A record attendance of more than 450 professionals gathered in London to celebrate the best of European sponsorship at the 15th annual ESA Awards ceremony.
A wide range of organisations earned recognition for outstanding work in sponsorship across the past 18 months, passing a rigorous judging process to win trophies and commendations across 26 categories.
Celebrating the 35th anniversary of the European Sponsorship Association (ESA), the ceremony also honoured the first four recipients of the ESA Fellowship – Delphine Baise, Catherine Hawkins, Peter Raymond and Paul Samuels – and the Toby Hester Award was awarded to the top ESA Diploma student, Faisal Samarrae.
The ceremony came to a climax when health and fitness brand WHOOP earned the coveted ESA Sponsorship of the Year title for their ‘Broadcast Breakaway’ Giro d’Italia cycling race partnership with pan-European broadcaster Eurosport.
‘Broadcast Breakaway’ had already earned WHOOP and Eurosport the Media Sponsorship award and it was Highly Commended in the Best Use of Cutting-edge Technology category.
The prestigious ESA Best of Europe Gold award went to Small Businesses United, a collaboration between eBay and the English Football League (EFL) that, in the words of the entry, “supercharged the link between local businesses and local football clubs” for the benefit of communities.
It was a second success on the night for eBay and the EFL, having already earned the Sport Sponsorship €1M+ award, sponsored by 2023 ESA Awards Event Partner DataPOWA.
Hosted by Nigel Owens MBE at The Brewery venue, the ceremony saw two of Europe’s top sponsorship agencies confirm their status as industry leaders having been recognised last year. London-based WeAreFearless. won Independent Agency of the Year and Dublin-based Teneo Sports Advisory were named Group Owned Agency of the Year.
The continental diversity of the ESA Awards was vividly illustrated by the success of entries from Finland, France, Netherlands and Norway, as well as Ireland, England and Scotland.
Sky Ireland’s partnership with the Football Association of Ireland in support of the Republic of Ireland women’s team under the slogan #OUTBELIEVE, was highly successful with three outright category wins.
There were two trophies for The Masterpiece, a Dutch art-inspired campaign from AGU and the Team Jumbo-Visma Tour de France cycling team, and two for Finnish entry ‘IDEAPARK & CLASSIC: Sports entertainment in the middle of a shopping centre’.
Insurance company Gjensidige teamed up with the Norwegian Athletics Association for another innovative entry entitled ‘Full speed ahead with an AR lens on Snapchat’, which brought them success in two categories.
Click here to see the full list of winners and commended entries in the 2023 ESA Awards.
ESA Chairman, Andy Westlake, said: “On behalf of ESA I’d like to congratulate all the very deserving winners of the 2023 ESA Awards. They have led from the front in our industry, demonstrating outstanding creativity and mastery of the sponsorship discipline.
“I’d also like to thank our ESA Awards partners DataPOWA, Sponsorium, CSM Live, caytoo, Dataflow Events, London Sport and SPORTO for their support, the ESA Awards Committee and, of course, the dozens of sponsorship experts who gave their time to the judging process.
“It has been a phenomenal night, underlining the strength of our industry and the welcoming and diverse community that exists within it. I’m already looking forward to next year.”
-ENDS-
For media queries, please contact:
Jonathan Coates | ESA Marketing, Communications and Events Manager
marketing@sponsorship.org | +44 7788 352219
