Making sports sponsorship work

SPORTS is big business. The 2014 Fifa World Cup was viewed by a global audience of 350 million, the Uefa Champions League final reached 170 million people, and the Singapore F1 Grand Prix has drawn a television audience of 430 million over four years. It is little wonder that global sports sponsorship is where spending is skyrocketing.

According to PricewaterhouseCoopers, the global sports sponsorship market is estimated to reach around US$45 billion by 2015. This comes at a time when traditional ways of communicating with consumers are reaching fewer people.

As consumers watch less live commercial television and the range of viewing options have increased to include cable, on-demand and live-streaming, brands are shifting advertising expenditure from television networks to find new ways to engage with potential customers and clients. And while the rapid rise of social media has opened up new platforms to engage effectively with customers, it has also made it increasingly difficult for brands to stand out amid the noise.