Next Level Sports Marketing

Rob Prazmark is a Greenwich resident, but he may burst out in a rendition of Frank Sinatra’s “My Kind of Town” if Chicago wins the right to host the 2016 Summer Olympics.

Prazmark, who has had a longtime association with the U.S. Olympic Committee, has reopened his sports marketing firm, 21 Sports and Entertainment Marketing Group, 85 Railroad Ave., Greenwich, with the Olympics among three A-list clients.

The other two are the Miami Dolphins professional football team and the Bicentennial of Mexico next year.

“My DNA is the Olympics. I go back to 1985. I represent the U.S. Olympic Committee to generate revenue for the team,” said Prazmark, who sold his original 21 business in 1997 to IMG, a global sports marketing business, where he stayed for another nine years.

Prazmark worked with the U.S. Olympic Committee’s TOP, which stands for The Olympic Partner Programme, from 1985 to 1995. He also represented the Salt Lake City Olympics from 1999 to 2002 and the U.S. Olympic Committee from 2002 to 2005 while with IMG. After operating 21 within IMG, he resigned in 2006 as president of Olympic sales to join Wasserman Media Group.

Now, Prazmark, 55, has decided to restart his business with a staff of five. He retained the rights to the name and federal registration of the logo.

“When I re-created 21, it was very easy. Basically, 21 was put in a box,” Prazmark said.

There was a clause in the agreement with IMG that he could get his people and properties back if he decided to strike out on his own again.

His work with the Olympic Committee would expand dramatically if Chicago is announced Oct. 2 in Copenhagen as the winner of the games over Madrid, Spain; Rio de Janeiro, Brazil; and Tokyo, Prazmark said.

He is working closely with fellow Greenwich resident Lisa Baird, marketing director for the U.S. Olympic Committee.

“He’s a legend,” Baird said, noting that Prazmark played a key role in marketing the Winter Olympics in Salt Lake City in 2002. “He became one of the key marketing people in the Olympics movement when he worked for IMG.”

One of Baird’s goals is to show the International Olympic Committee how Chicago and U.S. Olympic Committee officials can cooperate leading up to the Oct. 2 vote, and Prazmark will participate, she said.

Nestled on the second floor of a newly renovated building, which was the former home of the Harrington Ham Co., Prazmark and his staff also are working on promoting Mexico’s 200th birthday in September 2010 to garner U.S. corporate support.

The event is likely to be celebrated by many Latinos in this country, he said, noting that 65 percent of the millions of Latinos living in the United States are Mexican or of Mexican descent.

Participating in the celebration is a marketing opportunity for U.S. corporations, Prazmark said.

“Most important, they’ll have access to the official mark (issued by the bicentennial organizers),” he said. “The biggest problem U.S. companies have is how to market this to the Hispanic market. No one has the answer.”

Prazmark and his staff will be challenged in attracting U.S. corporations as sponsors or advertisers in conjunction with the celebration, and convincing them that it will garner U.S. media coverage, said Susan Steiz, marketing professor at Norwalk Community College.

Prazmark, however, has a solid reputation, she said, and he has a strong client list.

“His clients have great brand equity,” Steiz said, adding that the timing may be ideal for a new marketing business. “We’re seeing improvements. I don’t see it as a problem for an entrepreneur.”