By Riccardo Tafà| Posted January 28, 2019 | In Formula1, Sport Sponsorship, Sports Marketing
By Riccardo Tafà| Posted January 28, 2019 | In Formula1, Sport Sponsorship, Sports Marketing
Sports sponsorships can be worth from a few thousand euros to over a billion euros, as demonstrated by the partnership between Adidas and Real Madrid (1.1 billion euros) or LVMH’s recent sponsorship of F1 (1 billion euros). To give a sensible answer to the question “how much does sponsorship cost?”, we need to narrow the field down to activities and teams/athletes that are comparable in terms of prestige and audience.
The disciplines we will consider in this article are:
We will therefore refer only to teams and sports that guarantee a global audience, focusing on teams rather than events. Specifically, we will try to indicate the minimum entry level that will allow us to gain access and with what level of visibility. We will then try to answer several other questions. Is it better to sponsor a team sport or an individual sport? Is it better to sponsor a league or a team? Is it better to sponsor an athlete or a team? What are the possible undesirable side effects of the various disciplines? Are some sports more at risk than others? Is it possible, with careful planning, to mitigate some of these risks? Can we also protect ourselves contractually?
Let’s start with the costs we will have to match with the available budget, the basis of any business operation. Without a budget, we remain in the virtual world of hypotheses.
Given the vastness of the subject, we will limit ourselves to a few examples. Let’s start with the value of shirt partnerships in the Premier League for the 2024/2025 season in alphabetical order, where available, we also report the values of the Manica sponsor, which in some cases (Arsenal, Man City, United, Liverpool and Tottenham have significant values) (1).
Sponsorship in football | Team | Shirt sponsor | Industry | Value | Duration | Sleeve sponsor | Industry | Value | Duration |
| Arsenal | Emirates | Airline | UK £50 Mil | 2028 | Visit Rwanda | Tourism | UK £ 10 Mil | 2025 |
| Aston Villa | Betano | Gambling | UK £20 Mil | 2026 | Trade Nation | Financial services – trading platform | UK £ 2 Mil | |
| Bournemouth | bj88 | Gambling | UK £8 Mil | 2026 | LEOS International | Property developer | ||
| Brentford | Hollywoodbets | Gambling | UK £4 Mil | PensionBee | Financial services – online pension provider | UK £ 1 Mil | 2025 | |
| Brighton & Hove Albion | American Express | Financial services | UK £ 100 Mil | 25 -2031 | Experience Kissimmee | Tourism | Multi year | |
| Chelsea | Damac Properties | Property developer | UK £ 3 Mil | end of 2025 | Live Nation | Entertainment | UK £ 2.5 Mil | |
| Crystal Palace | Net88 | Gambling | UK £ 6.5 Mil | Kaiyun Sports | Gambling | UK £ 2 Mil | ||
| Everton | Stake.com | Gambling | UK £ 10 Mil | unreported | Christopher Ward | Watches | UK £ 1.5 Mil | Unreported |
| Fulham | SBOTOP | Gambling | UK £ 10 Mil | WebBeds | Tourism | UK £ 600k | ||
| Ipswich Town | #NOME? | Entertainment | HaloITSM | Service management software | ||||
| Leicester City | BC.Game | Gambling | Bia Saigon (ThaiBev) | Beverage | ||||
| Liverpool | Standard Chartered | Financial services & banking | UK £ 50 Mil | 2027 | Expedia | Tourism | UK £ 9 Mil | 2027 |
| Manchester City | Etihad Airways | Airline | UK £ 67.5 | Multy year | OKX | Financial services – crypto | UK £ 20 Mil | Multy year |
| Manchester United | Snapdragon | Telecoms equipment & semiconductors | UK £ 60 Mil | 2029 | DXC Technology | IT & consulting services | UK £ 20 Mil | |
| Newcastle United | Sela | Entertainment and hospitality | UK £ 20 Mil | Multy year | Noon | E-commerce | UK £ 7.5 Mil | 2025 |
| Nottingham Forest | Kaiyun Sports | Gambling | 2025 | Ideagen | Software | UK £ 2 Mil | 2025 | |
| Southampton | Rollbit | Gambling | P&O cruises | Tourism | ||||
| Tottenham Hotspur | AIA | Life insurance & financial services | UK £ 320 Mil 2019-2027 | Kraken | Financial services – crypto platform | UK £ 10 Mil | 2027 | |
| West Ham United | Betway | Gambling | UK £ 10 Mil | 2025 | Intuit QuickBooks | Financial services – accounting software | ||
| Wolverhampton Wanderers | DEBET | Gambling | 2026 | JD Sports | Sports retail | UK £ 2 Mil | ||
The space on the right sleeve (the only one available) of the most important teams in the English Premier League is on offer at £100,000 per square centimetre…. This should give you a clear idea of the kind of budget you need if you want to stand out among the sponsors of this league (2).
