Portland State Athletics and C-Level Sports Management are proud to announce the Viking Athletic Partnership, designed to enhance and expand external operations for the Viking Athletics program.

The Viking Athletic Partnership (VAP) will manage marketing, advertising, broadcast services, and ticket and sponsorship sales for all PSU athletics' sports programs. David Hersh, Principal of C-Level Sports Management, and Vikings' Athletics Director Torre Chisholm have been finalizing the agreement in recent weeks.

"The partnership with David and C-Level will allow PSU Athletics to penetrate the Portland marketplace like never before," said Chisholm.  "The VAP creates a platform to introduce Viking Athletics to new fans as well as re-engage past friends. This is a very unique public-private partnership in college athletics."
 
"Torre Chisholm deserves an incredible amount of credit for entering into this partnership," Hersh said. "It's not easy to let somebody else come in and look at what you are doing and put it under a microscope. He embraced it."
 
Hersh and his staff of nine people will operate the VAP and be housed in the Athletics Offices.

"I don't know if there has been a team like this assembled in Portland," Hersh said. "You have two former team owners in Jack Cain and I. You've got Mike Higgins, who was general manager of the Portland Beavers 10 years ago, Mark Helminiak, who was general manager of the Beavers 20 years ago and myself (as GM of the Beavers) 30 years ago. Cap Hedges is an advertising legend and to re-team he and Dream Weaver brings back the best of the Pokey Allen era.
 
"You don't sell a town of two million, two-hundred thousand people with two people. We are going to bring in one of the largest sales forces to sell sports in Portland."

Hersh also announced that, with the co-operation and support of Chris McGowan and the Portland Trail Blazers, Hall of Famer Bill Schonely will serve as the voice of the Viking Pavilion Project.

"This partnership effectively triples the number of people actively promoting and selling the Viks in the community," added Chisholm.

Hersh believes in Portland State's strengths - city size, the fact that PSU is the largest-attended university in the state of Oregon, and the undertaking of the Viking Pavilion Project, to create a 5,000-seat athletics venue on the Park Blocks. He points to other urban schools founded within a decade of Portland State's origins (1947) that have made large strides within their communities in recent years - the University of Memphis, South Florida and Central Florida - as a model for the future of PSU Athletics.

"There is plenty of room for Beavers, Ducks and Vikings, and there is no room for excuses," said Hersh. "We have a vision and commitment for the long-term future of Portland State."

Chisholm agreed, "We compete every day to make our teams and student-athletes better.  The VAP represents our intent to compete just as hard in the marketing and promotion of our program.

"We don't expect instant results, but we've got 10 people reporting for duty on Thursday morning. Our first goal is to have an impact by the month of October," stated Hersh.
 
TO CONTACT THE VIKING ATHLETIC PARTNERSHIP: Call 971.983.9400, info@c-levelsports.com
(This number is temporary, Portland State phone numbers and email addresses will soon be available)
 
Viking Athletics Partnership Directory
President: David Hersh
Director of Business Development: Mike Higgins
Director of Marketing: Cap Hedges
Director of Season Ticket Sales and Insanity: Dream Weaver
Special Markets Manager: Mark Helminiak
Group Sales Manager: Nathan Merlin
Director of Kids and Alumni Fun: Erika Nudelman
Senior Advisor to VAP: Jack Cain
Special Advisor to VAP: Andrea Warthen
Assistant to the President VAP: Alexis Kitzman
Voice of the Pavilion Project: Bill Schonely