Our 2023 sponsorship deals review looks at key trends and our 12 picks from nearly 3,390 deals signed around the world
The full report is available to caytoo clients in their My caytoo portal, however, non-clients can request an edited copy here.
Which sectors did the most deals?
Just four sectors accounted for exactly half of all deals, illustrating the highly concentrated pool rights holders continue to fish in. Food & Beverage led the way – driven by Alcohol, Foods and Soft Drinks – followed by Financial Services, driven by Banks, Insurance and Investment & Trading firms.
This concentration is reinforced by the fact that over one quarter of all deals were accounted for by these four sectors across just four sports – soccer, motorsport, basketball and rugby.
However, Gambling – from the Consumer Services sector – was the most prevalent sub sector, accounting for 6.7% of all deals.
The challenge for rights holders in 2024 is to start targeting and enticing different sectors – particularly large ones who do relatively little sponsorship such as retail, IT, telecoms and real estate.
Which properties secured the most deals?
While sports accounted for 87.4% of deals, nearly half of this (39.1%) were soccer rights holders – led by the likes of FIFA, UEFA and the big European clubs, particularly those in the English Premier League.
Soccer accounted for six times more deals than second-placed Motorsport (6.4%), which was dominated by Formula 1 and, to a lesser degree, NASCAR in the US.
Outside of sports, only four rights holder fields featured in the Top 20.
Which brands did the most deals?
The most surprising inclusion in the 2023 sponsorship deals list dominated by the ‘usual suspects’ who’ve long histories of sponsorship is that of video sharing platform TikTok appearing joint-second alongside Toyota.
TikTok has also taken an extremely varied approach to sponsorship, with its 11 deals spread across 8 different rights holder fields – with only soccer, music and exhibition/fairs seeing more than one deal. The deals have also been split across 7 different countries with only the UK seeing more than 2 deals.
This varied approach also extends to why they’ve done the deals, including Showcasing Product, Fan Engagement, Brand Awareness and Customer/Prospect Engagement.
It’s all in a central effort to showcase TikTok’s increasing move globally into film, music, fashion, beauty, and games content. This type of brand bodes well for the key 2024 challenge for rights holders outlined above in enticing different sectors into sponsorship.
How much did they spend?
Among the annual deal values publicly reported, the under €100k value was the most common reported (one fifth of deals). However, the average annual value was €9.6 million which was skewed by several very high-value deals. Consequently, the median value was far lower at €1 million.
Soccer accounted for 11 of the 13 highest reported values. However, the largest was €150 million for luxury consumer goods group LVMH’s sponsorship of the 2024 Paris Olympic Games.
The largest ‘lifetime’ deal value was EA Sports’ joint sponsorship/licensing deal with English soccer’s Premier League at €560.8 million over 6 years.
Why did they do the deals?
Driving Brand Awareness was the most common reason publicly cited by the brands for doing deals, accounting for more than 1 in 4. Social Impact (or to be seen to be doing good) has risen in a relatively short period of time to be the second most popular rationale at nearly one in five deals, so this is clearly an element rights holders need to be making more of a play of in pitching – either as the thrust of it or a key component – whether that’s around the likes of gender equality, physical and mental health and/or improving the environment.
Having a local geographic connection to the rights holder remains a stalwart of why brands do deals, being the third most popular rationale, along with Values Alignment – both accounting for around 1 in 8 deals.
However, the most common reasons differ significantly across different brand sectors (which the full report covers), so rights holders need to be aware of these to target their pitching more effectively.
What type of deals did they go for?
General sponsorships remain the most popular type among 2023 sponsorship deals ahead of Category-specific deals (e.g. Official Nutrition Partner). Racket Sports, Baseball and Combat Sports tend to over-index most on attracting Category deals.
In contrast, Venues, Industry Awards and Industry conferences tend to over-index most on Title/Headline/Naming deals. While Venue deals are all about driving large scale consumer brand awareness, Industry rights holder deals are about strongly associating the sponsor brand with specific B2B sectors they want to target.
On Kit/Training deals are most common among soccer and rugby teams; the two sports accounting for three-quarters of all such deals.
Again, the most common deal types differ significantly across different brand sectors (which the full report covers), so rights holders need to be aware of these to target their pitching more effectively.
What were caytoo’s standout picks of the year?
Not necessarily the biggest or most high-profile but our analyst team has picked out one deal from around the world each month in 2023 that particularly caught their eye for a particular reason.
We’ve aimed to provide a good spread across countries and rights holder fields and the picks can be seen here.
The full report, which is in the Monthly Deals Analysis section of the My caytoo portal, contains the following:
- Rights holder parameters – geography, properties, deal values
- Which sectors did the most deals – master and sub sectors?
- Which brands did the most deals?
- Why did they do the deals – inc most over-indexing sectors?
- Which type of rights did they choose – inc most over-indexing sectors?
- caytoo’s 12 picks of the year
Want to get the full report?
The report is only available to caytoo clients. However, non-clients can download an edited version via the button below.
