IT’S the start of an interesting week for anyone involved in sports sponsorship as the Via Sponsorship conference kicks off tomorrow in Glasgow. It’s the brainchild of Gordon Ritchie, who is a director of GRM Marketing as well as father to Nicole Ritchie, one of Scotland’s top Alpine skiers, a sport that requires the athlete to have strong financial backing if they are to be able to succeed.
Over the two days of the conference at Strathclyde University, there will be a host of impressive names coming to Scotland to discuss sponsorship. The aim is to increase the understanding and benefits of sponsorship in sport for businesses and at the same time educate tomorrow’s professional athletes on the importance, processes and power of sponsorship in helping to create and sustaina successful career.
The sponsorship market can be very hard to break into. For many years, as long as you could get column inches and the sponsor’s logo in a newspaper, job done! This isn’t the case any longer and partnerships are being forged looking to create a deal that works for both parties, focused on supporting each other while both benefit.
Perhaps the flavour of the month where sponsorship is concerned is the CSR budget, which I believe, in many ways, is taking over from traditional sponsorship. Corporate social responsibility, to give it its full title, offers an opportunity for organisations to invest in sport and give back to the community at many different levels, through sponsorship, grant aid and volunteering, the latter allowing staff to take time off to participate in or support a specific project.
One of the areas that will no doubt be highlighted is the tax breaks companies can enjoy through sponsorship. It has been reported that at the World Cup in Brazil in 2014 tax relief for some firms was worth in excess of £300 million. Coming back to down to Earth to a more realistic level of investment, this opportunity could be a win-win for sport and sponsors and offers companies an incentive to get involved at with sport at any level.
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