to be the named sponsor for the pre-game live broadcasts each day.
Armed with a favorable recommendation from the tourism committee, Lenox on Monday pitched the marketing idea to the Mayor and Council. He explained the live broadcast is viewed by hundreds of thousands online and by countless others through remote broadcasts at businesses around the resort each day during the tournament. For a $5,000 fee, the sponsors will be announced as that day’s show and their logos will be displayed prominently during the telecasts.
“Since we’ve taken over the live broadcast of the White Marlin Open, it has been seen by hundreds of thousands and in 90 different countries last year,” he said. “We sell 30-second and 15-second commercials during the live broadcast and last year we sold out quickly. This year, we’ve come up with something to give the program’s sponsors more bang for their buck.”
Lenox said because Ocean City’s tourism department already contributes $4,000 in other partnerships with Fish in OC during the WMO, it could piggyback on the daily pregame show sponsorship for $3,000, or a total commitment of $7,000. On Monday, the Mayor and Council voted unanimously to bite on the sponsorship opportunity and chose Monday, or historically one of the tournament’s biggest days, as the day to sponsor the live telecast.
The pre-game show will include a five-minute segment for the named sponsor, in this case Ocean City, to talk about and promote anything it wants, presumably other upcoming special events in town. Mayor Rich Meehan praised the sponsorship opportunity and Fish in OC’s role in marketing what is arguably the town’s biggest summer special event.
“What you’ve done is heightened the experience for people who come to the White Marlin Open,” he said. “It is a captive audience and your big boards and live broadcasts heighten the experience for everybody. It reflects well on the tournament and it reflects well on the town.”
While the council unanimously approved the WMO sponsorship opportunity, some procedural questions were raised about the elected officials’ need to approve even the modest $7,000 expenditure. Councilman John Gehrig said the approval could have, and maybe should have, been made at the committee level or staff level by Tourism Director Donna Abbott.
“It seems like we’re up here approving the minutiae,” he said. “Procedurally, for a $7,000 request, this doesn’t necessarily have to come before us. We have approved Donna’s budget and we should trust our staff to make decisions like this. At some point, we need to let our staff do their job. Our department heads are professionals and at some point we need to get out of micromanaging.”
Councilman Wayne Hartman said while the $7,000 fell under the $15,000 threshold that requires council approval, it doesn’t hurt to bring it into open session.
“One nice thing about talking about things like this up here is we let the public know what we’re doing and how we’re spending taxpayer money,” he said. “There’s no harm in that.”
