Penn Athletics strengthens alumni ties, reaches sponsorship deal with AXIA Time

Another corporate sponsorship deal has been finalized by Penn Athletics.

On Monday, the department announced a new partnership with AXIA Time, a maker of Swiss watches. Penn alumnus and Penn Lacrosse Hall of Fame inductee John Kanaras founded AXIA Time this year and has quickly become partners with all eight schools in the Ivy League. This agreement with Penn came just under a week after the University struck a deal with Macquarie Investment Management, which put the corporation’s name on the Palestra court.

AXIA Time will be giving away a watch at select Penn home athletic events throughout the year. The company will have its first giveaway at the Palestra on Friday night during Penn men’s basketball’s home opener against Rice. The next day, another AXIA timepiece will be gifted to a fan at Penn football’s homecoming matchup, now called Homecoming: Presented by AXIA Time, against Harvard.

Furthermore, during some of Penn’s home conference games, the Palestra will have an AXIA Time table, where fans can try on watches from the University Timepieces collections and enter for a chance to win one of their own.

The company’s website states that, “AXIA Time was born out of our founder’s love of watches and his alma mater,” while going on to say that Kanaras always wanted to make a “quality and stylish mechanical watch branded to his alma mater.” The University Timepieces collections include the Sofia Collection and the Kairos Collection, both of which feature either the name or logo of an Ivy League school.

With this agreement, Penn Athletics kills two birds with one stone: it profits from the branding opportunity and forges a strong connection with a school alumnus, one that the department hopes will last for a long time.