The changing nature of sponsorship

Writing his diary column in The Times on Saturday, Daniel Finkelstein seemed rather baffled by the arrival of shirt sleeve sponsorship at Chelsea, although we have discussed it here.  It is simply the latest way of extracting money from commercial sponsors.  

Whether they get value is for them to decide, although it is all tax deductible.  I doubt whether I get any value from my advert for this site in the Leamington programme, but it is another way of supporting a cash strapped club.

Writing his diary column in The Times on Saturday, Daniel Finkelstein seemed rather baffled by the arrival of shirt sleeve sponsorship at Chelsea, although we have discussed it here.  It is simply the latest way of extracting money from commercial sponsors.  

Whether they get value is for them to decide, although it is all tax deductible.  I doubt whether I get any value from my advert for this site in the Leamington programme, but it is another way of supporting a cash strapped club.

Finkelstein notes that when he first went to the Bridge, sponsorship was rather different: ‘The programme back then contained the names and phone numbers of sponsors for each player.’  I do this at Leamington for the princely sum of £75 a year, but I don’t have my phone number there: I don’t want people ringing me up to complain about the player’s performance.

Finkelstein notes that a fair number of the sponsors appeared to be criminal solicitors: ‘I assume they thought that when the reader’s violent behaviour resulted in arrest at the match, they would find it handy to have a lawyer’s phone number in the programme.’