According to an annual study by the ESA and Nielsen Sports, the European sponsorship markets picked up in 2021 following the notable 2020 pandemic dip.
While they haven’t returned to pre-covid levels, they’ve seen a 17.8% uplift to a value of ?27.85 billion ? slightly higher than 2017’s (?27.69 billion), but still 9.3% lower the 2019’s ?30.69 billion.
This positive growth is of course good news for sports clubs all over Europe and indirectly the world, but those behind the study have warned more still needs to be done to continue this recovery.
Impacted sponsorship models
The manager director international of Nielsen Sports, Marco Nazzari offered these comments:
“As businesses stepped up their recovery plans coming out of the pandemic in 2021, sport sponsorship is on course to its recovery with the return of fans at live events?fandom has shifted from large audiences physically together to more remote yet more engaged behaviour through digital devices, impacting both sponsorship models and content distribution. Brands, sports rights holders and media owners must embrace this shift through marketing strategies to unlock revenue growth.”
This was echoed by Andy Westlake, chairman of the ESA who commented:
“It is a huge relief to all of us involved within the sponsorship industry that there are signs of recovery in the market that can be attributed to life returning to some sort of normality post Covid-19. We know the sponsorship sector is resilient and we have seen how creative we are in times of change to prove to our sponsors that investment is still worthwhile.
“Rights holders need to keep pace with the current economic trends, and the ever-growing thirst of digital consumption from fans needs to be understood by all for the green shoots of 2021 to flower in 2022 and beyond.”
It’s still a boost for sporting events
While some competitions have begun to return to normality post-covid, attendances at most major and domestic sporting events ? both in Europe and the rest of the world ? are still down. However, this positive sponsorship trend will be welcome financial news for the nations of Qatar and France ahead of the football and rugby union world cups in late 2022 and summer 2023, respectively.
Rugby union’s global sporting bodies in particular could be set to benefit from this should 2022’s markets also continue to rise. In many ways this will be also need to be the case as looking back to 2021’s rugby results and reports, many articles like this from City A.M. show that interest is on the decline with average attendances reaching record lows. As such, rugby union’s flagship tournament could be the perfect way to re-engage fans and make the sport more lucrative.
Simply put, without crowds to justify the sponsorships, both domestic and major competition hosts could face dramatic financial losses if their sponsors don’t get the ROI they need. This is of course still partially led by Covid restrictions and the interests of public safety. But hopefully now the worst of the pandemic is potentially behind us, and the ‘green shoots’ do indeed ‘flower in 2022’, spectators will return or be offered more digital means of interaction and the sponsors will remain.
