For brands looking to explore the countless options in the world of sports sponsorship, the process of seeking out and selecting the right club, league or organisation can be overwhelming.
Traditionally, the disparate nature of the sector – spanning a multitude of sports, countries, properties and tiers – has made it fiendishly time-consuming to scour the industry efficiently to ensure the best possible match.
However, whereas a comprehensive search of all possible options was once considered virtually impossible, Elite Sports Marketing’s online platform is attempting to make such a task virtually possible.
Strikingly, prospective sponsors can super-impose their branding onto the shirt of a sports club through the platform, giving them a virtual glimpse of how such a sponsorship arrangement could materialise.
However, the platform extends far beyond the basic appeal of such vivid illustrations. It allows brands to gain deeper insights by accessing relevant information and data about the opportunity with one click, whilst being given access to any supporting documentation.
Brands that are signed up to the platform are informed of fresh opportunities via regular email updates, circumventing the potentially cumbersome exploratory phase of such partnerships and helping to fine-tune a notoriously laborious process.
Global interest
Numerous opportunities are categorised on the platform – including official club partnerships and stadium naming rights, as well as front-of-shirt sponsorships – across multiple sports and leagues. Many of Elite Sports Marketing’s current clients are clubs based in the UK, although the platform is continuing to expand abroad into markets like the North American major leagues and mainland Europe.
The platform’s chief executive is Michael Jackson, who forged a career as a telemarketing executive before launching Elite Sports Marketing in January 2016.
Aside from brokering the partnerships after an initial expression of interest is registered by a brand, his services also include the provision of advice regarding potential club takeovers. Rights-holders are charged a 10-per-cent commission fee on sponsorship deals, but it is free to register with the platform.
“We work with approximately 400 clubs globally, from the Premier League to League Two, county cricket, rugby league and union, MLS, NFL, NHL and NBA as well as some of the top teams in Europe including Paris Saint-Germain, Barcelona, Borussia Dortmund and others,” Jackson says.
“The platform has grown in terms of teams by 300 per cent in the last 18 months, and 200 per cent in regard to brands, and the platform has generated deals ranging from £30,000 to multi-million-pound partnerships, including Premier League club Burnley’s front-of-shirt deal with Spreadex.”
The appeal of simplifying the deal-making process in sports sponsorships has attracted an increasing number of clients since the platform’s launch, including several in recent months as the industry’s recovery from Covid-19 has accelerated.
For example, in rugby league, English Super League clubs St Helens and Wigan Warriors teamed up with fan engagement platform Iqoniq earlier this year. Other partnerships facilitated by the platform included England Rugby’s agreement with insurance giant Allianz, English Premiership rugby union club Sale Sharks’ front-of-shirt deal with cyber tech firm Vcode and Gloucestershire Cricket’s shirt sponsor agreement with the Cayman Islands Department of Tourism.
Trust is key
A key priority for the platform is ensuring brands can find rights-holders that are a good fit. To facilitate this, Jackson explains that the company has carried out Facebook surveys with fans to gather views on the types of sponsorships they would welcome at their clubs.
“We would be able to tell brands which clubs are most likely to buy their products, and so much more,” says Jackson. “We are looking at how we present this information, and we have lots of ways to slice and dice it.”
He adds: “I always look at the platform and ask myself, ‘How do we make it better?’ At the start, it was to show the club, the opportunity and fee. Then we added social numbers for the club, video presentations, and previews so brands could see what it looked like on the shirt – which was extremely popular. Then we added live league positions, and now we are adding fan data so brands can make better decisions.”
Jackson says the top priority is to find the right balance between scaling up the service and ensuring the one-to-one quality of relationships is protected.
“Trust is critical,” he says. “We are helping and advising brands on where they should spend their budget. They need to trust that we are advising them correctly. The personal relationships we have built have been fantastic and some have become proper friendships. This is what we do very differently to our competitors. We have fun with our clients.”
Changing landscape
While Jackson admits that the sponsorship world has changed “dramatically” over the past few years – a shift accelerated by the pandemic – he is confident that Elite Sports Marketing’s platform is sufficiently adaptable to cater for to its clients’ diverse needs.
For example, Jackson says that brands are “very interested” in areas such as corporate social responsibility (CSR), player access and community, and increasingly have an understanding of the value of such opportunities in addition to an “eyeballs-on” asset like front-of-shirt exposure.
“Given Covid-19, there has been more focus on digital assets and clubs have needed to adapt,” he adds. “This was long overdue anyway, so it is a positive thing. That said, brands know the value of on-kit assets for global reach. The main changes have been the focus on CSR, community and the growth of the women’s game, all overdue and all very much welcomed.”
Looking ahead, Jackson is happy for Elite Sports Marketing to “go where the brands take us”.
He is also keen to stress that Elite Sports Marketing will remain a “results-based company” and free for brands to access, with data at the heart of future growth opportunities.
“The immediate future is to grow the number of brands on the platform, coupled with our continued effort to make the platform a one-stop-shop for brands looking into sports sponsorship,” he says.
“With all the current features, coupled with the new fan insight data, we believe this adds even greater value to brands. We are constantly being praised by major global brands who use our platform, so we know we are on the right track.”
To discuss accessing the platform you can contact Michael Jackson at michael@elitesports-marketing.co.uk and to watch an instructional video about the platform, please visit www.elitesports-marketing.co.uk/promovideo.