Should ‘smaller’ rights holders consider partnering up with each other to offer a more compelling sponsorship opportunity to brands?

This was the intriguing idea put forward by the global head of sponsorship for serial sponsors and online trading firm eToro in an interview with the European Sponsorship Association.

We were reminded of this after repeatedly hearing the same concern from a number of rights holders recently about “chasing the same brands that everyone else is.”

eToro’ sponsorship head believes there’s a great opportunity around the idea of aggregation in that rights holders might want to start thinking about collaborating with each other to bring their audiences together from across a variety of different areas and provide an appealing single offer to sponsors. This is particularly relevant for smaller rights holders who might struggle to attract a big sponsor on their own but could within a collective.

eToro’s suggestion came from the fact they employ a “club aggregation strategy” rather than doing a front of shirt deal with a particular club. The prime example being their sponsorship of seven Premier League clubs which allows them to be more of a ‘league sponsor’ rather than just a specific club; the downside of the latter being that a sponsor might end up being in a relegation battle or being involved with a club where the fans have major issues with the club. The ‘league’ element also enables them to tap into the different community and fan bases. 

ESA chairman Andy Westlake noted how this aggregation strategy is similar to other sponsors such as Vitality, Monster Energy and Cadbury whereas five years ago “no-one was doing it”.

Although the seven Premier League clubs don’t particularly struggle to attract sponsors on their own, its a great example of how collaboration could work in practice. In their case, the audience demographics and interests are very similar across the different rights holders – 18-40 year old men interested in football – and that’s the sort of match rights holders should be looking at for in other rights holders.

For example, rights holders could partner with each other based on demographics or life-stages such as ‘women in their 20s’ or ‘families with older kids’. Collaboration could also happen around fan interests or behaviour such as ‘concern for the environment’, ‘propensity to book holidays online’ or ‘Guardian readers’.

This of course could also extend to shared characteristics such as a rights holders values or DNA, be it things like performance, sustainability, heritage etc.

This theory works as well for rights holders from completely different sectors (be it sport, the arts or business) as for those operating in a single sector. It’s all about offering brands a greater reach and more compelling story and while the logistics of negotiating and and activating separate deals could be extra work, this should be more than offset by a brand having a sponsorship portfolio where the whole is far greater than the sum of its parts.

And, frankly, the novelty value alone of such an approach might be enough to generate a few minutes of their time rather than automatically hitting delete.

For rights holders it’s a case of turning the problem of competitors going after the same brands onto its head and into something that could be hugely beneficial for all parties.