Here are some key findings from caytoo’s latest monthly analysis of 390 January sponsorship deals announced around the world that month.

Who did the deals?

The standout trend was the jump in prevalence of manufacturing firms compared to the whole of 2023. This could be an early sign that manufacturers are a priority target in 2024. This was led by car manufacturers, which was the most prevalent sub sector in January, compared to the fifth most across all 2023.

While car manufacturers over-indexed on soccer deals (their most common choice), they also over-indexed on Tennis (e.g. Alpine, Lexus and Mitsubishi all undertaking such deals), Esports (e.g. Kia and Alpine), Equestrian (e.g. Aston Martin and Jaguar Land Rover) and Golf (Porsche and Kia) rights holders. So, rights holders in these sports could see 2024 being a good year to target car brands.

Indeed, Kia was the joint-second most prevalent sponsor in January along with Indian bottled water brand Bisleri, behind British telco brand BT (who renewed 4 deals with Welsh rugby union teams).

Alongside the car brands, Electronics/Appliances manufacturers and Manufacturing/ Engineering companies also started the year outperforming their share across 2023. Manufacturing/ Engineering heavily over-indexed on Motorsport, such as Shamir, a manufacturer of glasses lenses, sponsoring the Alpine F1 team.

Which properties did well

The Indian market accounted for nearly double the share of January deals than across 2023, with cricket, niche sports and exhibition/fairs doing particularly well.

The above was led by January sponsorship deals’ highest reported value (both annual and lifetime): the Indian conglomerate Tata Group’s record five-year $300 million title sponsorship of cricket’s Indian Premier League (IPL).

Soccer teams in the Brazilian cities of Rio de Janeiro and São Paulo also got off to a great start, accounting for 6 of the 9 highest reported annual deal values. These were led by three gambling deals highlighting the sector’s focus on the sport: SC Corinthians Paulista’s $24.5 million pa deal with VaideBet, Flamengo FC’s $17.0 million pa deal with Pixbet and CR Vasco da Gama’s $9.2 million pa deal with EstrelaBet.

Cricket (4x the share), Motorsports and Racket Sports (nearly twice the share) all had a particularly high share of deals in January compared to all 2023. Cricket was led by T20 franchise teams (the short form of the game) in South Africa (led by 5 deals by Durban’s Super Giants), United Arab Emirates (led by 6 deals by the Dubai Capitals) and Pakistan. T20 is increasingly opening cricket up to wider audiences than the traditional versions of the game, hence brands’ increasing appetite to do deals.

Motorsports was led by NASCAR’s Richard Childress Racing (5 deals) and F1 teams McLaren and Ferrari. In contrast, Tennis was dominated by a single property – Tennis Australia for the Australian Open – at a whopping 9 deals, the most of any single rights holder. Six of these were alcohol, showing the value of offering category-specific deals to help with avoiding exclusivity/competitive issues between potential target sponsors.

Deal attributes of note

Brand Awareness as a motivation for doing deals held a greater share in January than it did across 2023, while the share for Local Connection was nearly half what it was: these were both due to the higher incidence of deals signed with larger rights holders in January.

Category-type deals (e.g. Official Spirits Partner) actually led the way across January sponsorship deals, compared to general deals topping the bill across 2023. Alcohol, Soft Drinks, Crypto/Blockchain and Airlines tend to over-index on category deals, so these are the ones to focus on when packaging up such deals.

Title/Headline/Naming rights deals also saw a notably bigger share in January than across 2023 – highlighting the need for Brand Awareness.

Energy (such as Origin Energy with Netball Australia and Utilita with Hampshire Cricket’s ground), and Manufacturing/Engineering brands tend to over-index on these types of deals. The latter includes the likes of Whelen Engineering – which produces emergency warning and lighting equipment – sponsoring the Mazda MX-5 Cup series.

Although one month into the year is far too early to draw long-term conclusions, it was a disappointing start for women-led rights holders: their share of deals In January was less than half what it was across 2023. This was primarily due to the lack of a women’s soccer world cup in 2024 but also partly attributable to the higher than usual prevalence of motorsport deals – a heavily male-dominated area – and, to a lesser extent, the number of T20 franchise cricket deals being signed.