I assume you are not interested in billboards and LED screens around the pitch: a tool we have discussed in the past that I do not like, which can be used for much smaller budgets but with little effect.
The shirt sponsor is worth €12.5 million per season and is Riyadh Season, plus €6 million from the back sponsor, Auberge Resort.
Fly Emirates, the main sponsor, is worth around €30 million, plus MSC Cruises, the sleeve sponsor for €5 million, and the back sponsor Bit Panda for a further €5 million.
If you do not want to appear on the shirts but want to take advantage of all the marketing rights of an official partner, we can estimate that €100,000 would be sufficient to access this type of package for second-tier teams in Serie A (i.e. no shirt visibility but website, backdrop and pitchside signage).
Sponsorships in F1 are going through a golden age. Here is an overview of what is happening in 2025 according to the BlackBook of motorsport.
The investment required to be part of an F1 team is significant, although, to be honest, there is a huge gap between title sponsors (worth tens of millions of dollars) and lower-tier partners (almost always around £1 million).
Below is the value attributed by experts to the title sponsors of F1 teams in 2025.
| Team | Title Partner | Deal Value | Start Year |
| Mercedes | Petronas | Up to US 75m/year | Renewed beyond 2026 |
| Red Bull Racing | Oracle | US$60m/year | 2022 |
| Ferrari | HP | US$60m/year | 2024 |
| McLaren | |||
| Alpine | BWT | US$25m/year | 2022 |
| Aston Martin | Aramco | US$30m/year | 2024 |
| HAAS | MoneyGram | US$20m/year | 2023 |
| Sauber | Stake | US$33m/year | 2024 |
| Visa CashApp RB | Visa & Cash App | US$30m/year | 2024 |
| Williams | Atlassian | Up to US$35m/year | 2025 |
The investment that it takes to sponsor an F1 team is hugely varied – title sponsors may be worth hundreds of millions of euro, whilst low-end partners are often around €100,000 (5).
As an example, we list below the sponsors and partners of Scuderia Ferrari, obviously one of the most prestigious teams in Formula 1.
| Sponsor | Type | Estimated Annual Investment | Notes | ||
| HP | Title Sponsor | $70 million | Largest single deal, since 2024 | ||
| UniCredit | Main Sponsor | ~$60 million (est.) | Replaces Santander from 2025 | ||
| Shell | Main Sponsor | ~$35 million (est.) | Long-term technical and financial | ||
| IBM | Main Sponsor | Undisclosed | Tech/data partnership from 2025 | ||
| Puma | Main Sponsor | Undisclosed | Apparel and merchandise | ||
| VGW Play | Main Sponsor | Undisclosed | Gaming sector | ||
| Vantage Markets | Official Sponsor | Undisclosed | New in 2025, financial services | ||
Obviously, and as is easy to understand, significant costs are associated with impressive marketing benefits and extraordinary returns in terms of image. By clicking on this link, you can read about the benefits obtained by Petronas from its title sponsorship of the Mercedes F1 Team for an investment of approximately £40 million per year. According to the Mail, £1 million is the minimum required to place your brand on Lewis Hamilton‘s suit, as stated in this article.
As already mentioned on several occasions on this blog, sponsoring MotoGP has a wide range of access. The market is very diverse, with small initial deals starting at £65,000 up to the largest title sponsorships reaching £10-15 million. There are no pre-set packages or prices, but let’s try to see what you can buy with what amount.
This is the entry level to the top class for some teams on the grid. You purchase marketing and communication rights that allow you to have a great story to tell. Visibility, on the other hand, is non-existent or minimal and may be limited to a small logo on transport or backdrops.
At this price, you can start to have your brand on the bike or the rider’s suit, if we are talking about satellite teams or unofficial manufacturers.
The logo is also present on transport, the website and other team communication tools. This visibility, although limited, allows for some return in terms of image and generates brand awareness on digital and traditional media.
This amount allows for ample space on satellite and unofficial teams and also makes it possible to approach top-tier official teams, albeit for smaller spaces. The possibilities for activation multiply, discussions about hospitality and B2B become relevant, and opportunities for the use of show bikes, rider appearances at corporate events and so on begin to appear in contracts. Although these are not huge sums, they require very clear initial strategic decisions, which require good planning upstream.
