UCSD's costly ad switch: Chargers to Trolley

With the Chargers appearing on the brink of leaving town, the University of California at San Diego is casting about for a new way to spend its prodigious pile of promotional cash.

As first reported here in August 2011, UCSD's Health Sciences Division inked a deal that year with the Chargers to become the official “Hospital and Healthcare Systems” sponsor of the team's "Lightning Ladies" women's club, and any other "Chargers female fan initiatives.”

The honor bore an NFL-style price tag.

According to UCSD's contract with the team, the university was to pay the Chargers $300,000 in 2011; $318,000 the year after; $337,080 in 2013; and $357,304 during the final year of 2014, for a grand total of about $1.3 million.

In return, each year university officials received four club-level season tickets and two parking passes, to be used, according to Kim Kennedy, executive director of marketing and communications for UC Health, for hosting would-be clinical faculty during recruiting visits here.

Other perks included a “Training Camp Chalk Talk,” described as a private session for 150 people.

That event featured a "Chalk Talk with a Chargers Alumni," as well as "autographed merchandise for raffle,” and “coach and player autograph opportunities.”

In addition to radio and TV spots adjacent to game coverage, the deal provided for “two tweets from the Chargers Official Twitter account" and “Two JumboTron UCSD Health Systems thank you’s,” plus a kiosk in the Chargers Bud Light Power Party tent “prior to each regular season home game.”

During “UCSD Health System Awareness Day," at Qualcomm Stadium, the agreement added, “65,000 dual branded premium items” were to be “distributed to fans upon entry.”

Even four years ago, there were questions about the length of the team's San Diego stay.

If the Chargers “permanently relocate and play their Home Games at a location other than [Qualcomm] Stadium," the contract said, the team and UCSD "shall each have the right to terminate this Agreement upon written notice to the other, and the parties will negotiate in good faith to determine equitable terms for such termination.”

Asked about it at the time, Chargers spokesman Bill Johnson sent over a statement by email.

"These are standard provisions in all of our agreements, and they have been there since 2007 when the lease with the City included the annual termination option," wrote Johnson.

"As a result, all of our agreements must account for this possibility. This includes similar language in all Club Seat and Suite agreements. Of course, that was more than four years ago and the team has never exercised the clause.”

But the situation has changed, and UCSD seems near to finding a new home for its sponsorship largesse, at significantly increased cost.

According to a proposal set for consideration at the July 16 board meeting of the Metropolitan Transit System, the university would come up with an annual $675,000 from 2015 through 2018 for Blue Line trolley naming rights and related promotional perks.

Thereafter, the annual payment would jump to $945,000 a year through 2044, bringing the total price of the contemplated package to about $27.7 million.

In addition to the new "UC San Diego Blue Line," the currently named Old Town Trolley station would become "Old Town UC San Diego Health Campus South."

The planned Pepper Canyon Drive station would be known as "UC San Diego Main Campus" and the Voight Drive stop would be "UC San Diego Jacobs Medical Center," giving Qualcomm billionaire Irwin Jacobs the unique distinction of having double naming rights.

(The proposed contract notes that other station naming rights on the line may also be up for grabs.)

As in the case of its deal with the Chargers, the university would be entitled to have certain days for exclusive events at the stations and aboard the trolleys themselves.

Besides that, says the document, "UC San Diego logos will be placed on Trolley bridges over Interstate 5 and on elevated track in the University City area."

And there's more.

"The UC San Diego name designation will be on all Blue Line rail station signs, Trolley route maps, published schedules, on one-way tickets printed in vending machines, and all other published materials with Blue Line information."

Additionally, "UC San Diego may wrap up to six light rail vehicles and advertise in stations at Old Town, on campus, and at University Town Center."

And if UC Health competitors, research institutes, or other universities want to promote themselves on the trolley line, they would be out of luck, the contract indicates.

"UC San Diego will have exclusivity for all advertising on the Blue Line in categories of healthcare, research and higher education."

According to the document: "The partnership is in combination with UC San Diego and UC San Diego Health. All funding from UC San Diego is from non-state sources."