Tag: premier league


China, The Sleeping Giant 12th January, 2017

China, a country already with the world’s second largest economy, made a bold statement in 2015. President Xi Jinping announced a goal to create a domestic sports economy worth $850 billion by 2025, a plan that also involves winning the football World Cup by 2050.

This has commenced rapidly, with Chinese Super League clubs paying stars like Oscar and Carlos Tevez at a premium, £60 million and £71.6 million respectively. The effect is simple – bigger names bring more spectators, more commercial interest and greater global reach. As teams gain more exposure around the world due to the leagues increased profile, they become an even more attractive property to brands. This heightened market activity has a knock-on effect to sponsorship fees throughout the rest of the world, as these large rights holders are able to command higher fees, smaller clubs can ride the coat-tails and leverage more expensive properties to their own benefit.

Outside of their home league, Chinese brands have become progressively active as sporting event sponsors and investors, lured by the potential profits of associating their brands with a sport, team or athlete to access a new market. Chinese brands are shown in each of the major European leagues – AIA at Tottenham, 138.com at Watford and Rastar Group gracing the jersey of RCD Espanyol, to name a few.

The biggest example is Hisense, who became the first ever Chinese sponsor of the Euros when aligning with the 2016 competition. Although the official sponsorship fee has not been disclosed, Hisense is said to have invested a sum of 370 million yuan (roughly £43 million).

It is not just football that China is attracted to, but also rugby and basketball. The levels of investment being seen will lead to an effect that can be likened to sponsorship inflation, as activity from within China develops rights holders into even larger properties. Global sports sponsorship investment levels have continuously grown year on year by 4-5% since the late 2000’s and with the sports industry estimated to be worth $73.5 billion by 2019, not surprisingly the bulk of that money will come from China.

Contrastingly, Western brands now have a way to penetrate the largely untapped Chinese market. With significant increases in awareness and media value, gaining a foothold in China would be a lot of brands’ number one goal, however there hasn’t been a platform big enough to promote themselves effectively, until now. The huge audience means Western brands now have a solid foundation to build exposure and revenue in this massive economy, just like the Chinese brands are doing in European sporting markets.

The next few years are going to be a very interesting period for sports sponsorship in China. An already global sport like football is becoming accessible to far more people, allowing rights holders to generate more money for their assets. While some may say that the money in sports is already at a ridiculous level without China’s new-found interest, it is another way of increasing globalisation by providing a platform for China to integrate with the West and vice versa.


Can too many Sponsors Dilute a Rights-Holder’s Brand? 22nd August, 2013

In sports leagues around the world, success on the field is ultimately driven by commercial revenue. As a consequence, their response has been to bring in sponsors to help facilitate the gap in funding.  But this growing emphasis upon sponsorship has left many people asking – are too many sponsors diluting the right-holder’s brand?

Sponsors make the brand more vibrant

When discussing the ever increasing number of sponsors in sport, it would be hard not to mention Manchester United, having just signed another spread of partners across the globe. The club has recently signed the Indonesian tyre producer bringing the club’s sponsorship total to 33. It begs to ask the question – are these sponsors devaluing the Manchester United brand?

Jonathan Rigby CM for MU, has rejected that the club has anywhere near reached its limit. He states that by implementing a local model amongst the 77 countries they have sponsors in currently, they are appealing to each fan individually, making the brand more vibrant and producing a follow on effect which will ultimately benefit all sponsors involved.

This certainly seems to be the case when you look at their operating profit, which has increased this year by 13.7%. The club has also just signed a new shirt deal worth nearly £500 million over 8 years, increasing their commercial sponsorship revenue to £118 million annually.

More value lies in fewer partners

In comparison, Juventus believe going the other way is more rewarding. The club believes that having valuable relationships with fewer brands will bring you more credibility amongst your following, and as a result will lead to greater financial weight behind the deals. This is the case for Jeep who is currently their headline sponsor, and one of 15 corporate partners.  In a public image driven market, and where it is only public interest which governs your reach; keeping it close to home can be seen as vital.

