Talk about coincidence.

Boca Raton’s Ryan Hunter-Reay won his first IndyCar Series race on Sunday.

It was good timing since he was already a towering figure in Times Square. Well, his likeness anyway, in an 80-foot tall billboard for sponsor Izod.

The billboard originally said “I am next,” but check out how Izod changed the ad to read “I am now,” after Hunter-Reay’s win at Watkins Glen, N.Y.

“The timing with the win and everything, it’s unreal,” an awed Hunter-Reay said by phone on his way to the billboard’s official unveiling Monday afternoon. “Right in Times Square, the busiest intersection in New York. It’s indescribable.”

Hunter-Reay loves the idea people might not be recognize the 2008 Indianapolis 500 Rookie of the Year.

“That’s the beautiful thing about that,” he said. “They will say ‘Who is that?’ They’ll check out the IndyCar thing.”

> Discuss this entry

Looking for a way to save on your rising gas bill? NASCAR driver Jeff Gordon knows how.

He’s partnered with Sunrise-based N2Revolution to promote the company’s PurigeN98, a high-purity nitrogen tire inflation system. PurigeN98 helps keep tires properly inflated, thereby reducing fuel costs and improving the car’s handling. Nitrogen-filled tires also reduce fuel emissions, according to a company release.

The release quotes U.S. Department of Energy stats saying: “Americans waste 10 million gallons of fuel every day by driving on under-inflated tires. Annually this amounts to 3.6 billion gallons of wasted fuel and 77 billion pounds of greenhouse gases needlessly dispersed.”

Gordon has used the high purity nitrogen for his racecar’s tires for years, but he can use it in his non-racing vehicles as well. And so can consumers. The system is available at some car dealers, tire stores and service centers. Check here, to find a dealer.

The system is also being used by the Jeff Gordon and Mario Andretti racing schools, which operate NASCAR and IndyCar driving experiences, respectively, for fans at 16 tracks across the country, including Homestead-Miami Speedway.

> Discuss this entry

The winner of Office Depot’s and Harlequin Enterprises' “Say Yes to a Winning Proposal” contest will have his or her marriage proposal unveiled Saturday at the NASCAR Sprint Cup Series All-Star Race in Charlotte.

The question will go spinning around the track on the back of Carl Edwards’ No. 99 Office Depot Ford Fusion. It’s just one of the many ways NASCAR sponsors are working to bring the regular fan as close as possible to the sport. The winner also gets a diamond ring and trip to Sedonar, Ariz.

Delray Beach-based Office Depot is collecting entries for its “Official Small Business of NASCAR” sweepstakes through June 22. That contest will allow a business with 99 or fewer employees to put its name on the back of Edwards’ car for one race – Sept. 28 in Kansas -- and in a less prominent spot for other races during the rest of the season. The company also gets a $10,000 business makeover and to use “Official Small Business of NASCAR” on stationery and business cards for a year.

The office products company has added a new component to the contest, now in its fourth year: the opportunity to increase your entries by asking friends and family to nominate your business online. The company launched “Connect with Carl,” which allows you to send recorded messages from Edwards asking to nominate your business, enter the sweepstakes or just visit the company’s racing Web site. The messages can be customized with your name and a variety of descriptions of the recipients – the technology isn’t new, but somehow it’s always entertaining.

> Discuss this entry

Dunkin’ Donuts is continuing to push its iced coffee and its partnership with the Heat. Customers who purchase an iced coffee at participating Broward or Miami-Dade stores through May 20 will receive a coupon for a free limited edition 1988 inaugural season Heat draft cap.

You need to attend the Heat’s Draft Lottery party at AmericanAirlines Arena, 6-9 p.m. May 20 – where the team will learn when it will pick in this year’s draft (somewhere between first and fourth) -- to cash in the hat coupon. But you’ll also get gift cards for Dunkin’ Donuts purchases and a chance to attend a meet and greet with the Heat’s 2008 draft pick on June 27.

