The DataPOWA view on the most important talking points in the worlds of sport sponsorship and digital.
Premier League clubs have generated a record £281.8 million worth of sponsorship for the 2017/18 season, Sporting Intelligence has revealed.
The sum is £55 million more than last season’s amount, and £180 million more than the figure in 2010/11, when Sporting Intelligence first started monitoring the numbers.
The usual suspects lead the way, with Manchester United (£47 million), Chelsea (£40 million), Manchester City (£35 million), Tottenham (£35 million) and Arsenal (£30 million) comprising the top five. Burnley, Brighton and Huddersfield bring up the rear with a cumulative total of just £5.5 million.
The data does not include money from sleeve deals, but Sporting Intelligence notes that most of these deals run into hundreds of thousands, rather than millions, of pounds. Manchester City’s agreement with Nexen is one of the few exceptions.
To find out more about this story, visit Sporting Intelligence.
England may not have won the World Cup this summer, but football could still be coming home following the FA’s announcement that it’s considering a bid for the 2030 tournament.
The organisation was thwarted in its attempts to host this year’s competition, but FA Chairman Greg Clarke has revealed that a feasibility study will be getting underway to see if a fresh bid is worthwhile.
“Last month the English FA board agreed to conduct feasibility work into the possibility of putting itself forward to be UEFA’s potential candidate to host the 2030 FIFA World Cup,” Clarke said.
“This work will take place during the new season and no decision will be made until 2019.”
Argentina, Uruguay and Paraguay have announced their intention to bid for the tournament as well, with 2030 marking 100 years since the first World Cup, which was held in Uruguay.
To find out more about this story, visit BBC Sport.
In a summer packed with big-name sporting events, it’s easy to forget that a new major tournament has got underway: the European Championships, which run in Glasgow and Berlin from August 2nd to 13th.
The event brings together athletics, cycling, aquatics, gymnastics, rowling and triathlon and is being broadcast across Europe on free-to-air networks.
The idea was the brainchild of former UEFA marketing director Marc Jörg and ex-Deltatre COO Paul Bristow, and though it has competition in the shape of the European Games (initiated in 2015 and set for its second event in 2019), Inside the Games’ Mike Rowbottom believes there’s sufficient distinction between the two.
“The essential difference of the European Championships is that it is not an additional event on what is an already hectic sports calendar – it is simply an advantageous aggregation of existing events for branding and marketing purposes.
To find out more about this story, visit Inside the Games and City AM.
The London Olympics may have come and gone six years ago, but the event is still having a positive impact on those living in the city.
The infrastructure needed to host the Games brought about a major regeneration in East London, particularly in the Olympic Park area, and many of the stadia built have been successfully reused with significant economic benefits.
“So much has changed at Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park in the last six years,” said Lyn Garner, chief executive of the London Legacy Development Corporation.
“Since London 2012, homes have been built, thousands of jobs have been created and millions of people have visited the venues and events at the Park. And there’s even more to come; from world class universities and museums to new schools and businesses.”
To find out more about this story, visit Forbes.
Despite suggestions to the contrary, NASCAR CMO Steve Phelps has insisted that the sport is not struggling from a sponsorship angle.
5-Hour Energy announced last month that it will be ending its association with NASCAR at the end of the season, and with Lowe’s revealing in March that it would do the same, many are predicting a bleak future.
However, Phelps is more positive. “You know, I think there’s a misconception out there that sponsorship in NASCAR is not doing well, and that’s not true,” Phelps said.
“We have more sponsors in this sport today than we’ve ever had. We’ve got almost half the Fortune 100, almost a third of the Fortune 500. It’s a lot of large companies who are in the sport not because it would be really cool to go racing. It’s because it works.”
To find out more about this story, visit Yahoo.
The dominance of gambling companies in football sponsorship has been criticised by addiction experts.
Nine of the 20 Premier League clubs and 17 of the 24 Championship teams are sponsored by betting businesses this season, while Sky Bet is the title sponsor of the whole of the English Football League.
“This is worrying,” Gambling Watch UK’s Professor Jim Orford said. “There is evidence that gambling is becoming ever more normalised, particularly among young people, so that increasingly betting is seen as part and parcel of following and supporting one’s favourite sport or team,”
To find out more about this story, visit The Independent.
The Independent: Eleven Sports announce pricing for upcoming season after securing broadcast rights to La Liga and Serie A
BBC Sport: London Stadium: Search for sponsor of West Ham’s home costs nearly £450,000
Sports Industry: Spurs stadium to open with naming rights unsold
BBC Three: The rugby team kit with 18 sponsors, and other strange cases of sport branding
Sports Pro Media: Barcelona Femini get first ever shirt sponsor
Sports Pro Media: Cryptocurrency in sports: why and how to take advantage of new coin proliferation
The Drum: Heck: The wurst kits of all time by hearts and minds
Inside World Football: Ahead of the game: Man City agrees first eSports sponsorship with Turtle Beach