THE 2018 Fifa World Cup party has finally come to an end as France emerged victorious, beating the tournament’s surprise package, Croatia. The six-goal thriller that included an own goal, a video assistant referee (VAR) penalty, a goal-keeping blunder and a bunch of pitch invaders, guarantees that the dramatic finale will remain long in everyone’s memory.
The World Cup tournament is not the only highlight in football. In the last four years, many events have taken place both on and off the field. The most controversial was the 2015 corruption scandal that led to the resignation of Fifa head Sepp Blatter, ending his 17-year reign at the summit of the football world governing body.
Unlike previous editions, this time around Fifa found it difficult to market the World Cup. The corruption scandal in particular, had a huge bearing on the commercial aspect of the event.
Even though the World Cup remains one of the globe’s biggest sporting events, Fifa’s tarnished image proved to be too risky for many brands to associate with. According to reports, the perception of Fifa is negative, which eventually led to sponsor exodus. This is apparent when leading brands who were once partners decided against continuing to sponsor the World Cup.
The World Cup’s sponsorship struggle indicates the interrelationship between multiple stakeholders in the sports industry, and more importantly, the crucial role of marketing and branding in sports.
The global sports industry, estimated to be worth US$145 billion (RM589.2 billion) in 2015, offers enormous marketing opportunities for stakeholders; athletes, teams, event organisers, media and businesses. Athlete endorsement, sponsorship deals and media rights provide benefits for both sports-related and non-sports-related industries.
In sports, the concept of marketing is broad and refers to both the “marketing of sports” and the “marketing through sports”.
Marketing of sports focuses mainly on promoting a particular sport, team, competition or event, while marketing through sports aims to promote a specific product or brand via sports.
Nissan’s strategic partnership with the UEFA Champions League, EA Sports with the English Premier League and Visa’s global marketing campaign featuring Zlatan Ibrahimovic and other social influencers are a few examples of marketers who are working their brands through sports.
Businesses are aware of the opportunity to expand their brands through involvement in sports. By associating themselves with sports, brands have the chance to reach sports fans who are known to be loyal, passionate and fanatic. Sports marketing is expensive but brands know that it is worth it.
The Super Bowl, for example, according to Forbes is worth US$663 million and ranked the most valuable sporting event in the world. An Ad Age report shows that brands associated with the 2017 Super Bowl benefited from their hefty sponsorship and marketing spending. This was apparent in the impact created through the expansion of social communities post the Super Bowl event.
Closer to home, a recent PriceWaterhouseCoopers report says in sports marketing sponsorship and media rights are the fastest evolving sectors in the Asia Pacific region.
The success of the 29th SEA Games Kuala Lumpur 2017 sponsorship drive surpassed the initial RM80 million target and reached the RM100 million mark, further highlighting the awareness and trust among businesses to utilise sports as a platform to build a brand and reach the heterogeneous Malaysian sports fans.
Unfortunately, despite lucrative sponsorship and marketing opportunities, many sports associations, teams and events in Malaysia struggle financially. This is mainly due to over reliance on government budget allocation, lack of understanding of how the industry works, and even more strikingly, it relates to poor marketing of the sports.
What Malaysian sports need to learn is that the sponsorship gold mine is theirs for the taking, but it is important that they strategically market their sports, to grow participation and following.
There is no such thing as a “free lunch”, as brands are looking for sports that can help them maximise the return on investment (ROI), generally in terms of increased brand awareness, engagement and sales.
Sports marketing offers a win-win prospect for every stakeholder. For those from within the sporting fraternity, marketing allows sports to develop further. For businesses, marketing opens up possibilities for them to penetrate markets through sports growth.
Take a look at the Standard Chartered KL Marathon (SCKLM), a sporting event that gets bigger each year. In the 2018 edition, it drew the participation of more than 38,000 runners. As the event title sponsor, Standard Chartered clearly indicates its intention to give back to the community by resonating with running, a physical activity that is positive, healthy and loved by Malaysians. SCKLM allows Standard Chartered to assert its values such as promoting longevity, commitment, courage and perseverance, making it a sporting event worth associating with.
Dr Nurzali Ismail is a lecturer at the School of Communication, Universiti Sains Malaysia. He teaches brand management for the Master of Integrated Marketing Communication programme