Sponsoring either sport or the arts is always a risky sort of marketing venture, although the rewards can, if events turn out right, easily outweigh the benefits of ordinary advertising.
In sport, the thrills and spills involved in attaching one's corporate name or brand to teams or events were amply illustrated, across the British Isles, in the closing months of 2007:
- Rugby Union's World Cup, hosted by France and televised by ITV across six weeks of autumn action, turned out to be a boon for the sponsors of England and South Africa, both making the Final in place of the anticipated clash between the hosts and/or the Antipodean giants. England's sponsors, including O2, did well out of coverage considering that South Africa had thrashed England 36-0 earlier in the tournament.
- England's football team took over the flag-flying duty in November, but if the rugby team had stunned its supporters by reaching a Final, the English football fans had a shock to come as their team narrowly failed to qualify for Euro 2008, the national championships.
- Scotland and Northern Ireland were nearly given the chance to gloat over English failure but they, too, fell at the final hurdle for qualifying for Euro 2008. Neither did Scotland, Ireland or Wales cover themselves with glory in the Rugby World Cup.
Smaller companies than Nationwide or Nike can identify, through sponsorship, with plucky under-dogs rather than predictable champions. There are endless opportunities for sports sponsorship at grass-roots level, including public/private "matched" funding through the Sportsmatch scheme.
Another tactic for sponsors is to spread the risk across more than one sport. Vodafone has been prominent in this respect for more than a decade, paying handsomely to attach its name to the England cricket team, Manchester United, the UEFA Champions League and horse racing (including the Vodafone Derby). In motor racing, the second biggest sponsored sport after football (mainly attributable to Formula One races), Vodafone's sponsorship of the McLaren Mercedes team came up trumps in 2007 when the young English driver, Lewis Hamilton, broke through as a major new star of Formula One.
Putting all the "deals" together, sports sponsorship is worth at least £1 billion a year in the UK and the forthcoming London Olympics (2012), Glasgow Commonwealth Games (2014) and, possibly, the FIFA World Cup in 2018, will guarantee record spending over a long period. The organisers of the London event have already targeted £625m worth of sponsorship income.
For arts and culture, the burgeoning growth of sports sponsorship is worrying in that the sector has been struggling to regain the heights of the Millennium celebrations. Arts & Business, the official forum for the arts and their sponsors, has recorded static figures from businesses although the arts, more so than sports, are also supported by non-commercial donations from individuals and trusts.
To offset the overwhelming appeal of the Olympics to sponsors, the DCMS (Department for Culture, Media and Sport) is planning a Cultural Olympiad - "a four-year celebration of the UK’s cultural life that will be a perfect curtain-raiser to the Games in 2012" - which will embrace everything from a World Cultural Festival, the International Shakespeare Festival and the 5-rings Exhibition down to grass-roots community arts.
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Photo: woodym555 (Wikipedia)
