CSM’s Super Spenders Report Shines Spotlight On Football Sponsorship In Europe

An analysis of football sponsorship across Spain, England, Italy, Germany and France, CSM’s report identifies an incredible 1769 sponsorship deals involving 1156 companies in 50 industrial sectors. Without even considering sponsorship activities at a global level (eg FIFA World Cup) or outside these five territories, CSM calculated that this activity represents a cumulative investment of approximately €3.2 billion. Also outside the remit of the report were broadcast sponsorship deals, another lucrative area of activity for the sport.

The CSM report covers sponsors of federations, leagues, national cups and 98 clubs. But it doesn't just stop with headline figures. It also breaks the data down by industrial category, individual brands and clubs. So, for example, it is possible to see that the biggest spending sector, with €317 million and 116 deals, is financial services. And digging further down into the data, it becomes evident that Mastercard, Unicredit and Standard Chartered are the biggest spenders.

What makes this figure even more impressive is that it doesn’t include insurance brand sponsorship deals, another 58 deals worth an estimated €123 million. In other words, any notion that financial services may have reined in sponsorship spend in the wake of the 2008 financial crisis is ancient history.

CSM’s report also helps us discern differences in the way brands approach football sponsorship. MasterCard’s €62m investment, for example, is centred on three key properties – including UEFA Champions League. By contrast, Caixa Bank’s €15m investment is spread across no less than 16 deals.

The globalisation of leading soccer club ‘brands’ has also created some interesting scenarios. Manchester United FC, for example, has around a dozen financial service sponsors alone – with partners located everywhere from Latin America and the Middle East to Japan and Indonesia. Liverpool, Chelsea and Arsenal also have multiple financial sponsors on board.

After finance, the next biggest categories (in this order) are automotive, airlines, betting, beer, telecoms, energy and tyres. Betting with €183m and 106 deals is probably the biggest growth area in recent times, and also the one which is most likely to attract attention from regulators in coming years. The sector is especially strong in the UK where competition to be the official betting partner of top clubs continues to be fierce. Having said this, virtual every major club in Europe has a betting deal, with Inter Milan recently signing its first.

Beer is an interesting category, with CSM’s figures suggesting it is dominated by Heineken. With expenditure of €68.2m, the brand is far outspending the likes of Carlsberg (€14.2m) and Carling (€14m) – its nearest category rivals. Budweiser, a headline partner for the FIFA World Cup, doesn’t register as a significant player in CSM’s expenditure chart – despite being the official beer of the English FA Cup. There are no meaningful players in France, thanks to an alcohol sponsorship ban.

In telecoms, the biggest player is T-Mobile, which spends €36m across four key deals. Telecom Italia is a close second, with €34.1m investment across 17 deals (all of which operate within the Italian market). Perhaps not surprisingly, the main focus of telco sponsors is their domestic markets (since this is where the bulk of their customers reside). The dominant player on the UK front is EE, through its wide-ranging partnership with the English FA. Manchester United’s aggressive global sponsorship strategy has seen it sign six international telco partners.

MasterCard’s leadership of the financial service league table doesn’t make it the biggest individual sponsor. That title goes to Emirates, which CSM estimates spends €126 million across 7 deals, followed by Gazprom, Nissan and PS4. The scale of Emirates’ investment is clearly a major factor in airlines ranking as the number three industrial category. All told, the airline sector’s €199 million revenues came from just 21 deals – whereas betting’s €183 million was the result of 106 deals.

Measured by club, Manchester United is both the biggest revenue generator and the one with most deals (56). Its closest rival is Barcelona and then there is a sizeable drop to Chelsea in third. All of the top 11 clubs in the CSM report boast at least 17 deals, though the average per club is nearer 25-30.

The CSM report is interesting as a record of the football sponsorship business in Europe. But it’s also a valuable business tool. It’s possible, for example, to get a sense of which properties sponsors are drawn to. Car manufacturer Hyundai only has one football sponsorship – French club Olympique Lyonnais. So maybe that means it would be open to similar partnerships across the other four leading leagues.

In fact, CSM has also taken the time to try and identify opportunities that might be of interest to sponsors. For brands with enough money, for example, CSM points out that FC Barcelona is now available after five years with Qatar Airways.

It’s also noteworthy that France is the market with the least activity among financial services sponsors. Probably this is down to the fact that France has been the least glamorous of Europe’s five big leagues until recently. But with Paris St Germain’s recent acquisition of Brazilian Neymar and the upheaval being caused by Brexit, some kind of France-based financial services sponsorship play might now make sense.

Of all the industrial categories, automotive is perhaps the most staid and unchanging – with car brands often very loyal to their properties. Maybe now, however, is time for change – with governments attempting to drive a pro-electric vehicle agenda. Possibly football sponsorship - which has proven so effective across industrial categories – may be a driver of change.

For further insights into CSM’s report and how to harness it, contact the agency directly. And don’t forget – this year you can enter your football sponsorship into the UK Sponsorship Awards as part of a dedicated football category for the first time. For further details on this development, visit here www.sponsorship-awards.co.uk