Since 2010, online trading brands have invested $500m+ in sports sponsorship, aligning with globally recognised teams and athletes to drive goals commonly related to brand awareness, credibility, acquisition & retention.
As the trend continues to develop at pace, SportQuake CEO answers your questions, covering why brands invest, key partnerships to look out for and advice for brands looking to buy sponsorship in the future. For more information, get in touchwith the SportQuake team.
Why do online trading brands invest in sports sponsorship?
Sports sponsorship has becoming extremely valuable due to the massive transformation that the sports industry has experienced over the past two decades, morphing into a 24/7/365 global entertainment platform that captures the attention of billions each year – both during and around the live competition itself.
This platform is underpinned by an ‘always on’ schedule, revolving around a mix of live events and lifestyle content, all created and distributed on a global basis through team, player, streaming and user generated platforms. This cycle enables brand sponsors to drive exposure quickly and at scale, showcasing their brand to huge global audiences each year.
Alignment with these world leading sporting institutions also considerably increases trust and credibilityamong users and prospective users. Sports teams (and the athletes that play for them) are loved and respected by billions worldwide.
This fan affinity brings influence. Association through sponsorship enables online trading brands to leverage this positive sentiment to deliver a range of goals, making customers more comfortable to deposit financial sums and transact with their brand.
Increased exposure + elevated consumer confidence leads to greater useracquisition. This can be boosted further by a range of additional marketing rights that come as part of typical sponsorship packages, including unique VIP hospitality, content creation and database access for targeted advertising opportunities.
From a financial perspective, sports sponsorship is attractive to multi-market businesses, offering large economies of scale where a single investment, with one central sports sponsorship strategy, can be leveraged throughout a company’s sales and marketing funnel to drive key business goals.
What is the most popular type of sports sponsorship for online trading brands?
Over the past 10+ years, we’ve seen the online trading sector’s approach to sports sponsorship mature, with leading businesses now much more aware and receptive to the most effective and, importantly, the best priced strategies to deliver success.
At the beginning of the trend (2010-2015), early movers like FX Pro and Plus500 focused on high-impact, high-profile shirt sponsorships in the Premier League (Aston Villa and Fulham) and La Liga (Atletico Madrid) respectively. These football sponsorships proved popular due to the huge global exposure they provided, with branding on all club shirts.
Now in 2023 the #1 sports sponsorship strategy amongst online trading brands is to be a Global Partner to one of the world’s leading sports teams with almost 50% of all online trading sports sponsorship money invested in this way.
Global Partner collaborations with sports biggest teams have become the most popular strategy because they provide online trading brands with the core marketing rights that have been proven to drive success (global branding, IP and access to large digital content creation opportunities) at a more attractive entry level to premium branding strategies e.g. car / shirt sponsorship.
How much do online trading brands spend on sports sponsorship?
In 2022/23, there are 62 online trading brands investing in sports sponsorship, with total annual spend amounting to $163m. This investment represents a 20% year-on-year increase, with the sector projected to grow even further over the course of 2023-2024.
Investment is being driven by consistent support from early adopters alongside an ever-increasing number of new market entrants looking to drive growth.
Football is the dominant spend (68%), reflective of global online trading marketing briefs aligning with where the audience is being delivered by the most popular sport in the world, but other sports are increasingly being used to help brands with different challenges.
What are the key recent deals between online trading brands and sports teams and athletes?
If you look at the last 6 months, the key sports sponsorship deals from the online sector highlight the trend of online trading brands’ preferred strategy of becoming a Global Partner of a leading sports team:
Take Axi’s partnership with Manchester City as a case study. Manchester City are one of the biggest clubs in the world, playing in the biggest league. As the team’s Official Online Trading Partner, Axi will drive global awareness via match day LED perimeter advertising & interview backdrop coverage. They will also tap into City’s 96m social media following via a range of digital and social rights.
Axi also have access to the club’s world-famous IP, which they can use to elevate marketing efforts. This is a key point of difference vs. competitors’ brand campaigns, with City’s club logo and roster of international players resonating with audiences around the world.
Away from Axi and other recent partnerships, eToro remains a leading industry case study in the impact sports sponsorship can have. The brand have invested in sports sponsorship since 2018, expanding their strategy year on year. This sponsorship activation has coincided with huge overall business growth, playing a key role in eToro’s userbase increasing from 10m in 2018 to 31m in 2023.
How do you sponsor a sports team?
Sports sponsorship is a valuable marketing tool for online trading brands, however the sports ecosystem is large and complicated, so strategic, well-planned buying is key for a brand to achieve the maximum results they want from the strategy.
Most buyers will use a sponsorship expert to plan and buy the optimum sponsorship strategies to drive their business. This dedicated sponsorship resource will either sit in-house, be agency resource or be a hybrid, depending on the business requirements.
For example, at SportQuake, we believe that if you’re a brand and want to reach sports audiences effectively and at the right price, you need to be aware of all the choices. So we work across the entire global sports ecosystem, to provide buyers with all the options in order for them to establish the best marketing strategy and budget for their business, before creating a bespoke sports sponsorship strategy tailored to that brand’s specific goals.
The benefits of this to brands is obvious, working in their best interest to create a sports sponsorship strategy that is optimised to them.
How do you ensure your sports sponsorship strategy is a success?
It is key that sports sponsorship is not viewed as an isolated exercise. Instead, brand marketing teams should consider how they can integrate their sponsorship throughout their business (including marketing, legal, B2B, CSR & employee engagement) in order to generate best results.
With this in mind, planning is key. At SportQuake, for example, we operate through a unique 4-stage process (see below) to ensure our clients are planning and buying the most cost efficient and results driven sports sponsorship strategy, in line with their specific goals.
To do this successfully, our Insights & Understanding phase ensure strong strategic foundations by helping our clients understand the marketplace (including competitor spend), identifying where opportunities are to promote their brand.
Our Strategy and Idea Development phase takes this information and develops a marketing plan optimised to meet your goals, creating a sports sponsorship strategy that’s completely bespoke to your brand’s specific needs.
Once we have agreed on a preferred strategy, our Negotiation & Procurement phase sees us lead negotiations on our clients’ behalf, using 20+ years of industry experience to agree a rights package that will help them activate with success.
From here, our clients are ready to go. As a final stage, Partnership Integration, we support them as they launch their sports sponsorship strategy, advising on the variety of ways in which they can integrate their partnership throughout their business to achieve impact, as well as delivering a launch plan that drives impact and starts them on the road to success.
Where will the online trading x sports sponsorship trend take us next?
Over the coming years, we expect the online trading and sports sponsorship trend to continue to grow at speed for three main areas:
Firstly, more global partnerships as brands in the sector look to capitalise on the global appeal of sport to reach new audiences, increase their customer base worldwide and continue to engage current users.
Secondly, more region-specific strategies, as brands look to ‘top-up’ global marketing efforts with strategic partnerships in local markets of particular interest.
Finally, more investment in sports outside of football, as brands react to the growing popularity of the wider sports ecosystem, caused by the increased digitisation of global sport (e.g. F1’s resurgence among Gen Z & millennials due to popular Drive to Survive Netflix series).
