Super League – The Sponsorship Fallout
April 27, 2021
After the controversial rise and fall of the Super League, Tim Crow considers the sponsorship implications for the ‘big six’ English Premier League clubs.
By this time last Monday, courtesy of the news of the so-called ‘Super League’ breaking on Sunday night, my phone was ringing non-stop with clients seeking advice. Many were sponsors of the ‘big six’ English Premier League clubs, and what I was hearing from them was not good.
“Sponsors had also been kept in the dark about the Super League, and they were understandably angry.”
Like the managers, players, fans and staff, these sponsors had also been kept in the dark about the Super League, and they were understandably angry. With the demise of the Super League that anger may have subsided, but what has replaced it in many cases is mistrust. That will inevitably persist – particularly if Florentino Perez and Andrea Agnelli continue to insist that the Super League clubs are still committed to the project contractually and philosophically.
Alongside that anger, there was also exasperation among sponsors that, owing to the contractual effects of the Super League, by Monday night many of them had been forced into full-blown contract reviews. As one CMO said to me on Monday: “We’ve only just re-negotiated the contract because of Covid, we were more than fair, and this is how they repay us.”
Big six sponsors’ negotiating positions will inevitably harden as a result. The Super League has become a deal-breaker. From now on, clubs will be expected to guarantee that they will not take part in it as a breakaway, under threat of immediate contract termination and financial penalties if they do.
There will also be some more immediate fallout.
At least one ‘big six’ sponsor had an end-of-season campaign in the advance stages of planning which has now had to be postponed and may be cancelled, at significant cost.
“At least one ‘big six’ sponsor had an end-of-season campaign in the advance stages of planning which has now had to be postponed.”
Another is facing the prospect of having to completely re-write the fundamentals of its sponsorship messaging and creative. Again, hard costs are involved and a lot of time and effort. And these are unlikely to be isolated examples.
This is likely to cost those clubs several major sponsors sooner or later: renewals in general will be much harder, and new business even more so, certainly in the short term and possibly into the medium term, particularly with brands for whom the UK is an important market.
All the signs are that this is not an issue that is going away any time soon in the UK, with fan activism having been electrified, the media all over the sports business story of the year, and a UK Government review in progress. There are a lot of hard yards ahead.
