caytoo analysed how the front of shirt sponsorship deals across English football, cricket and rugby teams has changed over the last five years and the resulting lessons for the clubs
Home/Garden retailers and Manufacturing/Engineering have seen the biggest jump in the number of Front of Shirt deals between April 2019 and April 2024.
The rise of Home/Garden retailers is almost exclusively down to both rugby codes, with the likes of national chains such as Topps Tiles and Home Bargains jumping in. Retail has traditionally ‘underperformed’ on taking up sponsorship when compared to its share of overall marketing spend so this is an extremely encouraging sign that the category could be a more realistic option going forward, particularly if rights holders make prospects aware of this rising trend.
Manufacturing/Engineering’s rise has been driven by firms local to cricket and rugby league clubs. This reinforces how prudent it is for rights holders to look beyond the usual category suspects and mine ‘unsexy’ B2B categories who don’t get bombarded with sponsorship proposals but clearly have a lot to gain from sponsorship – particularly if rights holders can cite examples of their competitors doing deals elsewhere.
The fact that three of the four most prevalent categories are now almost entirely B2B (Manufacturing/Engineering, Construction and Logistics) reinforces the point about the value of looking beyond typically ‘sexy’ categories – where there’s more competing noise – to find viable sponsorship targets.
The chances of success are clearly further heightened if rights holders can incorporate the target company’s product or service into your organisation’s operations. So, it’s prudent to conduct an ‘audit’ of everything your organisation potentially uses or needs to see where the potential easiest wins are in attracting a sponsor.
Dafabet has jumped to the top of the most prolific sponsors, having just one deal five years ago (Fulham FC) but now with eight: one in football and seven in men’s cricket. Although looking at who other teams have secured does have a sense of ‘after the horse has bolted’, it does show the value in looking at brands who may be on major awareness plays as one initial sponsorship could be the start of a run, as has happened with Dafabet and the likes of brands in other highly competitive sectors such as eToro, Cazoo and Cinch.
The full front of shirt sponsorship deals report covers:
- Key lessons
- How have the most prevalent sponsors changed overall?
- The 10 most prevalent categories and brands
- How have the most prevalent sponsors changed across football?
- How have the most prevalent sponsors changed across cricket?
- How have the most prevalent sponsors changed across rugby?
- Which master categories are most reliant on which sports?
- Full data list of sponsors and teams
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