A new name and sponsor for Dad Vail

The Dad Vail regatta, the country's largest intercollegiate rowing competition, will remain in Philadelphia for at least four more years with the announcement of a new corporate sponsorship.

Aberdeen Asset Management, a Scottish investment firm with North American headquarters at 17th and Market Streets, has signed a four-year agreement and contributed "six figures" to become title sponsor.

"I cannot overemphasize how important, how significant this is," Mayor Nutter said at a City Hall news conference Wednesday. "It's about a company making an investment here in the city of Philadelphia."

The deal ensures the event, now officially known the Aberdeen Dad Vail Regatta, remains on the Schuylkill until at least 2013. It will be held this year on May 7 and 8.

"It's a new generation," said Dad Vail president Jack Hanna. "This provides us with stability. We can plan. We can budget."

Hanna would not disclose the financial terms of the new sponsorship.

Dad Vail rowers have raced on the Schuylkill for 56 years. But last year, facing a $250,000 funding shortfall after losing sponsors, the regatta threatened to move to Rumson, a wealthy enclave in northern New Jersey.

Organizers decided to remain in Philadelphia after businessman Herb Lotman brokered an agreement between the regatta and the city and organizers realized problems at the proposed site on the Navesink River outweighed benefits of going there.

"It certainly has been an interesting, exciting six months or so," said Mayor Nutter, adding there was never a question of the regatta ever leaving Philadelphia. "We had to work through some challenges."

Among those challenges was reducing the $70,000 the city had charged the regatta for police overtime, emergency medical services and other costs. Those fees could be finalized as early as next week, said Mark Focht, executive director of Fairmount Park.

The regatta will be condensed to two days to lower costs to save some city fees, Focht said. In previous years the preceding Thursday was considered an event day as crews set up and vendors sold food and clothing along Kelly Drive. This year, Thursday vending will be eliminated.

The regatta was also given the right to charge for parking on Kelly Drive, though regatta organizers chose to include it as part of its sponsor packages to make them more enticing to corporate donors, he said.

"The city also committed to invest $300,000 to improve the finish line stands and build a world class finish line tower," Hanna said. "They're right on schedule."

The regatta draws 3,000 rowers representing more than 100 colleges and universities. According to Hanna, it also brings $16 million in spending by the teams and their spectators.

Aberdeen CEO Martin Gilbert, who attended the news conference, said he has never attended a Dad Vail, but said his company had long been involved with rowing events.

He also declined to talk about the details of the sponsorship agreement, saying only that "it would be fair to characterize it as six figures."

Aberdeen sponsored the annual Oxford and Cambridge University boat race in England from 1999 to 2005, he said, which draws as many 250,000 spectators to the banks of the Thames.

"It's the team work of rowing that attracts us to the sport," Gilbert said, adding that under Aberdeen's sponsorship the Oxford-Cambridge rivalry "became a global event."

Nutter said at least 10,000 people were expected to attend this year's event.

"And much like the Fourth of July which we own . . . with fireworks bursting over Independence Hall," Nutter said, "there's only one place that you can ever see the Dad Vail Regatta. And that's in Philadelphia."