Oakland’s athletic department announced a one-year extension of its contract with Palace Sports and Entertainment giving them exclusive rights to sell Oakland’s sponsorship and advertising.

The deal, initially signed in 2007, focuses mainly on print, radio and television advertisements for Oakland, while covering the men’s and women’s sports teams occasionally.

Oakland Director of Athletic Communications Scott MacDonald discussed the benefit of the deal for OU.

“We see a percentage of the sale of sponsorship based on the amount sold,” he said, adding that the actual amount tends to vary from year to year.

The deal is the first of its kind for the Palace organization, which had previously only sold sponsorship and advertising for its own venues.

Executive Vice President for Palace Sports and Entertainment Dan Hauser talked about a couple unique advantages Oakland receives from the partnership.

“What we’re able to do because of our contacts and our clients list, we’re able to go to our clients and get them involved in Oakland versus Oakland doing it,” he said. “They just don’t have those relationships. Basically what they’re doing is, we’re able to utilize our relationships to help further their business.”

He said that the relationship has already paid off in terms of added exposure for the program.

“They’ve had more games on radio and television then they’ve ever had. Through our relationships, we were able to assist them in getting a really good radio deal on (1130AM) WDFN,” Hauser said. “We were also able to work with our partner Fox Sports Detroit and get three games per year on Fox Sports Detroit, so that’s a real positive.

“We look to, even on the radio games, to keep improving those and then TV, we always look at how those are being handled to get quality games on there that work with their schedule.”

Not only does Oakland benefit from the agreement, Hauser explained PSE has seen the agreement beneficial through a three-part partnership with Oakland and together they have developed a good relationship.

“We like our association, we look at Oakland as a great partner of ours in many ways,” he said. “We manage Meadowbrook, which is very important for both parties, that’s part of the partnership.”

“The Oakland Grizzlies have played basketball games at the Palace, last year they played Michigan State and it was a great game and they play Michigan coming up this year here, so that’s part of the partnership. The third part of it is the relationship that we’re able to bring and it’s a partnership, not just one facet here or there. We just think it’s good for us to associate ourselves with Oakland and I think they have the same feeling.”

Along with receiving exposure, several improvements to the O’Rena have came from the advertising from PSE and has led to increased advertising interest in Oakland.

“They did a beautiful job putting a new scoreboard in a year ago,” Hauser said. “So there are some opportunities with advertising sponsorships.”

Although the extension is just for a year, Hauser explained PSE hopes to have another extension after the agreement expires.