Knox Sports History

December 1997	Knox Sports Begins Operations in Clearwater, FL. Founder Paul Sickmon began company after five years working in the athleticdepartment at Florida State University and a decade as the Director of Sponsorship and Advertising with the Tampa Bay Buccaneers.
January 1998	Started Sponsorship Consultation Business with four corporate clients. In first full year, negotiated contracts with over 30 collegiate and professional organizations on behalf of clientele.
February 1998	Staff increases to two people as client list doubles in first few months.
March 1998	Knox Sports, on behalf of GTE designs, creates and distributes 45,000 specialty seat cushions to fans for first ever Devil Rays baseball game played in Tropicana Field.
January 1999	Knox Sports Marketing takes on their first International Client in Honduras. Work in Central America that started on this date continues today.
March 2000	Sponsorship Consultation list grows to eleven and Knox Sports wraps up first few event and venue entitlement contracts including the Hops Marathon and GTE Classic.
August 2001	Knox Sports VP Melissa Calipari joins the team after a stint with the Tampa Bay Rays and WQYK.
November 2001	Knox Sports Marketing logo gets a new look.
December 2001	Awarded Youth Sports Contract from Land O’Frost to create and execute the single most successful youth sports sponsorship program in the US. Today Knox Sports manages the LOF program which sponsors over 13,000 teams in 28 US cities and took Land O’Frost from 8th in lunch meat sales in 2001 to 3rd in 2012.
September 2002	Finalized consultation on the St. Petersburg Times Arena contract, the official home of the Tampa Bay Lightning and over 150 other annual events.
August 2003	Sponsorship Consultation Client list grows to 13 and on behalf of Honduras’ Banco Ficohsa, Knox Sports gets involved in World Cup for the first time.
October 2004	Knox Sports is hired to oversee first outbound brand campaign for startup Bank of St. Petersburg. The USF athletic platform-based program helps Bank achieve all their commercial revenue goals in under 6 months.
March 2005	Innovative in-house ticketing programs for HomeBanc Mortgage created by Knox Sports change the way the sports sponsorship industry handles hospitality and ROI.
February 2007	Knox Sports picks up new client in Virginia Farm Bureau Insurance. Incredible results in hospitality, member benefits, new client data generation and unique traffic to agent offices resulted in KSM now currently managing South Carolina and Florida Farm Bureau as well.
June 2007	First Knox Sports Marketing Mission Trip to Tegucigalpa, Honduras.
August 2007	Knox Sports picks up another important grocery client with BI-LO based in Greenville, SC. This relationship is highlighted by the creative BI-LO No Dough concept where customers get free tickets to their favorite professional and collegiate events with purchase.
December 2007	Sponsorship Consultation Client list grows to 16 with Knox Sports managing over $5 million in sponsorship assets.
January 2008	Knox Sports moves into their new, wholly owned headquarters in Tampa, FL.
January 2008	Jennifer Kniese joins Knox Sports team after stops at the Florida Panthers, USF and the University of Southern Mississippi.
December 2009	Tampa Bay area credit union, Achieva Credit Union, hires Knox Sports to create grassroots local sports sponsorship.
June 2009	Second Knox Sports Marketing Mission Trip to Tegucigalpa, Honduras.
July 2009	Knox Sports adds Texas Farm Bureau to the client family. Activating lead generation and membership benefit programs with 9 Texas universities and 12 minor league baseball programs
September 2009	Knox Sports proudly manages over 20 Sports Sponsorship Consultation clients with over $8 million in annual sponsorship assets with over 60 professional & collegiate relationships.
March 2010	Knox Sports picks up Huntington Bank as our newest client. Huntington is a large Midwest Bank that has a major presence in Ohio, Michigan, Indiana, Pennsylvania and West Virginia.
January 2011	Knox Sports finalizes the Entitlement deal for Farm Bureau Live; an amphitheater in Virginia Beach.
June 2011	Knox Sports takes a trip to Tegucigalpa, Honduras for mission work. We donated soccer uniforms, assisted in building an indoor soccer field and donated school supplies and sports equipment to a local school.
January 2012	Cari Ellison joins the Knox Sports team
June 2012	Knox Sports and Fairwinds Credit Union team up on an Orlando Solar Bears deal
January 2013	After years as a Knox Sports client, Matt joins the sales team.