CEO, Tony Allen writes for The Times.

The Times
June 4, 2009
Deal good value for Manchester United’s new sponsors

It may be paying about £20million a year, but Aon looks to be getting a very good deal. Manchester United have 333 million fans worldwide – and 190 million in Asia alone – while their matches are watched around the world by even more people, because not every viewer is a fan.

Paying £80million over four years for a leading association with the United brand and that kind of exposure is cheap by other measures and universally appealing because of the massive and growing popularity of football. Try to reach a similar-sized audience through advertising alone and it will cost far more than £20million. Consider that a leading supermarket might spend £10million on its advertising in an average year in the United Kingdom and that’s only for one country.

For Aon, an association with United takes them into a different league. You would expect a key sponsorship deal such as this to include valuable hospitality for Aon’s important clients. For the sponsor that wants to gain exposure in growth markets such as Asia the deal is extra valuable. United are also a brand that has been managed carefully for a very long time, but with a record of sporting achievement too. It’s a safe bet.

The other issue for any financial services brand is that there is a limit to how they advertise otherwise. There are only so many times you can talk about your interest rates. Sport changes that: look at what Abbey and Santander were able to do with Lewis Hamilton last year. A tie-up with a talent such as Hamilton or a club such as United gives a brand an extra distinctiveness over its rivals.

Clearly there are some risks: the main downside is that there is no absolute guarantee that the club will continue to perform as well as they have. What happens if Sir Alex Ferguson retires early, or if there is just one season where the team do not make it? If newspapers are writing that there is a crisis in the club, if the fans are anxious, you can become associated with that. But that can happen with any sports sponsorship.

There are also questions about the level of commercialisation in sport. United, with their high levels of debt, clearly need to get lucrative deals in place. However, while Barcelona may not have a shirt deal, this type of sponsorship is now well understood by fans, who know that these types of arrangements bring more money to the club and so help to maintain their long-term success.

Read the article on The Times website.