There is only one career now recommended by parents for sons and daughters who want to make big bucks. And that’s banking. Law? Too much like hard work. Medicine? Forget about it.
Banking is now so far out in front in terms of salaries and bonuses, it’s perhaps not surprising that financial services dominate the UK sponsorship market too. Of course, it’s more the high street type banks that are making the big B to C sponsorship plays. But, like the traders on the global markets, they are making massive profits all the same.
As ‘Driving Business Through Sport 2007’ reports, in the UK market the major financial services companies are associated with prime sporting properties: Barclays (Premier League), Norwich Union (athletics), Lloyds TSB (National Olympic partner 2012), AIG (Manchester United), Royal Bank of Scotland (Six Nations/Williams F1) and Santander (McLaren).
Does any other sector compare? Alcohol, traditionally a strong sector in UK sponsorship, remains in second place, according to the report, in both the number of deals and value. Notable large deals in the UK include Carlsberg (Liverpool FC and English FA), Carling (League Cup, Celtic, Rangers), Johnnie Walker (McLaren) and Guinness (Premier Rugby Union).
Alcohol’s showing, however, is mainly because of the huge number of football, rugby and cricket club secondary sponsorships.
Meanwhile, the motor industry has slipped back in the UK in recent years with few major deals outside Formula One, the exceptions being BMW and Lexus in golf and Ford’s sponsorship of Essex County Cricket Club.
Similarly, IT features strongly because of its investment in Formula One. There are also notable deals in football (Ricoh and Coventry City), tennis (IBM and Wimbledon), Rugby Union (NEC and Harlequins), golf (Unysis) and horse racing (Cisco and Ascot).
The telecommunications sector has seen its share fall partly because of Vodafone having dropped Manchester United to concentrate on international properties such as McLaren and the UEFA Champions League although it retains the English Cricket team. Similarly O2 no longer sponsors Arsenal but continues to support the English Rugby Union team and is a partner to Premier Rugby.
The dominance of banking over other sectors, however, is eclipsed by the enormous shadow cast by football over the UK sponsorship landscape, when measured by sport.
Football, in common with most of Europe, is the major recipient of sponsorship spend accounting for 39 per cent of the total in the UK, says the report. Motorsport is second on 26 per cent with the majority of the income coming from Formula One (after deducting the international element to the sponsorships).
Rugby Union narrowly beats cricket to third place, mainly as a result of the opportunities for major international sponsorships associated with the national teams of England, Scotland and Wales, where cricket has just the one national team.
That aside, the Guinness Premiership in Rugby Union is a more valuable property than the County Championship in cricket, although cricket’s numerous one-day formats make up for this in terms of overall earnings.
