iSportconnect Brands Masterclass: “Sponsorship Is About Emotional Connection”

On the 12th of September 2019 iSportconnect hosted a very successful Brands and Partnerships Masterclass event at the De Vere Connaught Rooms in London.

It was a terrific day of intriguing panel discussions and presentations, capped off by a brilliantly entertaining and insightful interview with Sam Jones, Managing Director of Wish.

Ryan Gallace, Head of EMEA at Hookit started the day off with a presentation that outlined how successful sponsorship is affected by who publishes it.

Our first panel was led by sports marketing advisor Tim Crow, this was a discussion about the value of sponsorship and how KPIs are shifting. On the panel were Simon Freedman, Country Manager – Football at Science in Sport, Paul Goodmaker, Head of Global Sponsorship at BP Castrol, and Bobby Brittain, Marketing Director of Godolphin.

Five interesting points from this panel:

• “Sponsorship is about emotional connection to consumers. Long term behaviour change with consumers, that doesn’t happen in one or two months. Sponsorship is a long term investment.”
• “You can get tied up in models, if you treat it as if it was your own business you might spend a little more time doing due diligence. That tends to lead to different outcomes.”
• “Rights holders are good at driving fear between brands.”
• “There’s no such thing as a sponsorship strategy, there’s a business strategy and sponsorship might contribute.”
• “Something that’s often overlooked is how clever you can be with your sponsorship and innovation.”

See our Brands Masterclass Highlights video at this link: https://tv.isportconnect.com/en-int/playerpage/77520

Our second panel concerned sports betting and was moderated by Tim Crow once again. Our panellists this time were Matt Booth, Director from 32Red,  Russel Yershon, Head of Global Partnerships at Energybet and Ivan Lianhesko, Chief Marketing Officer at Parimatch.

Three interesting points from this panel: 

• “Every American sports league are marketing machines. Even if you look at the Premier League it is nothing on the American leagues.”
• “All the time I’ve worked with rights holders I don’t think anyone’s come with a data related proposition.”
• “I don’t think you’ll see money from the US market for ten years.”

Ben Barker, COO of Monterosa moderated the final talk between Zarah Al-Kudcy, Head of Commercial Partnership Development at Formula One and Richard Berry, Commercial Director of Rokit Williams Racing.

It was a successful day all round and huge thanks to everyone who came to the event.