Only five sectors account for nearly half of the main sponsors of the 163 teams in the leading English divisions across men’s and women’s football, cricket and rugby, according to a report from new data-driven sports marketing business caytoo.
Led by gambling – driven solely by football – which accounts for 18.3% of the main sponsors, the top five feature financial services (9.4%), professional services (7.8%), automotive (6.7%) and travel & transport (6.1%).
Of the 33 sectors represented, the top 10 account for 70%.
Alex Burmaster, caytoo’s head of marketing and insights, said that the fact that sports sponsorship remains clustered around a few key sectors,
Isn’t really conducive to long-term thinking or the health of the industry, particularly when it comes to appealing to new sectors and attracting younger audiences.”
For example, he cited football’s reliance on gambling as “worrying” in the sense it accounts for over 32% of club’s main sponsors, yet is
Increasingly susceptible to negative attention from both a legislative and moral direction – from MPs to the NHS.”
In contrast, there isn’t a single betting company as a main sponsor among rugby and cricket teams. Indeed, driven by gambling, football has the most “eggs in one basket” with the three most dominant sectors accounting for 50% of sponsors in football, 36% in rugby and 33% in cricket.
The report also revealed that when it comes to female teams, automotive (16.7%) and travel & transport (12.5%) lead the way. He says although automotive may initially seem surprising it’s a “smart move as women now tend to drive car-purchasing decisions and female sport provides an increasingly attractive option to cut-through.”
Burmaster says this is an example of the large opportunity awaiting sports if they can get out of the short-to-medium term comfort zone of selling through “boozy hospitality, gut-feel and ‘chairman’s whim’” and to appeal to sectors beyond the usual suspects.
He concludes,
These methods will become increasingly outdated in a data-driven world, particularly as Millennials start to replace Generation X and the Baby Boomers as decision-makers.”
The full analysis is available here.
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Contact caytoo:
t: +44 (0)20 3176 8135 | e: info@caytoo.co.uk | w:caytoo.co.uk
About caytoo
caytoo is the new data-led business delivering actionable sports marketing insights. Founded by former executives from Nielsen, Deloitte and Cision, caytoo takes a more data-driven and scientific approach to helping sports rights holders manage and source commercial partners/sponsors.