General Mills has reached a two-year sponsorship agreement with Major League Baseball to become the Official Breakfast Cereal of the sport.
As part of the agreement, which includes exclusive category rights, Wheaties will create a minimum of three national cereal boxes featuring MLB marks and logos during each year of the agreement. The boxes may feature current or former players. The deal began March 10.
The company may honor players reaching MLB milestones with a “box portrait,” speculated Eric Lucas, VP-marketing for General Mills’ Big G Cereals. He would not confirm or deny San Francisco Giants outfielder Barry Bonds as one of the potential players Wheaties will target, though Bonds is 12 home runs away from passing the legendary Babe Ruth’s 714 career homeruns, and 53 away from Hank Aaron’s all-time mark of 755 lifetime homeruns.
Wheaties has an unofficial 70-plus year history with MLB, with players as far back as Lou Gehrig and Jimmie Foxx and as recent as the 2004 World Champion Boston Red Sox team appearing on boxes.
Financial terms were not disclosed.
As part of the agreement, Wheaties will make significant media commitments to national MLB broadcasts and the weekly This Week in Baseball TV show. Wheaties also will be an exhibiting sponsor at John Hancock All-Star FanFest, the interactive baseball theme park that runs annually during Major League Baseball All-Star Week, and will be a title sponsor of one of the event’s major attractions.
Wheaties also said it will launch a MLB-themed national advertising campaign during the 2005 season, the cereal brand’s first new television advertising campaign in four years.
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