A group of West Virginia University students used the power of persuasion to woo FedEx and win a national sports marketing competition.

The studentsall enrolled in the School of Physical Educations graduate sport management programpresented the most convincing argument to sway the overnight shipping company to sponsor a fictitious sports team. The competition was part of the Sport Marketing Association II Conference last month in Memphis, Tenn.

The WVU graduate sport management case study team was very prepared and impressed the judges with their sponsorship concepts and overall presentation,said Dallas Branch Jr., program coordinator and vice president of student affairs with SMA .They did a great job in representing WVU , the School of Physical Education and the graduate sport management program.

Members of WVU s team were Kojo Mensah of Toronto; Kristin McCowan of Champaign, Ill.; Marcus Blossom of Chicago; Jennifer Lastik of Greensburg, Pa.; and Courtney Custer of Pittsburgh .

They competed against teams from the University of Northern Colorado, University of Southern Mississippi, Daniel Webster College and the University of Memphis.

The competition, consisting of a preliminary round and finals, required participants to develop a sponsorship proposal. The teams represented a sport propertythe Charlotte Bobcatsand presented their proposals to potential sport sponsor FedEx. Southern Miss and WVU were selected in the preliminary round to compete in the finals.

Two FedEx Sport Sponsorship executives and the chief executive officer of FUSE Integrated Sport Marketing judged the finals.

WVU s PowerPoint presentation to the judges included some innovative ideas for FedEx, including the”BOB (Blue and Orange Bucks)Card, an affinity card program unique to this sponsorship.

The judges thought theBOBCard was an exciting and mutually beneficial promotional strategy to drive traffic into the Charlotte Coliseum,Branch said.It also served as a device to drive traffic to the Kinkos/FedEx company stores surrounding the Charlotte demographic marketing area.

WVU s team received a certificate, and members were recognized onstage at a banquet the final night of the conference.