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Thursday, July 25
Updated: August 6, 2:22 PM ET
 
Daly's marketers hoping moment sticks

By Darren Rovell
ESPN.com

A day after using super glue to close up a wound in his right hand, John Daly's marketing agents are beginning preliminary work in pitching super glue companies for a possible endorsement opportunity.

"Our marketing guys are starting to put things together," Daly's agent, John Mascatello of SFX, said. "There's nothing more credible than having a genuine real-life moment like that involving the use of a product."

Mascatello said he was approached by Otis Spunkmeyer in 1995 after Daly won the British Open, during which he ate muffins between shots. Although a deal was never struck, Daly has recently signed a deal with beverage company Sobe. TV cameras caught Daly downing the beverage while on the course during tournaments.

Daly said a piece of glass was lodged in his right hand for years, but somehow worked its way free last week. He had surgery on the hand last Saturday, but on Wednesday, it started bleeding profusely on the Hilversumsche course in the Netherlands, where Daly was playing in a pro-am before the TNT Dutch Open.

"My right hand, just above the first knuckle, started bleeding really bad," Daly told reporters there. "So I put superglue on top of it. … I don't care that it's unwise medically. I'm not going to watch it bleed."

Daly covered his wound with a large band-aid on Thursday and recovered to shoot a par 70.

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Since the brand of glue Daly used was not specified, the company missed out on an opportunity for free publicity, according to Eric Wright of Joyce Julius & Associates, a sponsorship evaluation firm. "If it was clear what brand of super glue Daly used, the media mentions would be worth in upwards of $5 million," Wright said. "But I still I expect the superglue industry to see some increase from this."

Super glue is the generic of a product initially marketed to fix cracks in ceramic and tears in leather and plastics. Super glue was used during the Vietnam War, where soldiers were issued tubes of the substance to quickly seal stomach wounds while in battle.

Because Daly's story was so well circulated in both the United States and Europe, Wright said the brand exposure would have meant more than the exposure received by Dairy Queen in January when Dallas Mavericks owner Mark Cuban managed one of its restaurants on a lark.

Cuban said Ed Rush, the NBA's director of officials, "might have been a great ref, but I wouldn't hire him to manage a Dairy Queen." Wright said the publicity generated by the comment and subsequent Cuban interviews generated about $1 million per day for the dessert chain.

It lasted a couple days as playful Cuban went to a Texas Dairy Queen to prove that he, indeed, could manage a store.

An official with Elmer's Krazy Glue, which has the largest market share in the super glue business, said it has never ventured into the realm of sports endorsements and probably would not be interested in sponsoring Daly.

"Our product is meant to be used to fix things and we don't condone the use of it for medical purposes," said Terri Brown, spokesperson for Krazy Glue, which admonishes users to "avoid contact with skin and eyes," on the back of its package.

But the founder of super glue, Dr. Harry Coover -- who invented the substance by accident while working at Kodak Research Labs in 1942 -- told ESPN.com that Daly's use wasn't dangerous.

"One of my first patents was using the glue as a replacement for stitches," Coover said.

Darren Rovell, who covers sports business for ESPN.com, can be reached at Darren.rovell@espnpub.com




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