To kick off the promotion, which begins today, the Heat dancers, Burnie and others will stop by the Dunkin’ Donuts at 3280 Davie Blvd., Fort Lauderdale from 3-5 p.m. today. And Dunkin’ Donuts will host its second annual “Free Iced Coffee Day” from 10 a.m. to 10 p.m. on Thursday. Stop by AmericanAirlines Arena between noon and 4 p.m. on Wednesday for free samples, as well.

> Discuss this entry

Jake Long may have a reported $57.75 million five-year contract with $30 million guaranteed with the Dolphins, but Chris Long has a deal with Subway.

University of Virginia defensive end Chris Long, who had been mentioned as a potential No. 1 pick for the Dolphins, is being paired with Subway spokesman Jared Fogle and Fox NFL reporter Jay Glazer for a series of Webisodes related to the NFL Draft. Watch interviews with Long and a series of workouts with Long and Fogle at subwayfreshbuzz.com.

Long is also expected to make appearances for the restaurant. His partnership with Subway follows deals between the restaurant chain and other NFL first-round picks, New Orleans Saints running back Reggie Bush and Cleveland Browns quarterback Brady Quinn, who the Dolphins passed on picking in the first round last year.

> Discuss this entry

It took 50 starts, but Danica Patrick was confident she’d eventually win a race and would not become known as the Anna Kournikova of auto racing.

Now that she won the Indy Japan 300 – becoming the first woman to win an open-wheel race -- will the Indy Racing League’s most marketable star be even more marketable?

After all, her sponsor roster includes Tissot, GoDaddy.com, Motorola, and she appeared in a bikini in Sports Illustrated’s Swimsuit issue. AirTran capitalized immediately with a commemorative plane called “AirTranica Won” – that bears her photo and is expected to be on planes through the IRL season.

Bob Dorfman, executive creative director of Baker Street Partners in San Francisco, says her first win could be worth at least $1 million more.

“Her current marketing partners will spend more on her, and new companies who may have discounted her driving talents will now consider her more seriously,” Dorfman said. “This opens her up to more performance-based products, as well as any advertiser to women with an ‘achieve your dreams’ message. It means a marketing portfolio that’s less cheesecake, and more blue chip.”

But Mike Bartelli, president of motorsports for Millsport, isn’t convinced the win will do much more for Patrick or the IRL.

"I believe it will help her marketability some, but given that her success off the track these last few years has been disproportionate to her success on the track, and given that IndyCar is a niche sport and will remain so for the foreseeable future, I don't think it will make a
significant difference to the scope of her appeal," Bartelli said.

"Will she likely see a few more endorsement opportunities? Probably,” he said. “Will this win, alone, translate into substantial growth for the IRL? Probably not."

> Discuss this entry

FAU Coach Howard Schnellenberger put the school’s money where his mouth is. Sort of.

After teeth whitening dental spa, SmileXpress, pledged $1.25 million to FAU’s athletic department over the next 10 years, Schnellenberger agreed to be the inaugural patron at the company’s East Boca Raton location Monday.

See his new radiant smile in this photo by Caroline Schmitz Williams.

SmileXpress’ donation announced in March includes $500,000 for naming rights to one of the entrances of FAU’s planned on-campus football stadium and $250,000 for a memoriabl at the stadium to honor Schnellenberger’s son, Stephen, who died of cancer last month.

For more on FAU sports, visit Ted Hutton’s blog here.

> Discuss this entry

To celebrate the first decade of the NBA Store, the NBA has released a list of the store’s Top 10 most popular jerseys. Heat guard Dwyane Wade’s jersey ranks seventh – not bad for a guy who’s only in his fifth year in the league. Michael Jordan ranks No. 1, natch. See the full list below.

And speaking of jerseys, NBA Commissioner David Stern didn’t rule out the possibility of NBA players wearing sponsor logos on their uniforms during exhibition games in Europe this fall that will feature the Heat, New Jersey Nets, New Orleans Hornets and Washington Wizards. The Heat will play the Nets in Paris and London.

