The DataPOWA view on the most important talking points in the worlds of sport sponsorship and digital.
Arsenal will sign football’s third biggest shirt deal when they put pen to paper on an agreement with Adidas, according to reports.
The contract will run for five years and make The Gunners a total of £300 million. Only Manchester United (also with Adidas) and Barcelona (Nike) have more lucrative deals.
In June Arsenal legend Ian Wright voiced his approval, saying: “So pleased Adidas are back sponsoring after this coming season️. Especially after seeing what Puma have come up with.”
The announcement marks a reunion for Arsenal and Adidas, who supplied the team’s kits between 1986 and 1994. Nike produced them for ten years after that, before Puma took over in 2004.
Find out more about this story on The Mirror
Serena Williams is the highest-earning female athlete in the world, according to Forbes magazine.
The seven-time Wimbledon champion earns £13.95m in endorsements and has added £48,050 in prize money to that total in the last year. Badminton’s PV Sindu and racing driver Danica Patrick are the only non-tennis sportswomen to rank, coming in seventh and ninth respectively.
Sindu’s appearance in the list will come as a surprise to many unfamiliar with her name, but her star has been rising rapidly thanks to her performance at the 2016 Rio Olympics.
It was there that Sindhu became only the second Indian badminton player – either male or female – to win an Olympic medal (silver). She followed it up with a hugely successful 2017 during which she made £387,000 in winnings and added a further £6.2m through endorsements.
Nokia, Panasonic, Gatorade and Bridgestone Tyres are among the big-name companies to have signed an agreement with Sindhu, whose success marks a significant shift in focus for the traditionally cricket-mad India.
“Before the Olympics when we reached out to sponsors, often we were asked ‘Sindhu who?” Tuhin Mishra of Baseline Ventures, who tend to Sindhu’s commercial interests, told CNBC in 2017. “The market dynamics were tough. Everyone only wanted to be associated with cricket.
At just 23 years old, Sindhu still has her best years ahead of her, and Mishra is determined to make sure she has endorsement potential far into the future.
“We don’t want advertisers flirting with her success, but who are interested in marriage. She is still to peak in her career — there is still a lot of potential. Sindhu’s endorsement fee can easily go up to 15 million rupees (about $230,000) a day.”
Find out more about this story on BBC Sport and CNBC
World Cup sponsors Coca-Cola used innovative new technology to cope with the demands of the tournament on in-store stock, BBC Business has reported.
The technology is operated by Trax and uses cameras mounted on shop shelves and augmented reality apps on smartphones and tablets to monitor product volume.
If stock is out of place or missing from the shelves staff are alerted so they can replenish and ensure they’re always meeting customer demand.
“Retailers are out of stock about 8% to 12% of the time at the moment,” Traz chief executive Joel Bar-El said, “but systems like ours can reduce that to 3% or 4%.
“We alert them immediately. It normally takes three to four hours to replenish shelves today, but we’ve reduced that to 20 minutes in many cases.”
Find out more about this story on BBC Sport
Cristiano Ronaldo is the new global ambassador for DAZN after signing a two-and-a-half-year contract with the streaming company.
DAZN made waves in the summer by reaching a deal to broadcast Serie A matches for the next three seasons, while joined Juventus after the World Cup.
The deal with RonaldO “wasn’t in the budget”, according to DAZN’s CMO Johnny Devitt, but it’s now part of a wider strategy as the company continues its rapid expansion.
“The one thing about this place is people see the bigger picture,” he said. “So we had an outline of a plan on how we would activate it and what value we thought we’d be able to get from it and that’s happened to look like it would be something commercially viable.”
Find out more about this story on The Drum
Airbnb users looking for a place to stay near Old Trafford can expect to pay more than anywhere else in Manchester, according to new figures.
Colliers International revealed that locations in the Trafford East region charge around £105 per night, while the average elsewhere is around £77.
The increase is deemed to be due to the area’s closeness to both Old Trafford football ground and the cricket stadium, with Colliers writing that it “highlights the importance and impact of sporting events on the city’s overnight accommodation sector”.
Find out more about this story on Manchester Evening News
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