News & Events

The European Sponsorship Awards winners were announced at a ceremony in Amsterdam during the week and O2 and Irish rugby were award winners in the Business to Consumer category.

The IRFU came out from a crisis management meeting last night stating “it had made an error in its ticketing strategy”, an error which had nearly sent a majority of its clubs to the wall.

It seems that the business of sport in Ireland is in need of corporate support more than ever. Despite good news stories such as 3 sponsoring the National Football Team and An Post stepping into sponsor the Rás, there are many deals not being closed. So, is this an opportunity for savvy brands to buy into potentially high returning marketing investments?

Wayne Rooney has been sensationally dropped by Coca-Cola from its Coke Zero campaign after head-office executives in Atlanta have branded his conduct as “disgusting”.

Alberto Contador, three time winner of Le Tour de France has sensationally been suspended having tested positive for a “very small concentration” of clenbuteral during the 2nd rest day of the 2010 Tour.

After years sponsoring the All Stars and laterally also the Senior Football All Ireland Championship, Vodafone has brought to an end its relationship with the GAA, excluding the new shirt deal with Dublin. This raises fresh challenges for the GAA in finding new sponsors for two high profile packages. So who might be lining up to fill the gap, watch this space....

conventional advertising is dead and conventional sports sponsorship is dead - the world is digital, that is the view of the acknowledged grandfather of Patrick Nally of West Nally who is credited with forming the commercial structure of the FIFA World Cup. He reckons that there has never been a more exciting time to be in sports marketing and for anyone who doesn’t believe him he recommends looking at this video : http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sIFYPQjYhv8

Despite attracting 305,000 fans, revenues at the event fell by 30% and costs increased by 20% further illustrating the difficult economic environment in which events are currently operating. According to the Grand Prix organisers the “global financial crisis continued to have a significant impact on revenue for the 2010 event”. However the major events minister (interesting concept) has said that “The economic value of this event to Melbourne is in the order of $62 million, and was seen by 12.8million people in Europe”. One wonders if this is regarded as a good Return on Investment.