WATCH: Have the rules of sports sponsorship game changed thanks to Covid?
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The COVID-19 pandemic has altered sports sponsorship
For much of the pandemic, the world’s leading athletes were sidelined, working for reduced pay, playing to empty seats or isolated in competitive bubbles designed to thwart a pandemic that has sapped billions in revenue from professional sports.
Still, for the best of the best, things couldn’t be better—at least in terms of their financial heft. The ten highest-paid athletes in the world took home pretax gross earnings of $1.05 billion during 2020, 28% more than 2019’s top earners. The combined haul falls just a few million short of the $1.06 billion record set in 2018.
And athletes like Connor McGregor, last year’s top earner, are putting their wealth to work in whiskey ventures, or tennis stars launching their own footwear
But the question is for brands who pile money into sports, what does the value proposition look like sponsoring events in empty stadia?
To discuss this Michael Avery is joined by Jean Willers, Managing Director of Nielsen Sports South Africa; Justin Sampson, MD of Octagon in SA and Mike Sharman, co-founder of MatchKit, a DIY website builder aimed at athletes
For much of the pandemic, the world’s leading athletes were sidelined, working for reduced pay, playing to empty seats or isolated in competitive bubbles designed to thwart a pandemic that has sapped billions in revenue from professional sports.
Still, for the best of the best, things couldn’t be better—at least in terms of their financial heft. The ten highest-paid athletes in the world took home pretax gross earnings of $1.05 billion during 2020, 28% more than 2019’s top earners. The combined haul falls just a few million short of the $1.06 billion record set in 2018.
And athletes like Connor McGregor, last year’s top earner, are putting their wealth to work in whiskey ventures, or tennis stars launching their own footwear
But the question is for brands who pile money into sports, what does the value proposition look like sponsoring events in empty stadia?
To discuss this Michael Avery is joined by Jean Willers, Managing Director of Nielsen Sports South Africa; Justin Sampson, MD of Octagon in SA and Mike Sharman, co-founder of MatchKit, a DIY website builder aimed at athletes
