Super-Sponsored Sports
Europeans are very much into sports. In the five major countries of the Old Continent, 25% of the people polled say they are "very interested". Add to that the "interested" 35%, and you have 6 out of 10 Europeans who watch sports. Such interest has led to ever-growing investments to sponsor teams, athletes, and whole competitions.
In Europe, according to International Marketing Reports, sponsorships involve sports in 70% of the cases, and sport sponsorships account for 86% of the total value of sponsorship agreements. The growth of the sports business has led the development of investments in the industry by media and companies. According to many observers, sports sponsorships have reached a stage of maturity in Europe.
Looking at sponsorship typologies, team sports weigh in for 62% of the total, followed by events (23%) and individual athletes (12%). Naming rights contracts for facilities such as stadiums and coliseums are spreading, buy they account for only 2% of the total. In the Old Continent, the sponsors focus on two sports: soccer (38%) and motoring (32%). Other sports get a lot a less in spite of their popularity: for instance, tennis is liked by 23% of the population, but attracts only 3% of sponsorships. Such a lower pulling factor is explained by the heterogeneity of interest into various sports across different European markets. In fact, while soccer, car and motorcycle racing are liked everywhere, track and field is appreciated by 30% of French, but only by 14% of Italians.
Thus there are marked cultural and local specificities that heavily influence business potential for different sports in various countries. Other social profiles also matter. For instance, basketball is very much liked by people under 30, while skiing is uniformly liked by all age brackets. The concentration of interest in specific customer segments, while limiting investment opportunities for generic investors, offers the possibility of more targeted communication for potential sponsors, which is attractive for companies aiming at selected publics. For example, sailing attracts a lot of money from the fashion business, which is almost completely absent from other sports. Looking at the industry of provenance, among sponsoring firms dominate financial services (13% of the total value of sponsorship contracts), automotive companies (12%) and telecommunication firms (10%).
The main challenges for the actors involved in sponsorships (the sponsor and the property owner) are optimizing return on investment for all side of the deal and improving the measuring of performance. To reach these objectives, ever more articulated and specialist marketing and brand management skills are required to optimize sponsors' outlays. Market research needs to be deepened to gain a better understanding of sports consumers and their reactions to sponsorship initiatives.