Construction, auto and financial services sectors are top team sponsors

The construction & engineering, automotive and financial services sectors have all overtaken the gambling industry as most prevalent sponsors across the 221 teams analysed in 13 different leagues/competitions according to a recent research into team sports by Caytoo.

Construction & engineering firms now account for 11.2% of the sponsors, followed by automotive (9.4%) and financial services (8.5%)firms.  The Caytoo analysis is only concerned with a club’s main/principal partner not any of their second tier, category-specific partners, etc.

Gambling, which held top spot two years ago, has seen its share across all the sports almost halve from 15.3% to 8.1%. This drop has been driven entirely by football, where gambling’s share has dropped by more than half from 32.7% to 15.2%.

Despite the drop, gambling remains football teams’ most prevalent sponsor whereas financial services is the most dominant in rugby while automotive and construction & engineering lead the way in cricket.

This change in team sports sponsorship, suggests Caytoo, has been driven by the greater demand from society for professional sports to be more socially responsible when it comes to their fans and communities. In addition to gambling’s drop, alcohol has seen the second biggest reduction in prevalence while environmental services and healthcare are among those with the biggest increases.

To view the full report, please click here.