Sports BIZ Briefs

Expedia & NFL Team Up for Fan Travel
(PR Newswire) - Expedia.com(R), the world's leading online travel service, and the National Football League today announced a multi-year sponsorship agreement making Expedia.com the Official Travel Sponsor of the NFL. Expedia.com is now the ultimate travel planning and booking resource for 170 million NFL fans following their favorite team during football season. In addition to travel deals and NFL-focused destination information, Expedia.com customers will have the opportunity to purchase vacation packages including tickets to league events such as the 2008 NFL Pro Bowl. All NFL-oriented deals and information can be found at http://www.expedia.com/nfl.

Adidas Acquires Retro Jersey Company
(CondeNast) - Adidas Group has acquired Mitchell & Ness Nostalgia Co., which sells throwback jerseys and other nostalgic athletic apparel. Financial terms of the deal were not disclosed. Philadelphia-based Mitchell & Ness currently holds licensing agreements with the National Basketball Association, Major League Baseball, the National Hockey League and the National Football League (through a Reebok sublicense) to reproduce historically accurate uniforms and other vintage-inspired athletic apparel.

Reebok Jumping Into Branded Entertainment
Reebok is about to join a growing list of brand name companies that inject their products into the very TV shows they sponsor. According to today’s New York Times, the company will begin running a celebrity interview series, “Framed,” on the IFC cable channel. In addition to being produced by Reebok’s new entertainment arm, Reebok products and brands will be prominently embedded directly into the program. “With the whole landscape of media changing, campaigns are not the only way to reach people,” Todd Krinsky, vp for sports and entertainment marketing at Reebok in Canton, Mass., told the Times.