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Supplements the (A) case.

By 2003, Rupert Murdoch and his team had built an impressive global sports regime within News Corp., while transforming the industry with innovative strategies, implementation, and technologies. Murdoch had used FOX's acquisition of the National Football League (NFL) rights in 1993 to launch an attack on the entrenched Big Three broadcasters--CBS, ABC, and NBC. On the cable side of the business, FOX had identified a gap in the market where unbranded and ungrouped regional sports networks aired local team games. FOX believed in the increasing regional emphasis of America and set out to bring the regional networks together. Despite these successful moves, Murdoch was aware of the ever-changing nature of the sports industry and knew that many key decisions lay ahead.

Visa was the world's leading payment brand and its vision was to be "The World's Best Way to Pay." Visa attributed an important part of its success to high-profile sponsorships such as its Olympic Games sponsorship. Visa also sponsored numerous events such as the Rugby World Cup, Best of Broadway, the Toronto Film Festival, NASCAR, the NFL, the Visa Triple Crown, and the Paralympics, and has an international alliance with The Walt Disney Co. In the fall of 2002, Visa announced its decision to extend its Olympic Games sponsorship through 2012. Thomas Shepard, Visa's executive vice president of international marketing, partnerships, and sponsorship, played a key role in convincing Visa's six regional boards and its international board to allow Visa to extend its Olympics and Paralympics sponsorship. In the summer of 2003, Shepard and his team gathered at Visa's international headquarters located in San Mateo, California, to reflect on the impact and lessons of its past sponsorship activities. Specifically, they discussed the current corporate strategy and refinement of the existing sponsorship strategy. They looked at greater involvement in the field of entertainment and, as an outgrowth of the strategy, selecting and working with new partners such as The Walt Disney Co. (2002); how to evaluate the effectiveness of Visa's existing sponsorships; and how to apply lessons from its existing and past sponsorships to current and future ones.

In 1997, Lyle Hubbard, CEO of Gardenburger, a producer and marketer of veggie burgers and meat alternative products, had called together his executive team to discuss Gardenburger's advertising strategy, which until then had consisted mainly of print ads in food service trade publications, trade shows, off-invoice promotions with distributors, in-store sampling, and radio advertising. When Hubbard arrived at Gardenburger, he had wanted to create a rapidly growing, highly profitable company by taking veggie burgers from a small health food niche to the consumer mainstream. He believed that key to achieving this strategy was establishing national distribution in the largest channel, the grocery channel (which Gardenburger had only penetrated 30% by the beginning of 1996); innovating with flavor variety (but generally focusing on the veggie patty vs. expanding into other meat alternatives); and creating broad consumer awareness and trial.

In 1997, Lyle Hubbard, CEO of Gardenburger, a producer and marketer of veggie burgers and meat alternative products, had called together his executive team to discuss Gardenburger's advertising strategy, which until then had consisted mainly of print ads in food service trade publications, trade shows, off-invoice promotions with distributors, in-store sampling, and radio advertising. When Hubbard arrived at Gardenburger, he had wanted to create a rapidly growing, highly profitable company by taking veggie burgers from a small health food niche to the consumer mainstream. He believed that key to achieving this strategy was establishing national distribution in the largest channel, the grocery channel (which Gardenburger had only penetrated 30% by the beginning of 1996); innovating with flavor variety (but generally focusing on the veggie patty vs. expanding into other meat alternatives); and creating broad consumer awareness and trial.

In June 1998, the senior management team at Dreyer's Grand Ice Cream faced a number of internal and external difficulties that were some of the most challenging problems the company had ever faced. Problems included profitability issues, record-high butterfat prices, aggressive discounting by competitors, higher margin better-for-you segment collapse, severance of Ben & Jerry's distribution contract, and management health issues. Given a mandatory and necessary financial restructuring of the company, the senior management team faced some tough employee issues and needed to make very significant decisions to overcome their difficult times.

The vice president of the Security Products Division of Sophis Networks along with the Government Affairs Group had spent the past two and a half years working closely with Congress and the Clinton administration to relax U.S. export restrictions on encryption products (because export restrictions meant lost sales for U.S. companies such as Sophis, and customers outside the United States demanded products with the highest level of encryption available). However, President Clinton pledged to veto a bill called the Security and Freedom Through Encryption Act (SAFE), which was to relax U.S. export restrictions. The vice president and the Government Affairs Group at Sophis needed to develop a "nonmarket" strategy and implementation plan to relax encryption export controls.