CAUTION CREEPS INTO SPORTS SPONSORSHIP MARKET AS POST-COVID CHALLENGES HIT HOME

The Irish sports sponsorship industry had a blazing start to the year with record deal volumes recorded but a new ONSIDE survey of sports industry executives released this week has uncovered a mix of challenges to maintaining this momentum in the second half of 2022.

The fifth wave of the ONSIDE Sports Impact Monitor of Sport for Business industry members shows a 5% decline in the levels of optimism around the sponsorship industry and a sharp 33% drop in sentiment toward the wider economy in which the sports business sector operates.

On a practical level, the ability to recruit staff is a key concern for 57% of executives while 43% are having difficulty getting the working from home and office mix right. At the same time 47% of executives are facing budget constraints and 35% are having difficulties engaging in new sponsorship opportunity discussions.

“The start of 2022 was hugely positive for sport and sponsorship with deals up 58% year-on-year and it is very difficult to sustain that rate of growth,” explained ONSIDE Chief Executive, John Trainor.

“As well as the practical factors of adjusting to the changes that have resulted from the pandemic, we are also starting to see the implications of high demand for premium properties. Our research found 4 in 10 industry stakeholders agreeing that increased demand over supply of attractive sports sponsorships is a growing issue for the industry. Over a third agree that the price of sponsorship is growing at levels that are a watch-out for the market.”

Rugby, Olympics and GAA are seen as the three strongest sports property categories in terms of their attractiveness to sponsors, narrowly ahead of soccer.

The Paralympics and golf have enjoyed the most significant positive perception change over the past six months. Golf and Rowing stood out in the data as most attractive Olympic sports for sponsors in Ireland, with 7 in 10 surveyed seeing rowing as an attractive platform to sponsor and 84% in the case of golf.

Women’s sport continues to be seen as the stand-out opportunity for new investment with two-thirds of the industry strongly agreeing that their organisation would be interested in supporting and advancing women’s sport in the next 1-2 years.

“Data from this latest ONSIDE Sports Impact Monitor shows that the momentum around women’s sport continues to grow,” said Sport for Business CEO, Rob Hartnett. 

“It is also interesting to see the sports in which Ireland enjoyed Olympic success in Tokyo such as rowing, hockey and boxing maintaining high levels of commercial interest as attention turns to Paris 2024.”

Meanwhile, growth in Web3, the metaverse, cryptocurrencies and the blockchain all featured prominently in industry predictions at the start of 2022, but adoption levels in the Irish sports industry remain low.

While 23% of organisations are developing plans to introduce NFTs into their sports strategies in the next 12 months, only 9% plan to incorporate fan tokens or the metaverse and 8% some form of cryptocurrency or blockchain initiative.

Interested in learning more about the ONSIDE Sports Impact Monitor? Fill in the form below for the full infographic.

ONSIDE ACCELERATES INTERNATIONAL EXPANSION WITH SENIOR APPOINTMENT & GLOBAL WINS

Dublin-headquartered sports and entertainment consultancy ONSIDE today announced the expansion of the firm’s international operations through the acquisition of Bayridge Sports and appointment of Jon Long as its Managing Director - UK and Middle East.

Jon Long, Managing Director – UK and Middle East, ONSIDE

The appointment, combined with additional investment into new ‘first in market’ research solutions and an expanded workforce in the UK and Ireland, will enable ONSIDE to broaden the reach and impact of its industry leading intelligence and advisory services. 

ONSIDE Founder and Chief Executive, John Trainor, said: “It has been a tough 24 months for the sports and entertainment sector but our regular industry and consumer research gives us lots of reasons to feel positive about our role in the recovery story and the confidence to expand our footprint. The commercial models of rights holders are changing and the marketing priorities of brands are evolving. In this context we have seen increasing demand for our unique combination of exceptional intelligence, practical advice and commercial support. This next phase of our growth will enable us to support a wider portfolio of clients.”

ONSIDE’s new Managing Director - UK and Middle East - Jon Long, said: “ONSIDE provides a service level to brands and rights holders that is unique in the market. It is a privilege to deepen my place in a team that I see having a real commercial impact on clients and the industry on a daily basis. This is a natural next step in a partnership that has seen John and I deliver on projects with major organisations in Europe, the Middle East and North America over the past 18 months.”