It’s the end product that matters

Brands enter into sponsorship for a multitude of reasons, but generally speaking, brands sponsor rights-holders for the audience, exposure, association and to fulfill their own brand objectives.  For rights-holders, one of the main things they rely upon, aside from funding, is the fans/ their audience.  As a platform, sponsorship allows both the rights-holder and brand to connect to their audience in a wholly tailored way.

The focus, therefore, shouldn’t be based on the amount of sponsors, but upon the end product – what the partnership has created for the fan, the overall experience and the club. MU’s model works because it has such a wide fan base and global sponsorship platform that allows them to associate with their following in all corners of the world. Juventus, on the other hand, has had success through its emphasis upon a few partners that have a strong affiliation to the club, keeping it close to home allows them to stay true to both the sponsor and the rights-holder’s objectives.

The Outcome

So long as the sponsorship is delivered and is aligned to the brand’s objectives and these objectives align with those of the rights-holder, the end product should ultimately benefit both club and sponsor.  Dilution of the brand will come when parties lose sight of their overall objective.

EPL, Bendtner & Nalbandian: How Branding IS Still Relevant, No Matter What The Cost 2nd August, 2012

I wrote a blog a few months ago called ‘Sponsorship – More Than Just Branding’.  Whilst it’s palpable that sponsorship has evolved into far more than straightforward logo placement, it’s important not to forget that branding – be it via naming rights, advertising hoardings or shirt sponsorships – is still relevant within our industry and most importantly, still deemed hugely valuable in the eyes of sponsors.

On Monday, General Motors signed a colossal £175 million deal with Manchester United that will see the Chevrolet logo replace Aon on the front of the club’s shirt for the next seven years.  Chevrolet will be provided with numerous additional benefits from their shirt sponsorship (via advertising, hospitality etc.) but primarily their logo position on United’s shirts will promote brand perception of ‘success, speed and superiority’.  Further it will automatically garner favour with United’s 659 million followers worldwide, as General Motor’s VP for N. America states: ‘this is about connecting the brand with Manchester United and its passionate supporters around the world.’

And it’s not just the Premier League’s most famous teams that are seeing such significant returns on shirt sponsorships, with the likes of Sunderland attracting substantial investment from their lucrative partnership with Invest in Africa. Recent figures reveal a 25% increase in English Premier League shirt sponsorship to £147 million, dampening fears that the EPL as a brand would suffer as the British economy entered its second dip in four years.

Now, while these shirt sponsorships represent the more expensive side of branding within sponsorship, a couple of incidents a month or so ago, illustrate that (clever/accidental) logo placement can still generate positive brand perception and awareness on a budget.

Firstly, David Nalb(r)andian  took out a knee-height Nike hoarding, along with an umpires shin, after failing to return a base-line shot from Marin Cilic.  This was followed shortly by the boxer-gate affair surrounding Nicklas Bendtner’s Paddy Power lined briefs, which he revealed after scoring his second goal in Denmark’s 3-2 defeat to Portugal.

Both men were disciplined accordingly – Nalbandian receiving disqualification from Queens and Bendtner receiving a hefty fine – and received their fair share of press attention.  Granted the Nike hoarding board was not the focal point of such attention over Nalbandian’s kick-out, but it was in Bendtner’s case, and Paddy Power got a huge amount of publicity and engagement out of it.

Their Facebook page was awash with comments from users acclaiming their ‘genius’ marketing strategy and the story was covered byevery major broadsheet.  While I don’t conform to the consensus that a distinctly average footballer wearing a green pair of briefsconstitutes exceptional intellectual aptitude, it was rather clever.

For just £80,000 (the price of Bendtner’s fine, which Paddy Power agreed to pay) the Irish bookmakers got nationwide exposure and saw thousands of additional online users flock to see what other mischief Paddy Power have been up to.

Obviously Bendtner’s boxers can’t be compared with Chevrolet’s United sponsorship in terms of worldwide reach, but you’d be hard pushed to say that it’s not better value!