Which kind of sponsors can benefit the most?

[BlueRoads]

So, I could not find a really fitting thread, so please forgive me if there was one (or move my post).

I'm wondering why an organisation like the "Manuela Fundación" is financing a WT, while other big companies don't dare to spend money on it.
It seems to me medium-sized companies like Quickstep or Bora, that sell useful once-every ten-years products, are the ones most likely to benefit from sponsoring cycling, because they need to bring some brand awareness to their potential customers, while nobody will not buy a new floor or exhaust hood because there is a connotation of doping. But for them the sums they have to invest are huge compared to companies like Ineos or, let's say, Adidas.
What do you think, which kind of businesses can benefit the most?

 

[RedheadDane]

Bike brands probably also, since it's already in the interest-field.

 

[Logic-is-your-friend]

Any sort of consumer products imho.

 

[Bullrun]

I'm extremely sceptical about this Manuela Fundácion deal and hope GreenEdge have done their work vetting the buyer/sponsor. There's nothing on Francis Huertas public life and known business activity that suggests he has the clout to take on a challenge of these dimensions. In fact, quite the opposite.

As for the question, also find dubious that road cycling sponsorship offers a good return to any firms, big or smaller, except those in the field like bike and parts manufacturer, apparel, supplement brands, etc. That's why an overwhelming percentage of team sponsorship money comes from firms lead/owned by road cycling enthusiasts (with the personal intangible benefit of owning a cycling team being an obvious powerful motivation and overriding concerns about firm related returns) and organizations ran on taxpayers money (and hybrids, like the current Gulf monarchies sponsorships). Even for those fairly successful sponsors like Quickstep and Bora, my assumption would be far larger returns via targeted marketing. But of course, I haven't done any math whatsoever and scoring the return of sports sponsorship investment is more of an art than a science - and a lot depends on things beyond metrics like cost per reach, like how effective is the activation (promoting the sponsorship) or how valuable is brand awareness increase for each firm. But cycling fans are relatively few, oldish, poorish... Anyway, I don't know, and don't think firm size is a critical factor, just wanted to comment on that Manuela Fundácion thingy - finding the whole affair quite odd.

 

[Koronin]

Any consumer product makes sense because it's simply brand awareness and hoping that fans of a team/rider will buy their product.
Cable companies I don't really understand the benefit for, however, if they also have other products like cell phone service, then it makes more sense.
EF Education chose to buy/sponsor Slipstream because they (their employees) enjoy being part of a sports team They did it with a sailing team for awhile and when they pulled out of that many of the employees were disappointed so they decided to get back in with cycling. Now they do get brand awareness for their business (although non profit) which is dealing with students studying in other countries. They chose cycling because they saw the huge number of people donating small amounts of money to keep that team around for another year and saw it as a lower cost way to get back into sports. Sponsorships in many other types of sports are going to cost a lot more and are less likely to reach as large of an audience is as many countries as cycling does.

 

[BlueRoads]

I'm extremely sceptical about this Manuela Fundácion deal and hope GreenEdge have done their work vetting the buyer/sponsor. There's nothing on Francis Huertas public life and known business activity that suggests he has the clout to take on a challenge of these dimensions. In fact, quite the opposite.

As for the question, also find dubious that road cycling sponsorship offers a good return to any firms, big or smaller, except those in the field like bike and parts manufacturer, apparel, supplement brands, etc. That's why an overwhelming percentage of team sponsorship money comes from firms lead/owned by road cycling enthusiasts (with the personal intangible benefit of owning a cycling team being an obvious powerful motivation and overriding concerns about firm related returns) and organizations ran on taxpayers money (and hybrids, like the current Gulf monarchies sponsorships). Even for those fairly successful sponsors like Quickstep and Bora, my assumption would be far larger returns via targeted marketing. But of course, I haven't done any math whatsoever and scoring the return of sports sponsorship investment is more of an art than a science - and a lot depends on things beyond metrics like cost per reach, like how effective is the activation (promoting the sponsorship) or how valuable is brand awareness increase for each firm. But cycling fans are relatively few, oldish, poorish... Anyway, I don't know, and don't think firm size is a critical factor, just wanted to comment on that Manuela Fundácion thingy - finding the whole affair quite odd.

Yes, I find it odd, too. But then that's what I think about most sponsors - often they are just not the ones that I would expect, hence this thread.
I think indeed the average cycling fan is rather old than young, about poorish I'm not sure. I think they are very middle class.
In Germany there is a company "Kind", selling hearing devices. The guy invests a lot in one of our football clubs. He's not the kind of guy you would like to work with, but would that not be a good sponsor for cycling (considering the age structure... )?

Someone I would really like to see investing in cycling is Dietmar Hopp, one of the founders of SAP. He's a patron of the TSG Hoffenheim, investing a lot in sports/ development of sports, he's incredibly rich and seems like a "good guy", although a lot of football fans hate him (in fact he gets threatened a lot because of his investments). But he's interested in a lot of social topics, also climate change, and isn't shy in donating. His sons are leading one of biggest ice hockey clubs in G and a golf resort. But cycling does not seem to be on the agenda of someone like him.

Okay, in the end we don't want patrons, but real sponsors, right? But obviously the benefit for the companies is not really there, otherwise cycling would not have these immense difficulties to find sponsors that don't do it for "personal love". Which I still don't get because even if the effect is not very targeted and in countries not called Belgium or Colombia people may only watch the Tour or the other GTs, the money they have to spend to name a team is ridiculous for a big company. Adidas had a marketing budget of 3 billion euro in 2019.

In these times I would have thought Sunweb might withdraw, but now it seems they are one of the most reliable sponsors!

 

[Koronin]

I'm more surprised about huge multinational companies that sell consumer products not sponsoring cycling. Over here in auto racing you can have all sorts of consumer products and retail stores sponsoring auto racing teams. You have a combination of sponsors that sponsors teams, sponsors that sponsor the series and sponsors that are the drink of or fuel of whatever sport it is. I've always been surprised that a sports drink company isn't a partial sponsor of one of the teams. It would also help if the UCI changes their rules to allow for sponsors to sponsor specific races or partial seasons as well. In NASCAR we have teams that multiple sponsors and the car gets a different wrap (different main sponsor) for different races. Then you have unsponsored teams that will pick up a local company for a race as well. You'll see in qualifying the car without a sponsor and by race time there will be a sponsor on that car for that race.

 

[Logic-is-your-friend]

I think electric bikes are booming worldwide. Lots of people are moving from their car to an e-bike for short daily commutes (5~10km) where i live at least. It could make sense for e-bike brands or e-motor brands to get into sponsoring. Especially strong brands that lack public exposure. Say a company like Bafang perhaps? Obviously this could lead to e-doping conspiracies, but we're having those anyway, haha.

 

[BlueRoads]

I think electric bikes are booming worldwide. Lots of people are moving from their car to an e-bike for short daily commutes (5~10km) where i live at least. It could make sense for e-bike brands or e-motor brands to get into sponsoring. Especially strong brands that lack public exposure. Say a company like Bafang perhaps? Obviously this could lead to e-doping conspiracies, but we're having those anyway, haha.

True, I recently tried to estimate the percentage of e-bikes I saw on my route, it must have been about 50% of all bikes (lots of mtbs with motors among them). Bafang sounds like a good nominee.

 

[42x16ss]

You would think 3M might be able to step up and sponsor a WT team now instead of the various Conti teams they've supported over the years.