Welcome to caytoo’s latest monthly analysis on new sponsorship deals signed in July 2023 and how this compares to the previous month

Which sectors did the most deals?
Financial Service brands – driven by Banks and Insurance – continue to be the most dominant sector undertaking sponsorship, accounting for 1 in every 6.5 deals.

However, Consumer Goods (driven by Clothing/Apparel brands), Food & Beverage (driven by Soft Drinks, Food & Alcohol) and Automotive (driven by the manufacturers) saw the biggest increase in the number of deals vs. the previous month.

At a sub sector level, Gambling firms again accounted for the largest share of deals done (7.8%), closely followed by Auto Manufacturers who had the biggest increase in deal volume (+3.2% in share). These sectors were helped by the likes of car brand Kia undertaking five deals (the joint most of any brand along with trading firm eToro) and gambling brands LeoVegas and Unibet undertaking three each.

Clothing/Apparel manufacturers also saw a notable increase in the volume of deals, which tended to be undertaken across a wider range of sports such as athletics, niche and water sports. Although football accounted for 27% of its deals, this is only around half the figure that football accounts for across all deals (49%).

Which type of rights holders are they choosing?
Although Football still accounts for the most deals by a huge margin – and saw the biggest increase in volume – its share dropped considerably. This was due to the large increase in deals happening across all other sectors, notably the likes of Basketball, Esports, Multisports and Music.

When it comes to the sectors most likely to pick football deals, Professional Services and Industrial firms are the two sectors most ‘over-indexing’ on this sport. For example, football accounts for 49.0% of all deals but 73.3% of deals done by Professional Services firms and 62.5% of Industrial firms deals.

In contrast, Financial Services over-indexes most on both basketball and motorsport deals, while Consumer Services over-indexes most in choosing cricket; the sport accounting for over twice the share among Consumer Service deals (10%) than across all deals (4.4%).

Why are they doing the deals?
Driving ‘Brand Awareness’ is again the most common reason cited for why firms do a deal (a 31.5% share). This is significantly ahead of key brand positioning aims such as wanting to be seen to be doing good (Social Impact at 17.1%) and associating one’s company with a desirable characteristic (Values Alignment at 16.8%). Note, the latter has seen the biggest increase in the share of deals it accounted for between June and July (+9.1%).

When it comes to which sectors are more likely than the average to have certain motivations for doing deals, Financial Services and Automotive brands over-index most on looking to achieve brand awareness, while Financial Services and Consumer Goods over-index most on wanting to be seen to be doing good (Social Impact).

In turn, Travel & Tourism brands over-index most on doing deals to engage fans, while Food & Beverage and Consumer Goods brands over-index most on selecting deals to showcase their products. Finally, Industrials over-indexes most on doing deals because of a local connection (being 3.5x more likely than the average to cite this reason).

When it comes to which sports are seen to be particularly conducive to achieving a certain objective, brands wanting to display a Local Connection are more likely to choose Football; the sport accounts for 74.4% of Local Connection deals compared to 49.0% of all deals.

In contrast, companies wanting to be seen to be doing good are more likely to choose Basketball: the sport accounts for over twice the share of Social Impact deals (14.3%) than it accounts for across all sponsorship deals (6.3%).