Initial ONSIDE international clients include British Triathlon, England Hockey, Cricket West Indies, Extreme International, Podium Analytics, talent such as world champion snooker player Judd Trump and the new London-based immersive media and entertainment business, Outernet.

Cricket West Indies Chief Executive Johnny Grave said: “ONSIDE’s intelligence, advice and support played a pivotal role in us developing a strategic and commercially attractive bid and winning proposal to bring the ICC Men’s T20 World Cup to the West Indies and USA in 2024.”

New ONSIDE solutions coming to market in 2022 include a Quarterly Sponsorship Review that the agency has been building throughout 2021 and that will provide unique insights on the UK public’s relationship with sponsors. The new study found Nike and Coca-Cola topping the sponsor impact charts in sport among the 7 in 10 UK adults affected by brand investment in sponsorship in 2021. Other brands identified by the ONSIDE study as standing out from more than 100 sponsors admired by the UK public in 2021 included adidas, Barclays and Betfred.

TAYLOR, TUBRIDY & MOORE STAR IN ONSIDE’S 2021 MOST ADMIRED

Katie Taylor, Ryan Tubridy and Christy Moore topped their respective fields in sport and entertainment and collectively made up the top 3 most admired Irish sports, broadcast and music stars overall in Ireland in 2021, according to sponsorship advisors ONSIDE.

The undisputed world champion boxer Katie Taylor has extended further her status as Ireland’s Most Admired Sports Personality for the fifth year in a row, up 4% to 25% in 2021, and will look to strengthen this lead as she returns to the ring on December 11th to defend her undisputed lightweight title, ahead of a box office fight with Amanda Serrano in New York next spring which could earn Taylor over $1m.

Past players and media pundits Brian O’Driscoll and Roy Keane re-join the Bray boxer on this year’s podium, while Tokyo gold medal star Kellie Harrington was the big winner in ONSIDE’s 2021 top sports stars list, entering the Top 10 to rank 4th most admired of all Irish sports stars this year. Golfer Shane Lowry rounded out this year’s top 5 Irish sports stars in the eyes of the Irish public, up two places year on year.

According to John Trainor, Founder and CEO of ONSIDE: “the potential power of sports personalities in Irish society today is evidenced in the fact that 8 in 10 adults have a sports star they admire most. This is reasonably well balanced across demographic divides, with for example 3 in 4 Irish females having a sports star they look up to, compared with 86% of males – with young Irish adults aged 18-24 being most impressed by Ireland’s sports idols.”

Trainor explains that “the right data helps make effective use of sports personality marketing a compelling business case, with our research finding businesses like Aldi and Bank of Ireland regarded as brands that have aligned themselves best with individual Irish sports personalities in the past year. Aldi’s alignment with top 10 most admired star Paul O’Connell via their ‘Home’ cookbook and their charity Christmas campaign to raise funds for Barnardos is a role model that is registering highly with the hearts and minds of the Irish public.” Other businesses uncovered by ONSIDE as Top 10 leaders in the use of sports personality endorsement in the hearts and minds of the Irish public included retailers Lidl, Mace and Centra, telcos Vodafone and Three, drinks brands Guinness and Lucozade Sport and Aviva.

Outside of sport, the ONSIDE STAR TRACK 2021 also found that while Ryan Tubridy and Claire Byrne retained their top 2 status as the most admired male and female television or radio personalities in Ireland this year, Tommy Tiernan’s mystery guest format show on RTE made a big impression on Irish audiences as the chat show host broke into the Top 5 this year for the first time,

With a new generation of endorsement deals on the cards in 2022, Trainor notes that “the latest round of our research points to a need for businesses to do their due diligence on endorsement routes across both sports and entertainment personalities, with for example Christy Moore and Dermot Kennedy commanding fanbases that can match many of Ireland’s biggest sports stars”.

KELLIE HARRINGTON IS IRELAND'S MOST MARKETABLE ATHLETE IN A BREAKTHROUGH SUMMER FOR WOMEN'S SPORT

Sponsorships of Team Ireland & Ladies Gaelic Football among most impactful of summer 2021

In a breakthrough summer for women’s sport in Ireland, Olympic gold medallist Kellie Harrington has been named Ireland’s most marketable athlete by sponsorship consultants ONSIDE and the Marketing Institute of Ireland at a major business sponsorship conference this week.

