Learfield Sports president and CEO Greg Brown announced the acquisition of Front Row Marketing Services' collegiate multimedia rights properties from Comcast Spectacor.
Upon closing of the transaction all of the employees of Front Row Marketing Services' collegiate business became employees of Learfield. There are no staff changes planned. Front Row Marketing Services' regional executives Nino Vanin and Keith Bradshaw will continue to lead these businesses and will report to Learfield Senior Vice President Steve Gowan.
The Front Row Marketing Services name will no longer be used in connection with the college multimedia rights business. That business will now operate under the Learfield Sports banner and will benefit from sales representation by Learfield's national sponsorship team. Roughly half of the businesses in this transaction will not be totally new to Learfield, as they are affiliated with other services within Learfield, including Learfield Licensing Partners and SIDEARM Sports.
The new Learfield partnerships are James Madison University, Drexel University, University of Alaska Anchorage, St. Cloud State University, George Mason University, University of Wisconsin Milwaukee, Fordham University, University of California Irvine, Colonial Athletic Association, University of North Dakota and Radford University.
Front Row Marketing Services' venue sponsorship business is not affected by the transaction with Learfield. In April 2015, Comcast Spectacor announced it was merging Front Row Marketing Services' business into Global Spectrum, the venue management company. Now as a result of Comcast Spectcor's June 2, 2015, announcement that its Global Spectrum, Ovations Food Services and Paciolan companies would be rebranded as Spectra, the venue sponsorship business will continue on as part of the Spectra Venue Management division.
Comcast Spectacor is part of Comcast Corporation, a Fortune 50 media and technology company that operates Comcast Cable and NBCUniversal.