Logan Paul has become a Maverick in more ways than one during his WWE career, now helping to usher in something TKO told us was coming: mat sponsorships for WWE premium live events.
As Paul revealed during the opening segment of the March 8 episode of SmackDown, his sports drink company Prime Hydration will be the first ever sponsor to appear on the center of the mat in a WWE ring. The deal will only be for premium live events and will start at WrestleMania 40 next month.
Prime and WWE will also team for “match sponsorships, co-presenter designations at future PLEs, product activations at live events, social support from WWE Superstars across retail and digital activations, and more,” according to a press release.
“What Logan and his team have built in a short time is phenomenal and we’re excited to help showcase PRIME Hydration across our biggest events,” WWE Chief Content Officer Paul “Triple H” Levesque said in the release. “Combining two of my greatest achievements into one knockout partnership is a dream come true,” said PRIME Co-Founder Logan Paul. “We’ve worked incredibly hard at PRIME to build a brand that disrupts the beverage industry and it’s time to join forces with the global leader in sports entertainment. Thank you to everyone on both sides who have played an important role in bringing PRIME Hydration to the ring.”
While it was a bit of a jarring site to see the multi-colored Prime bottle on the center of the ring after decades of plain mats, it should come as no surprise since MMA and boxing mats have been prime (no pun intended) territory for brand sponsorships for years. Indeed, watching a UFC fight it’s sometimes hard to imagine where they might be able to squeeze more ads into the Octagon.
Advertising has worked its way into more and more previously pristine areas of unscripted sports as well, including places like uniforms. In that sense, the WWE-Prime deal is really just following along with current trends, and it’s highly likely more agreements like this will follow before long.
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