Rugby to grab bigger slice of sponsorship pie
Sport on track to give other codes a run for their money
IN THE 1970s, Patrick Nally was one of the first to identify the huge potential for brands of investing in sports, like the Football World Cup and the Olympics.
His company was the first to gain marketing rights from organisations like Fifa and the International Olympic Committee and helped them rake in huge amounts of money, earning himself the acknowledgement of being one of the founding fathers of modern sports sponsorship.
Now, he says, keep your eye on rugby. It is flying.
“Our company started the Rugby World Cup (RWC) back in 1987. Then, we were struggling to get enough teams to participate because it was very much the home unions, France, Japan and Argentina. Today, it’s an Olympic sport and World Rugby now has in excess of 100 member nations.
“It is becoming a massive sport: the RWC is probably now the third or the fourth-highest ranked event after football, the Olympics and track and field, and it will certainly give track and field a run for its money.”
Rugby, because it is a true team sport, tends to attract focus to national teams, rather than individual players to the extent that football does.
But Nally does acknowledge that rugby still has some way to go to have the impact that football does – and especially its superstars.
Best in the world for value for money from a sponsorship point of view has to be Portugal’s captain, Cristiano Ronaldo.
“He must be one of the biggest star personalities. The likes of him and other top soccer stars are, by far, the focal point – for fans and advertisers – because of the sheer audience demand worldwide.
“Golfers have gone off the boil a bit these days and tennis stars are somewhat limited in their appeal, but the real sponsorship heavyweights are the football stars.”
Sports stars, too, have improved their own marketability and value to brands over the past three dec- ades.
“There has been the growth of an industry – of management and agents. Once upon a time only the very top pros would invest the money or have the money to maintain a good agency system, but as time has gone on, more and more celebrities and sports stars have realised that they can’t manage their competitive life and their corporate sponsorship life.
“Better agents has meant better standards.”
However, believes Nally, more could be done to help the emerging superstars cope with the pressures of fame – “one day, you’re 16 or 17 years old kicking around a ball and then you’re a multibillionaire a few years later…”
Clubs and federations need to play a greater role in providing “safeguards, leadership and education” for the players coming through their systems, he adds.
Brands, too, need to become more involved in how federations run their affairs – and they should insist on transparency.
“Think about it. Lance Armstrong, the US Postal Service, these are not nice things and not nice experiences, not the sort of thing a corporation wants to get caught up in,” says Nally.
Similarly, the experience with football governing body Fifa was unpleasant but “the sponsors still align themselves with the World Cup and, in reality, the playing exploits on the field are a long way from the corporate boardroom in Zurich”.
Nally looks back with pride on helping to professionalise, and globalise, the administration of football from the late 1960s.
“However, while I am proud of the substantial change which has occurred, I am disappointed to see the amounts of money which have gone into those organisations. (Particularly Fifa) has been exploited by a few individuals.
“When I first started with them, they didn’t have any money and most of the administrators were pretty honest and dedicated.”
He notes: “The more the funds, the more the control needs to be greater.”
Yet, despite all the bad publicity around some of the international sports controlling bodies, the fact is that “these big live events – instant drama, instant action – are what people want to see.
“These big epic events, where you have the excitement of seeing things happening, is what makes sponsorship so workable.”
Conventional big events still work: “Coca-Cola, Visa and McDonald’s – I think they would all be able to identify that they are still getting very good return from exploiting their relationships with the big events.”
However, says Nally, it is not enough to “send off the cheque and expect things to happen”.
For example, McDonald’s leveraged its association with the Football World Cup by taking it down right to the franchise level, through store promotions – like Happy Meals and toys with a football theme – and “they know they can liquidate the cost of their sponsorships literally right the way through to the store outlets”.
An example, which came about as a result of the sponsor teams from different brands brainstorming and problem-solving, was the idea to have children brought in to the events.
“So all those kids you saw here in South Africa in the World Cup – they came from all over the world, from McDonald’s stores all over the world.”
Sponsorship does no good, he says, if a brand does not leverage it to the maximum to generate more than good feelings.
To do it properly is hard work and requires a lot of energy and creativity. In addition, it requires planning and a clear idea of the marketing objective.
“Gone are the days when the decision was made by the chairman’s wife. Shareholders nowadays are more demanding – management and sponsorship are under more scrutiny when it comes to justifying expenditure,” he says.