BY ANDY BAGGOT
UWBadgers.com Insider
MADISON, Wis. — A casual conversation between good friends more than a year ago set the stage for the latest sponsorship arrangement for Wisconsin Athletics.
Chris McIntosh recalled a chat he had with Brooks Bollinger about Aspire, an emerging force in the national sports beverage business based in the Twin Cities of Minnesota.
The two men share a trust and confidence dating back to their time as members of a ground-breaking Wisconsin football team. McIntosh was a dominating left tackle and Bollinger a record-setting quarterback in 1998 and '99 when the Badgers won consecutive Big Ten Conference titles and became the first school in league history to register back-to-back triumphs in the Rose Bowl.
McIntosh, now the UW associate athletic director for business development, said that Bollinger, now the football coach at Cretin-Derham Hall High School in St. Paul, gave him some food for thought about Aspire.
"He brought it to my attention as an interesting, innovative product that is making waves in that category in the market," McIntosh said.
That gave way to a meeting last fall between UW Athletic Department officials and two 40-something Minnesota graduates, John Montague and Jesse Parker, partners who introduced Aspire to the masses in 2012.
Those seeds grew into a unique two-year arrangement, effective July 1, which will make Aspire the official sports drink of Wisconsin Athletics.
UW is the first school to strike a sponsorship deal with Aspire, which is headquartered in Edina, Minnesota, and bottled in Random Lake, Wisconsin.
"We're always looking to get an edge and we think this is just an outstanding product," UW director of athletics Barry Alvarez said.
Aspire has less than half the calories and sugar of other major brands per serving. There are no artificial colors, flavors or sweeteners in the drink, which comes in five flavors.
"Their product is different than that of their competitors and, from our point of view, it's a high-quality product that we feel is best for our student-athletes," McIntosh said.
Aspire was developed because Montague, a former marketing executive now the chief marketing officer, and Parker, a former executive with Intel now the CEO, wanted a healthier alternative to the popular sports drinks like Powerade and Gatorade for their sport-playing children.
In a relatively short time Aspire has gained a national foothold. It can be purchased at outlets such as Costco, Cub Foods, Hy-Vee, Safeway, Target and Whole Foods.
Aspire also has a sponsorship arrangement with Under Armour, the athletic footwear and apparel company, for its national high school football all-star game.
It's a significant coincidence that UW will begin a 10-year commitment to Under Armour on July 1.
"We've been kind of building our brand and our company in a way similar to Under Armour," Montague said of UA's patient, bottom-up approach. "We've kind of followed their model and kind of looked up to them the whole time.
"They focused on youth and high schools and, eventually, they started doing some bigger stuff with college and eventually they went up into the professional world, too.
"We're trying to learn from them and follow that model."
Montague said when he heard rumblings that UW Athletics was considering Under Armour as a potential partner he was motivated to learn more.
"That was really, probably, the thing that prompted the first discussion," Montague said.
"It ties together nicely," Alvarez said of the dual sponsorships. "It's a kickoff for both."
Montague and Parker attended Minnesota, but their circle of family and friends has a distinct Wisconsin flavor.
Montague said his sister attended UW and noted that he "probably spent more time at the University of Wisconsin while I was in college than I did at my own school."
Montague said he counts Bollinger, who won 30 games as a four-year starter for the Badgers from 1999 to 2002, as a close friend.
Montague said he also knows Mike Kelley, who helped lead the UW men's basketball team to the NCAA Final Four in 2000, and Tom Sagissor, who won a NCAA men's hockey title with the Badgers in 1990.
Ron Leafblad, who played on the UW football team that won the Big Ten title in 1962, is another associate.
An investor in Aspire is Ryan Suter, a standout NHL defenseman with the Minnesota Wild who grew up in Madison and played for the Badgers in 2003-04.
Montague said he and Parker pursued a partnership with UW Athletics for two obvious reasons.
"One, the school just has a great track record in sports," Montague said. "You look over the last 20 years, I don't know for sure how you evaluate, but I think on any measure Wisconsin is one of the most — if not the most — successful athletic programs in the nation. The commitment the school's had to athletics and the excellence that has been achieved I think has been very noteworthy.
"But more than that, frankly, the school just has a history of being progressive and being very innovative."
Montague said the initial meeting with UW Athletics officials, arranged by Bollinger, was revealing.
"We walked out of there just blown away," he said. "We were blown away — it shouldn't have been a big surprise — by how forward-thinking they were and how progressive they were and how business-minded they were."
McIntosh said his initial conversation with Bollinger, a former NFL quarterback with the New York Jets, Minnesota, Dallas and Detroit, prompted him to keep casual tabs on the Aspire operation.
"Where they've introduced their brand they've done very, very well," McIntosh said. "From our point of view their business model is a stable one. The quality of their product is top-notch."
McIntosh believes Aspire will "resonate" with UW student-athletes because of its variety, flavor selection and quality.
"It's a huge opportunity for them," he said of the upstart company. "For us it's an opportunity to tell a story about what's important to us."
Montague called UW a "special school" and said it was an obvious target for the company's first collegiate sponsorship contract.
"If we're in a partnership, we want the first to be the best," he said.
