Football remains at the forefront of the global sports sponsorship market. As per a report from Astute Analytica, global football sponsorship market was valued at $39.36bn in 2023, that would roughly be 53% of the total sports sponsorship market ($73.8bn in 2023 estimated, Allied Market Research). It is not surprising to see companies and brands across industry categories planning and strategizing to maximize their marketing objectives through football sponsorship
In this post, we will throw some lights on the industry categories, assets and value of sponsorship across the European club football spectrum
Assets or Sponsorship Inventory
For a football club, the most dominant assets or inventories in terms of sponsorship value are
- Front-of-shirt (FoS)
- Sleeve
- Kit
- Stadium naming rights
- Training kit
Jersey and kits tend to drive the highest sponsorship value on media in terms of highest visibility, recognizability and is often designed to create unique brand narrative from the sponsor’s end as well as a marked fan respect for the rights holder. Although the jersey sleeve assets are smaller in size, it still gives more visibility during on-field actions through live-media as well as static media captures on social media. As such, these kinds of deals are the most sought-after by the teams as well as sponsors. On such sponsorship example is Barcelona’s partnership with Swedish audio streaming platform Spotify
The importance of such sponsorship can be seen from the share of FoS, sleeve and kit partnerships in the total commercial revenue. An analysis of the 23/24 ‘kit plus f-o-s- plus sleeve’ sponsorship revenue to the total commercial revenue generated by the top 10 clubs with highest revenue in 22/23 shows this
Note Arsenal’s heavy reliance (81%) on the three inventories. Some key insights from the chart can be found
- The 3 inventories (FoS, sleeve & kit) combined together form 44% of the total commercial revenue of the top 10 clubs
- Contributes over 50% in 4 clubs
- Between 30%-40% in the balance clubs (Bayern Munich’s did not have sleeve sponsor in 23/24)
Stadium Naming Rights – Untapped Potential
Aside to the main shirt, sleeve and kit sponsorship, one particular inventory doesn’t seem to have been utilised fully, that is stadium naming rights
Across the ‘big 5’ leagues, Bundesliga is far ahead in this regard with 14 out of 18 clubs, 78%, have stadium sponsors, as per the UEFA European Club Finance & Investment Report. The other leagues, well, far short
- Premier League: 25%
- LALIGA: 30%
- Serie A: 20%
- Ligue 1: 22%
Across 730+ top-tier clubs in Europe, only 18% have stadiums with naming rights. Some other highlights can be seen in the chart
In a completely contrasting situation, as per GlobalData, 91% of the professional sports teams across the five leagues namely NFL, NBA, NHL, MLB and MLS have stadium sponsors
Industrial Categories
As mentioned, main shirt sponsorship is a sought-after inventory, especially for the clubs with global fan following, from across a broad spectrum of industries.
The main shirt sponsorship landscape comprises of retail, professional services and betting and gambling firms as the most prolific industries across 734 top division clubs in Europe. More specifically, betting and gambling firms account for 23% of all main shirt sponsors across Europe’s top divisions in 2023/24. The impact can be felt in future with the pending restrictions on betting sponsorship in many European countries
As per the UEFA European Club Finance & Licensing Report, across all sponsorships inventories, the most dominant industries seen in 23/24 in the European top division leagues are
- Retail: 14%
- Betting & Gambling: 13%
- Professional services: 12%
- Financial Services: 10%
Conclusion
The quest for maximizing revenue through sponsorship will be stronger in the coming time especially with the increasing control of private equity investors. The constant search will lead to creation or diversification of inventories, exploring untapped industries and new markets
The football sponsorship space will continue to become more interesting!