Kellie Harrington, Olympic Gold Medallist

Harrington is one of five female athletes named in the top six most marketable sports stars, alongside Solheim Cup star Leona Maguire, Paralympic gold medallist Ellen Keane, Grand National winner Rachael Blackmore and fellow boxer Katie Taylor, as revealed by an ONSIDE survey of the MII’s professional marketing community. The only male athlete in the top six was golf’s Shane Lowry.

In a further sign of the marketing industry’s growing enthusiasm for women’s sport, the LGFA’s partnership with Lidl was voted the joint winner of the best overall sports sponsorship of summer 2021 alongside FBD’s tie-up with Team Ireland around the Tokyo Olympic Games.   

ONSIDE Founder and Chief Executive, John Trainor, noted that: “For several years, momentum has been building around women’s sport in Ireland with the likes of Katie Taylor and the women’s hockey team blazing a trail. What we’ve seen for the first time in 2021 is female athletes dominate the news agenda for a sustained period, from Rachael Blackmore’s ground-breaking successes at Cheltenham and Aintree in March and April, through to Leona Maguire’s inspirational performances at the Inverness Club in September.”

Live at the SpaceTo Studio during Who Won Sponsorship Series 2021. From left to right: Darragh Maloney, Declan McBennett (Group Head of Sport, RTE), and Peter Sherrard (CEO, Olympic Federation of Ireland).

Trainor continued: “In the middle of all that were the Olympic and Paralympic Games and, again, it was the female stars that shone brightest, and Kellie Harrington’s boxing gold medal has catapulted her to the top of the most marketable athletes in the minds of key marketing budget holders for 2022”.

“It was also notable that Allianz’s use of Ellen Keane – a regular fixture near the top of our list over recent years – as the face of its Paralympics marketing in Ireland helped the brand finish joint winner of the most effective Paralympic sponsorship alongside Toyota.”

Away from sport, Pieta House’s partnership with Electric Ireland was an overwhelming winner of the best non-sport sponsorship in summer 2021. At a time when the majority of consumers (82%) wanted to see the commercial sector support local causes, this sponsorship impacted positively on the partners and wider society.    

Live from the SpaceTo Studio during Who Won Sponsorship Series 2021. From left to right: Darragh Maloney, Jo Harrington (Head of Marketing Partnerships, Live Nation), and Paul Dermody (CEO, HRI Racecourses)

David Field, Chief Executive of the Marketing Institute of Ireland said: “This is the 6th year that we have partnered with ONSIDE for this event, which I believe reinforces the role that sponsorship plays in the overall marketing mix. We have seen sponsorship evolve during the pandemic, in many cases to the benefit of society. We have also seen what a resilient part of the marketing mix it continues to be. Many of the most effective sponsorships in the eyes of Ireland’s marketing industry were in place pre-pandemic and remained in place over the last 18 months. This has seen brands and rights holders maintain relationships during tough times and they are now seeing the benefits of the sponsorship which is ultimately long-term brand building. I believe sponsorship will continue to be a meaningful and very commercial key for unlocking business success and brand growth.”

In a summer of sport dominated by the Olympic and Paralympic Games in Tokyo and men’s Euros, Coca-Cola was the only brand to feature near the top of the list of effective sponsors for all three events.

John Seiler, Head of Sports and Gaming for Coca Cola said: “Sponsorship of major events remains a really effective way of reaching large audiences when it is aligned and executed well. Our approaches for the Olympic Games, Paralympic Games and Euros this summer were all quite different and it’s fantastic to see the impact of our work across all three events recognised by industry professionals in Ireland.”

ABOUT ONSIDE

ONSIDE is a leading specialist in marketing and sponsorship consulting and research services. With a proven track record and strong industry experience in a cross-section of sectors, ONSIDE is currently feeding into the marketing and sponsorship decision making of circa €50m+ of Irish spend - working on many of Ireland’s premier sponsorships - on sporting, music, cause-related, broadcast and other platforms.

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