Sponsors
Nearly every football team has a sponsor these days. For some clubs, betting sponsorships are the primary source of income. For others, it’s just a way to diversify their many sponsorship deals
Do football sponsorships really work? Why pay £10M every year for a logo on a team’s jersey? What are the benefits and lessons learnt?
Football Provides Immense Exposure for Brands
Football is the most popular sport in the world, with over three billion fans. On average, Two billion people watch the World Cup. On the flip side, up to 100M fans watch the English Premier League. And hundreds of millions of people watch the Champions League.
With such a huge audience, football provides unlimited exposure for brands. Precisely, a company’s logo on a popular club can be viewed by up to 50 million people during a major football championship final.
To spice things up, club sponsor logos appear up to 89% of the time during live match broadcasts. So, there’s no chance that a company could sponsor a club and fail to get coverage.
Money Talks
Before the UK Gambling Act of 2005, many football clubs had non-betting sponsors. Arsenal had JVC. Chelsea had Samsung and Man Utd had Sharp, AIG and AON. Some EPL clubs even had hometown sponsors.
Fast forward to 2020 and most companies can’t splash the money betting companies are spending on sponsorships. Take Betway’s partnership with West Ham as an example. The betting company spends £10M every year at the club. In Turkey, a government-owned sportsbook paid £125M to sponsor three Turkish football leagues in 2010. In the same year, France-based Betclic spent $21M to sponsor Juventus for two years.
That said, many betting companies are yet to match the amount sponsors pay for top EPL and Spanish clubs. Emirates and Adidas, for example, have deals worth €70M and €120M with Real Madrid. In England, Chevrolet paid €74.1M to sponsor Man Utd while Adidas spent €86.9M to be the club’s official jersey provider.
Sponsorships also Benefit Casinos
One of the reasons why sportsbooks keep partnering with football clubs is that society has grown fond of sports betting. Some might still consider it to be a vice. But it’s a vice they can tolerate.
Unfortunately, casinos don’t always get the same respect. And that’s why most online casinos also own sportsbooks. They provide betting markets and casino games on the websites. When they sponsor football clubs, they mainly use their betting logos.
But through these partnerships, slot sites also get exposure. Of course, betting partnerships aren’t the only way through which people learn how to join casinos online in New Zealand. The Internet is jam-packed with marketing opportunities.
For example, bonuses work effectively. Most people will gladly claim a 10 NZD no deposit bonus to try out a new casino. But they might be hesitant to join a well-known company if it doesn’t welcome them with incentives.
Sponsorships are a Win-Win Situation
Football sponsorships are what scientists call “symbiotic relationships.” Betting companies benefit from brand exposure and marketing. In contrast, clubs gain from the massive amounts of money they receive.
In many cases, partnerships between betting companies and football clubs go beyond jersey sponsorship deals. Sometimes sportsbooks also advertise on clubs’ social media networks. Or they could create TV adverts with a franchise’s players.
These extra partnerships lead to more money from betting companies. And that’s money clubs can use to upgrade training facilities, stadiums and salaries on players and non-playing employees.
Technology and Young Bettors Influences Deals
Sponsorships talks no longer come with a fixed catalogue of packages. Betting companies take time to negotiate what they want in exchange for money. And increasingly, demands centre on using technology and the Internet to advance their campaigns.
As we mentioned earlier, it’s common for sportsbooks to market odds for popular games through the social media pages of clubs they sponsor. The assumption is that social network increases exposure.
It also helps with market segmentation. Precisely, a bookmaker could advertise EPL odds for people in the UK. And provide odds for the MLS when targeting customers in the US. All the same, they will use social platforms of clubs they sponsor due to their massive followings.
That said, the main reason sponsors are getting interested in social media, websites and mobile devices is to target young punters. Millennials, Generation Z and Alpha will make up more than half of working people in a decade. So, it makes sense for sponsors to tweak their marketing campaigns to impress young punters.
Storytelling is Vital in Sponsorship Success
All around the world, betting companies that sponsor football teams keep running adverts. In many cases, they don’t sponsor adverts to encourage you to gamble. Instead, they’re leaning toward storytelling: One of the oldest forms of marketing. Take Nike’s documentary on France’s street football documentary. It was an appreciation of the culture of young footballers playing the beautiful game in the streets of France. And it credits this culture as one of the reasons why ‘Le Blues’ won the World Cup in 2018. Storytelling is also turning into a success with women football promotions. Brands aren’t demanding people to watch women sports. Instead, they’re sharing the stories of these players, their successes and reasons why they deserve attention and trust.
Influencer Marketing Works
One of the growing trends among football sponsors is to partner with footballers for adverts. Not every company wants to spend millions of dollars on clubs. Instead, they spend less money on endorsements from successful players.
An example is AC Milan’s Zlatan Ibrahimovic partnering with BetHard. The Swedish strikes had a deal in which he promoted BetHard on social media and their website in 2018. Sometimes brands that have partnerships with clubs also use players for their advertising campaigns.
According to scientists, there’s a psychological reason behind the success of influencer marketing. People feel confident to buy products promoted by their favourite footballers. And they feel even more motivated to purchase the players promote products from brands they like.