Tuesday, February 22, 2011

Labatt May Challenge Molson NHL Deal

Molson has said that it has reached a 7 year sponsor deal that gives it exclusivity in NHL rinks. However, Labatt, teh current beer of the NHL, contends it agreed on terms to extend the deal with the NHL. 

"Labatt has been the official beer sponsor of the NHL in Canada for more than a decade and we began sponsorship renewal negotiations with the league several months ago to secure sponsorship rights," said Labatt vice-president of corporate affairs Charlie Angelakos. "These negotiations with the NHL proceeded positively and in good faith to the point where the parties had agreed upon the terms of renewal of a sponsorship agreement until 2014. Nothing has happened to change that situation.

Read the article here. Note, however, that if Labatt moved to enforce its rights it would be against the NHL and not Molson.

2 comments:

Daniel Gilbeau said...

Do you think an oral agreement would hold up in court? And good luck proving it.

Eric Macramalla said...

Good question Dan. I'm not sure we are looking at oral agreement per se. Labatt may argue they had an agreement to the terms of a renewal of the contract. Without knowing what was required to renew the original contract or the content of the negotiations between Labatt and the NHL I think its hard to know where it goes. So the focus may be on language of the existing agreement and what was specifically said during talks. The NHL storngly disagrees with Labatt's position.