“We're mindful of the fact that baseball just did it,” Stern said in a media conference call last week. “Our history has been we've tended to do things that have honored the local venue where we're playing with sort of modifications in uniforms, but we're mindful that in Europe sponsorship on uniforms is more common than it is here, and it's something we would consider but we're not planning.”

The Boston Red Sox and Oakland A’s, who opened the 2008 MLB season with two games in Japan last week, wore sponsor logos on their jerseys and helmets. According to Joyce Julius & Associates, a Michigan firm that measures the impact of corporate sponsorship, the jersey logos – EMC on Red Sox sleeves; Pepsi on the A’s -- generated $851,000 in media exposure during the two game and two replay broadcasts.

The company figured the logos got more than 28 minutes of broadcast time and multiplied that against the estimated cost of commercial time during the broadcasts. Ricoh, the sponsor of the games, got exposure on both teams' batting helmets, worth a total of $498,000 from more than 16 minutes of screen time during the four broadcasts, the company said.

Here’s the NBA’s list of most popular jerseys sold at the NBA store, 1998-2008:

1. Michael Jordan
2. Kobe Bryant
3. Allen Iverson
4. LeBron James
5. Shaquille O'Neal
6. Tracy McGrady
7. Dwyane Wade
8. Jason Kidd
9. Vince Carter
10. Tim Duncan

> Discuss this entry

If you’ve been reading my stories or followed this blog, you already know that super high energy Panthers President Michael Yormark has an identical twin brother Brett, who happens to be CEO of the New Jersey Nets.

The two are so much alike they finish each other’s sentences and take credit for each other’s creative marketing ideas. In this item from December in an unusual moment, Michael actually gave Brett credit for coming up with a mini-mascot.

But it’s difficult to capture in print how fast paced the brothers are. CNBC Sports Business Reporter Darren Rovell says he’s done that in Friday’s installment of CNBC's “High Net Worth.”

“The truth is their lives have been one big competition and so we’ve told it that way,” Rovell told me. “The piece is basically one big competition from who sold the most creative sponsorship to who wakes up earlier to who works out harder to who’s the best dresser.”

In a story I wrote about them in 2006, Michael insisted he was in the office by 4 a.m.; Brett by 5:15 a.m. This is also from that story:

The pair share business strategies, and occasionally take credit for the other's idea. For example, did "Pancakes with the Panthers" come before "Pancakes and Hoops," which both involved inviting lapsed season-ticket holders to breakfast with players and team executives to encourage them to renew?

Brett, who says he's three minutes older than Michael, launched a series of "Influencer Parties," in which Nets season-ticket holders host potential ticket buyers at catered cocktail parties at their homes. Next month, the Panthers will begin "Hockey House Calls," in which season-ticket holders will host block party-style gatherings for friends, family and neighbors who might be interested in Panthers tickets.

What Rovell says his piece is able to capture is their energy. “We try to open them both up and show people these guys are impossible to walk with, the speed, the pace of their walk. I mean you need a trainer to keep up with them,” Rovell says with a chuckle. “They tell us that one day they might foresee at the end of their careers, opening up a consulting firm together. You kind of wonder what client would attend a 6 a.m. meeting.”

The show airs tonight at 8:30 p.m. and 11:30 p.m.

> Discuss this entry

The University of Phoenix has received media exposure worth as much as $20 million from its naming rights sponsorship of the Glendale, Ariz., stadium where Super Bowl XLII unfolded, according to Joyce Julius & Associates.

The Michigan firm that measures the impact of corporate sponsorship figures the actual game broadcast generated a value of $10.2 million from the 1 minute and 33 seconds of time the online university's name appeared on screen and two announcer references to it. That’s measured against the average $2.7 million companies paid for 30-second ads that aired during the game broadcast.

The firm says the university got another $6 million worth of exposure from media stories and another $4.5 million of exposure from hosting the BCS national championship game last year.

The $10.2 million game exposure is down from $13.6 million for Ford when the game was played at Ford Field in Detroit in 2006 and up from the $2.1 million for Alltel, when the game was played at Alltel Stadium in Jacksonville in 2005, Joyce Julius reported.

> Discuss this entry