August 15 – European football saw a 22% increase in sponsorship and marketing partnerships by brands last season, a doubling of the previous season’s 11% growth.

SponsorUnited’s latest European Football Marketing Partnerships 2023–24 Report registers more than 6,000 deals, saying that “diverse brands are driving market sophistication”.

Construction, technology, and automotive are the sectors leading the growth with 88% of brands focussing on single-club partnerships.

The report finds that clubs in Italy’s Serie A and Spain’s LaLiga are leading in terms of new sponsorships.

With a number of players having left Europe’s Big 5 leagues (most notably Cristiano Ronaldo and Lionel Messi), there has been a shift in athlete endorsements with the new top-endorsed athletes being led by Mexican goalkeeper Guillermo Ochoa, Vinicius Junior (pictured), and Harry Kane.

This is turn feeding the social media growth with “teams like Real Madrid CF and FC Bayern Munich seeing massive follower growth tied to their star athletes’ endorsement appeal”, says the report.

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