Executive Summary
It was a cluttered sporting summer. June and July saw seven major sporting events including three World Cups. Is there anything rights holders can do through longer-term planning to avoid these scenarios or is it simply ‘one of those things’ that happens occasionally?
This means it’s much harder for each rights holder, and their sponsors, to cut through and achieve a decent share of the sporting voice: The seven events had a combined total of 46 main sponsors (or 40 unique brands).
Notable is the number of Asian brands (Oppo, Doosan, Bira, Wanda) now partnering with such events and cricket leading the charge on attracting digital brands, such as Uber, Booking.com, GoDaddy and MoneyGram.
The Cricket World Cup garnered the most articles in the media – 36% share across the seven events – but this is likely down to the fact it ran for the longest period of time. Wimbledon followed next with a 25% share, despite having the fourth least number of competition days.
However, the British Grand Prix, The Open and Wimbledon led the way by the number of articles generated per day of competition (intensity), averaging around 3,500.
Broadcast accounted for the highest share of articles for five of the seven events (The Open and Wimbledon being the exceptions) indicating the high calibre of the events; normally online coverage is the most dominant.
When looking at peak TV audiences for some of the key single events within the tournaments, England’s semi-final in the Women’s World Cup pulled in the most viewers (11.7m) followed by the Wimbledon Men’s final (9.6m).
The large amount of media mentions for sponsors proves why sports events are such an attractive vehicle for brands to gain visibility and share their messages. Nissan (Cricket World Cup) generated the most mentions of any of the main sponsors.
However, for almost all the events, one sponsor tended to drive far more media mentions than their fellow sponsors …
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