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Sunderland AFC have secured a unique African sponsorship deal with Invest in Africa. The team will wear the logo of the not-for-profit organisation on their shirts for the next two years. Tullow Oil, Africa’s largest independent oil company, is the founding partner in an initiative which seeks to promote fresh investment in the continent.
According to a new report from International Marketing Reports, overall primary shirt sponsorship deals have a greater value in the English Premiership, but averaged by club, the Germans just edge it.
For the 2010/11 season, total shirt sponsorship for the Premier League amounted to €128m whereas Bundesliga clubs achieved €121m. However, given that the Premiership has two more clubs, the average deal value was €6.4m compared with €6.72m in Germany.
Wayne Rooney and Jack Wilshere have been forced delete postings to Twitter after the UK’s Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) found that they had failed to declare their sponsorship by Nike. Both the tweets are hardly current as they were posted in January, emphasising the difficulty of regulating fast-moving social media.
The complaint is the first to be upheld by the ASA since it assumed new powers to regulate social media last year. However, a tweet by Rio Ferdinand who promoted Snickers was found not to be in breach of the code.
It’s no contest as far as poultry wholesaler Dai Davis, the driving force behind AFC Fylde is concerned. The club is now three steps away from the Football League and plans to be there by 2022.
Known at one time as Kirkham and Wesham, the club rebranded and moved to their own stadium. They see their appeal as now encompassing the Lytham St. Annes area from their location south-east of Blackpool.
Cardiff City’s shirts are to be rebranded from blue to red. It is the club’s first change of the home kit since 1910 when, probably wisely, they swapped from a chocolate and amber strip. The decision will anger many Bluebirds fans, but equally they would have been upset if the club’s much needed investment had been withdrawn.
Mike Ashley’s Sports Direct is likely to bid for Umbro, the UK-based football brand that sponsors the England team kit. The discount sportswear chain owned a 30 per cent stake in Umbro before Nike took it private.
Nike bought Umbro in 2007 for £285m in an effort to increase its football revenues, but results were disappointing. Revenues were $276m in 2006 but $224m last year. Analysts believe that Nike will struggle to get back what it paid.
Manchester United have once again topped the football brand league compiled by Brand Finance. Their brand value of $853m is up by 29 per cent and gives them an A+++ rating. The list takes into account various revenue streams for clubs, such as ticket sales, merchandising, sponsorship deals and money received from the sale of broadcasting rights.
United have invested heavily in professional marketing skills, bringing in specialists from firms such as Pepsi and Disney. There is no doubt that their brand is one of the few that has a global reach.
In what is no doubt intended to be a provocative think piece, this article argues that Cardiff Ciy fans are beginning to have second thoughts about turning down the owners’ plan to have the team play in red. The writer poses a stark contrast: would it be better to have the club playing in red in the Premier League or cease trading altogether?
Kidderminster Harriers have signed a new shirt deal with tool hire firm Hire-It! based on the Worcester Road. The firm will replace OGL Computer on the front of the shirt until the end of the 2013-14 season after a five figure deal was secured.
The owners of Blackburn Rovers, Venky’s, have taken a defiant stance insisting that they love the club, that it is not for sale and they will not walk away. if they did sell at present they would be unlikely to get their money back. They claim that the club will bounce straight back to the Premier League, but it may not be that easy.