Talks between the Football Association and Nationwide on the renewal of the sponsorship deal which has lasted 11 years have broken down. Following England;s exit from the World Cup, it is more of a buyer’s than a saller’s market.
Talks between the Football Association and Nationwide on the renewal of the sponsorship deal which has lasted 11 years have broken down. Following England;s exit from the World Cup, it is more of a buyer’s than a saller’s market.
Nationwide had put a similar financial offer to the current one of £20m for a four-year contract on the table before the World Cup got under way. The FA is reported to have wanted £30m, £10m more than Nationwide was prepared to offer. Nationwide is going to retain its deals with the Scottish, Welsh and Northern Ireland football teams.
The FA deal is a high profile one, but it is hardly big bucks compared with some club deals. The contract that Aon, the US iisurance company, has just begin at Manchester United could be worth £100m over four years. This says something about the relative value of club and country football.
Admittedly, it is not possible to advertise on the national club shirt in the way that one would at a club. However, sponsors do get branding rights on all training kit, the team bus. media interview backdrop boards and broadcast sponsorship rights.
Nevertheless, any form of sports sponsorship can be high risk. The team can fail or even come home in disgrace after public internal rows as happened with the French team, triggeriing national soul searching.
Injuries or under performing players (which can result from a hidden injury) can be a problem. Nike’s high profile World Cup campaign suffered a major setabck with its six most-marketed stars either failing to arrive in South Africa at all or underperforming badly when they got there.
It should be emphasised that the FA has not lost all its sponsors. McDonald’s will sponsor the association until 2013, while Carlsberg and Nivea have signed four-year deals this year. Howver, it still needs a lead sponsor. Our friends at Radio Scilly have been runniing a phone in on this topic this morning and inevitably one early suggestion was Specsavers. More seriously, BlackBerry and Orange are thought to be interested.
We help to supply content for Radio Scilly’s online sports show from 5 to 6 every Friiday and this may be one of the topics discussed with host Merryn Smith this week.