The World’s Oldest Sports Marketing Deal 🎾
Plus why is Barcelona still paying Messi and the coolest venue you will ever see!
Welcome to Athletic Interest,
Wimbledon has a lot to teach us about the art of sports marketing. Let’s start with a history lesson…
In Victorian England, dating was incredibly difficult.
Schools were separated by gender and ‘sliding into her DMs’ generally required a handwritten letter and a pigeon.
Luckily for all those horny Victorians, someone invented Tennis.
The game became a massive hit, mainly because it was one of the only times in ‘high’ society that single men and women could interact freely.
Within this context, there became one surefire way to impress that special guy or gal…
Get your balls out!
But it couldn’t be just any fuzzy little things, they had to be the best.
The importance of balls reached fever pitch in 1902 when players at the Wimbledon Championship began to demand that only the best balls were on display.
To be specific, Tennis balls made by Slazenger were the only acceptable choice. Wimbledon soon made Slazenger the official tennis ball of the tournament, a partnership that has lasted more than 120 years, the longest in sporting history.
The longevity of the partnership between Wimbledon and Slazenger is impressive. While you could argue that it is not surprising given Wimbledon’s love of history, we would point out that Wimbledon has been one of sport’s most prolific adopters of new technologies like AI and the Metaverse. Wimbledon even partnered with Fortnite to create a virtual playground filled with tennis balls and strawberries.
Genuine long-term partnerships are becoming incredibly rare in sports. This is particularly true in recent years, with Crypto and NFT companies snapping up huge deals with the biggest teams before disappearing months later after financial troubles.
Despite this, there are still some impressive long-term deals out there including:
Gatorade x NFL (40 years)
Rolex x Wimbledon (45 years)
Adidas x FC Bayern Munich (49 years)
Each of these deals teaches us something important about the connection between sport and sponsorship.
🥤🏈 Gatorade x NFL (40 years)
Gatorade’s roots in American football made it a natural fit for sponsoring the NFL, but the longevity of this partnership is solely down to the fact that Gatorade has become part of the culture of the sport. For years, it has become a tradition to dump an entire cooler of Gatorade on the winning coach or star player. This ritual is even referred to as a ‘Gatorade Shower.’ This sort of integration, where a brand becomes a cultural symbol of success, is not something that can be artificially created. That being said, it seems to come naturally in sports.
⌚🎾 Rolex x Wimbledon (45 years)
Rolex and Wimbledon is probably the best example of both brands being elevated by their partnership. For Wimbledon, association with a watchmaker with over a century of experience in precision and luxury only increases the tournament’s sense of glamour. For Rolex, association with the finest players at one of the most highly regarded tournaments adds to its own image. This sort of mutually beneficial loop can only be achieved when the brands have two key ingredients: genuine synergy and a long relationship.
👟⚽ Adidas x FC Bayern Munich (49 years)
Bayern and Adidas have almost been together for five decades. Germany’s top sports apparel company and Germany’s most successful team…it just makes sense. What makes this situation unique is that Adidas has taken their relationship to a whole new level and decided to buy a small stake in Bayern Munich. This suggests a level of trust between the two sides that you simply do not get from a shorter partnership. It also allows Adidas to go deeper with Bayern and explore ways to expand the club across the globe without Adidas feeling like it’s missing out on its cut.
While long-term sponsorship in sports is getting quite rare, these examples highlight how there is a certain level of magic and mutual understanding that simply cannot be created by partnering with a new company for a quick buck.
🍎 Sports Business Bites
Chelsea and Man City go on a sponsorship spree
Man City has just announced new deals with the beer company Asahi (training kit sponsor) and the Crypto exchange OKX (sleeve sponsor.) While it is not exactly surprising to see the European Champion signing lucrative deals, the countries of origin do raise some interest. In particular, neither of them is from Abu Dhabi.
Man City has long been criticised for using sponsors related to its Abu Dhabi owners. There have even been allegations that City inflated the value of these contracts. Now the club is making a conscious effort to enlist non-related sponsors. It’s even believed that City would ditch Etihad if the right offer came along.
Meanwhile, over at Chelsea, the club has been busy closing deals with Hilton Hotels, Oman Air, and even Lego. Again, these deals should not be surprising, with new owner Todd Boehly promising fans that commercial growth would be one of his main focuses.
What is perhaps surprising is that Chelsea has not found a front-of-shirt sponsor and therefore has not released its new kit. The club was in talks with Paramount Plus before the Premier League shut the deal down over fears it would upset broadcast partners. A proposed deal with the online casino Stake has also recently cooled after a backlash from fans.
🐐 Barcelona is still paying Messi
There is nothing worse than breaking up with someone and then finding out that they are still using your Netflix account. Barcelona fans probably know how this feels after finding out that their club will still be paying Messi for the next couple of years despite him rejecting them for Inter Miami.
These payments actually stem from the wages that Messi agreed to defer while contracted at Barcelona. According to Laporta, these payments will be finished in 2025, and the club is paying them ‘religiously.’
This caps a very lucrative few months for Messi, with the Argentinian having just signed a two-and-a-half-year contract with Inter Miami worth an estimated $150M. Messi will also get a share of the profits from Adidas in MLS and a portion of new subscriptions to Apple TV’s MLS broadcast.
👟 The Boot Room
🏀 Kobe Bryant Signature Nike Line to Return.
More than three years after his death, Kobe Bryant will once again be the subject of a Nike signature shoe line. The plans were announced during the recent Nike earnings call, although specific details are currently quite light.
This marks a dramatic turnaround in the relationship between Nike and the Bryant family. A few years ago, the relationship was said to have broken down, with the family estate electing not to renew his previous deal with the Swoosh. It is understood there were fears further collaboration wouldn’t protect Kobe’s legacy.
Those fears were later quashed when Nike and the estate agreed to a new deal that would place specific emphasis on Kobe’s legacy in basketball while also honoring Gianna, his daughter that died alongside him.
This comes at the same time as the NBA announced that Kobe will feature on the cover of two versions of the hit NBA 2K game as a tribute.
🇸🇦 Nike deepens ties with Ronaldo through Al-Nassr partnership
Nike has just announced that it will be the new kit sponsor of Saudi Pro League side Al-Nassr. This happens to be the current team of Nike’s star athlete Cristiano Ronaldo. It is likely that Nike wanted to get closer to Ronaldo in his final seasons after an entire career watching him in Adidas kits for Real Madrid.
Al-Nassr is now the second Saudi side to seal a deal with a major sports apparel company after Al-Hilal closed a 5-year partnership with Puma. The influx of big brands into the Saudi League, alongside a host of top talent, really signifies how much the league has grown internationally in the last few months.
It remains to be seen if this momentum can be harnessed, or if the Saudi League will follow the way of China in spending big but falling fast.
🔮 One of the most interesting and unique venues in the world is almost ready, and it looks incredible…
The Exosphere in Las Vegas cost billions to build and is the world’s largest spherical building with a first-of-its-kind LED screen that allows the entire building to light up.
The venue is set to open in September and will have a capacity of around 20,000 (seated and standing) for concerts and entertainment events.
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