The history of football

competition sponsorship

Early days
From 1964, when the BBC's regular Match of the Day football highlights coverage began and as crowds for football were falling, but players' wages were rising, the interests of sponsors and the commercial needs of clubs began to coincide. By the late 1960s the Football League had first began to pursue sponsors, helping to produce new, if rather short lived, competitions such as the Texaco Cup (1970) and the Watney Cup (1970). When the Football League Cup final was transferred to Wembley in 1967 sponsorship would not be too far behind. This was the first major football competition in England to have 'named' sponsorship; it has been, variously, the Milk Cup (1982); the Littlewoods Cup (1986); the Rumbelows Cup (1990), the Coca Cola Cup and most recently the Worthington Cup. Alcohol, white goods, snack food and most recently financial services and new technology products have become prominent on the football sponsorship stage. In recent years, the trend at the top level of the English game has also been away from local or regional sponsors to sponsors which have national or trans-national markets to satisfy (TV coverage of the FA Premier League, for example, is now global). Thus, Leicester City exchanged local employer and shirt sponsors Walkers (snack foods) in 2001 for LG, a white goods manufacturer, while global trans-nationals where in stiff competition for shirt space at Manchester United - Vodafone eventually won out in a £multi-million deal.

The FA Premier League
The FA Premier League was launched via BSkyB satellite TV money in 1992, but without a named sponsor. But in 1993 Bass Brewers paid £3 million per season to connect its Carling brand to the renamed FA Carling Premiership. Bass reported much increased product sales as a result of the sponsorship and thus renewed their relationship with the Premier League in 1997 at a cost of £36 million from 1997/98 to2000/1. Most recently Barclaycard outbid all-comers for the privilege of becoming the named sponsor of the successful League. This sort of sponsorship works well with the young, male, high spending audience which tends to subscribe to channels such as Sky Sports. Sky Sports TV coverage of the FA Premier League is itself sponsored, this time by Ford, the car manufacturers. Again, the attraction is the type of audience attracted by Sky and the new image of top football which is one which connects advertisers with the high spending, young, male 'consumer'. Sponsors of the old Football League included Canon (1983); Today newspaper (1986); Barclays Bank (1987) and Endsleigh. Significantly, Canon ended their Football League sponsorship in the 1980s because of the problems then associated with the image of the sport. How things have changed! Now sponsors seem to compete over connecting themselves with major football events, clubs and competitions. The Nationwide Building Society are the current Football League sponsors - but Nationwide is also a sponsor of the England national team, and the FA has been building a 'family' of major sponsors around 'team England'.

The FA Cup
Perhaps the most prized domestic competition sponsorship of all in England is that of the FA Cup - though the FA Cup itself has rather lost 'value' and status for clubs as qualification for the lucrative Champions League has become ever more important for club finances and the careers of players. Here, the sponsor's name tends to be linked only 'indirectly' to the competition 'the FA Cup sponsored by Littlewoods' or now 'the FA Cup sponsored by Axa' in order to reflect and 'protect' the history, tradition and some of the integrity of the world's oldest and most popular knock out cup competition. Some critics still feel the FA Cup should have remained 'pure' and without sponsorship. In fact the FA itself has become strongly commercial in its outlook and activities in recruiting a 'family' of sponsors to be connected with a range of FA activities, from the national team to the FA Cup and youth football. It is reported the FA hopes to raise some £50 million in sponsorship monies in this way in order to help support and sustain 'grass roots' football ventures. Again, some critics argue this new 'commercial' face damages the national governing body and makes it too responsive and beholden to outside commercial interests; others suggest this is 'good business' for the national game, securing its future at the lowest as well as the highest levels

International competition
At the international level few major football events take place these days without major commercial interests being involved (Williams, 1999). Coca Cola and Adidas have had a long standing arrangement with FIFA and the World Cup, for example. Usually a 'family' of maybe eight or 12 sponsors producing different types of products (chocolate to cars and cameras) will pay for the right to advertise and 'connect' their products exclusively to the event in question. This applies to the Champions League as well as to the World Cup and the Euro Finals. Of course, other, rival companies may try to 'spoil' this investment by placing their own TV advertising or advertising near match sites. So, Nike, Brazil's national team sponsor launched a major pre Final's campaign before France 1998, though Nike was not the 'official' manufacturer sponsor for the Finals. Some 'subsidiary' sponsors may also pay for the right, for example, to be the 'official' beer of the Finals or the 'official' airlines. Sponsors may also combine their interests. Thus, Nike's Brazil advertisement for 1998 was cleverly played out in an airport, bringing together sports goods manufacturers and travel companies. Sponsors such as Nike may also try to establish niche identities for themselves by playing on particular 'social' themes; for Euro'96, for example, Nike adopted a 'socially aware' campaign against racism, involving its top clients (non of whom actually played in the Finals). Many of Nike's top sporting clients Michael Jordan, Ian Wright, Shaquille O'Neal, Patrick Kliuvert are black. Is this commercial opportunism or responsible social concern - or examples of both? For the World Cup finals in Japan and Korea in 2002 160 companies in the UK alone had advertising campaigns connected to the World Cup (Williams, 2002).