Sport Sponsorship & Brand Leverage

Comment

Comment by Kehinde Oke on June 6, 2009 at 9:58pm

Few Nigerian organizations are actively involved in sports sponsorship, could possibly be there is little or no return to this organizations. There is also the issue of little information on corporate responsibly to these companies. There are fewer consultants to package sports programs, therefore highlight the benefits to the various sporting organizations and corporate world. It’s therefore important that we identify how these companies’ stands to benefit from the sporting event. The international communities may begin to look in the direction of sponsorship of events and holding of sports clinic in developing countries. The costs of such programs are far less expensive as same initiative in the developed societies. The world has become a global village making information accessibly to enthusiastic foreign organizations to do their little bits by investing in the area of sports sponsorship.

Comment by Sava Bobchev on June 5, 2009 at 8:02am

Hello Linda,
Very streight forward (sadly) input indeed. Fully agree with your comment.
Unfortunately these last days the sport is not any more a sport - it is a money machine or it stays at the school / street level.
My idea is that on top of sponosoring the best teams and players (which we can afford), we shall also focus on the basics - you can give a relatively very small amount to a youngster with high potential and become partner for life with him/her.
Just an example - Puma discovered Hussein Bolt at the time he was a young athlete in Jamaica and backed him from the very beginning because his enthousiasm and energy simply fit in the company's vision. Now, when he made his 3 World records in Beijing 08 Olympics the investment returned back by far - not only in terms of money, but much more in terms of passion Bolt shows for the brand.
Sport Sponsorship is not only about spending money behind proven assets, it is much more about discovering new talents as well as being reliable, i.e. when you support someone, you follow him in good times as well as in not so good times. Just like the club fans do. If you stop you support to someone just because he did not win it is not a partnership anymore and the public will not like your attitude. At the end of the day we all want the love (and the money :-) of the public. The difference makes the way we get it.

Comment by Linda Ferns on June 5, 2009 at 7:40am

Hello Sava - thank you for your input! And I agree, to a certain extent..
I come from a sport administration background, having served 14 years with a nationla federation. It has been my experience that Corporate sponsors only invest their money into a sport that either shares the same values and brand objectives as the sport, in order to get a return. I have no problem with this principle - its the basic elements of business. What you refer to would, in my opinion, be the Corporate Social Responsibility (CSI/CSR) initiatives of the company - where they want to give back to the community. Sport Sponsorship ideally falls where the sponsor is going to gain brand awareness/value; brand equity; build/expand on an existing client base, as a result of their involvement in the sport.

The sad thing however is that a lot of grassroots sports loose out because of this business principle. Maybe one day there will be a change

Comment by Sava Bobchev on June 5, 2009 at 7:02am

Hello,
Glad to be here! The sponsorship and the sport sponsorship in particular are quite a large topic which deserves to be discussed.
I strongly believe that in order to make a good discussion or to succees in this field in general we need to put on one table (in one discussion) a few different professionals incl. the "donor" - the person or company able to invest + the "moderator" - the professional - in most cases the person with marketing backgrownd who can leverage the ideas and assess the outcome + the "donnated" - the sports professional (player or team) who will be sponsored.
Always in sports sponsorship the talk goes around "how much can / shall I invest and what do I get in return" on one side vs. "how much I will be paid and what shall I do for this + how much I would like to be paid + how much someone else could pay me instead of you". Both these points of view are rather wrong because of being selfish.
My point of view is the sport sponsorship much more than any other sponsorship shall be a mutual partnership. The company itself shall love the speciffc sport and athlete and wish to help him / them while the athlete / team shall like the products of the sponsor no matter if he is a sponsor or not. If there is this mutual "love" before money is on the table and if both parties fit in each-other's target images, then, the job of the "moderator" (agent, marketing specialist, etc.) is to ensure both parties will benefit and add an additional value to their profiles, images and bank accounts.
Looking forward to your further comments on the topic.

Comment by Linda Ferns on May 13, 2009 at 3:49am

Hi - I would like us to use this forum to share ideas about the latest trends and benchmarks about sport sponsorship. I am interested to see how the rest of the world operates in this area, and what makes a great sponsorship work for corporate business in the rest of the world.