This budget allows you to negotiate with any World Championship team for positions with good visibility: you will have extraordinary space on second-tier unofficial teams and interesting positions on teams that consistently score points. The strategy you want to pursue begins to be fundamental, bearing in mind that a larger space does not always correspond to greater marketing results. Finally, there is a wealth of communication rights and team support for all communication and B2B operations.
As is evident, at these levels we are already among the most important sponsors in the championship. Investing these amounts means not only gaining extraordinary image and brand awareness in all the territories covered by the championship, but also equipping your brand with an extraordinarily powerful communication tool. Imagine riders and motorcycles at your disposal for videos, communications, events, trade fairs and incentives, and a large number of passes for your best customers and sales force at all 19 stages of the world championship.
At the top of the range is Title Sponsorship, the highest level of investment in sports sponsorship. In addition to the above, such figures allow you to name the team after your brand and decorate the bikes and riders’ suits with your colours and graphics. This means positioning yourself with great strength not only in the discipline, but in the entire world sporting landscape. Your name, your brand and your colours are displayed across the 207 territories where the World Championship is watched and during 28,000 hours of annual broadcasts. You have a communication tool that you can use all over the world, in all languages, while the team’s hospitality and vehicles, in your colours and shapes, welcome guests and special visitors to what has effectively become your home.
Tennis is enjoying a period of great popularity, and the good fortune of having unrivalled champions such as Sinner, Alcaraz, Djokovic and many emerging young players has pushed tennis even higher in recent years… But how much does it cost to join the elite of the racquet? How visible are they? And how much do they play during the year?
The premise is that a top-ranked professional tennis player plays between 20 and 25 tournaments a year. In the case of Federer, who is at a different point in his career, there are 14 tournaments, which I have listed below for your interest: Hopman Cup, Australian Open, Rotterdam Open, Indian Wells Masters, Miami Open, Stuttgart Open, Halle Open, Wimbledon, Cincinnati Masters, US Open, Shanghai Masters, Swiss Indoors, Paris Masters, ATP Finals
Here are some guidelines on the budget required to appear on a tennis shirt. It should be noted that these are approximate figures.
So we have to consider that our athlete will play between 15 and 20 tournaments a year and that the visibility he will be able to guarantee us is directly linked to his performance… It is not enough to go to tournaments, you also have to advance and stay in front of the cameras (6).
As mentioned above, we have chosen sports and events with a global audience. Below is a selection of the TV channels that broadcast them, which is not intended to be a complete list. It should be noted that, unlike other events that take place every four years (the Olympics and the World Cup), we wanted to favour events that take place every year and therefore allow you to give continuity to your communication campaigns with relative ease, in some cases providing you with a travelling promotional platform.
Premier League: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Premier_League_broadcasters
Serie A: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Serie_A_broadcasters
MotoGP: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_MotoGP_broadcasters
MotoGP Broadcastershttps://www.motogp.com/en/broadcasters
F1: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Formula_One_broadcasters
Tennis: https://tv-sports-rights.fandom.com/wiki/List_of_ATP_World_Tour_Masters_1000_Broadcasters
Now you have an idea of how much you need to invest to be visible in F1, MotoGP, tennis and football. You also have an idea of the number of channels that broadcast them. The calendars will help you decide whether it might be useful to leverage events taking place in territories other than your own.
You now need to check that the values of the sport and your brand are consistent, as we explain in this article , and then you can decide if, how and where to commit.
If you have any questions or would like more information, please feel free to contact us at info@rtrsports.com.
Activations are the real heart of motorsport sponsorship. Without them, there remains only a blank sticker on a motorcycle, car or uniform and no contact with the public, no emotional connection, no impact on the bottom line. Then how do you do it? It certainly won’t be the teams or the athletes who will help you leverage sponsorship and enjoy the many marketing rights you have paid for. To bring out the best in a motorsport marketing project, you need an agency that knows how to use sponsorship to engage the fanbase online, to reach out to Shopping Centers, to organize hospitality, to develop B2B and B2C opportunities, and to get “your” athletes in front of millions of potential consumers.
Would you ever go to the dealer who sold you the car and ask if the competitor’s car is better? No, of course. So, how do you expect to get firm measurements of the effectiveness of your sponsorship if you do not rely on someone super partes? At RTR, we have always worked with independent third-party agencies that allow us to know the return on any exposure of your brand on TV and in the media. In addition, we believe in calculating ROI as the ultimate measure of your success-so we can tell you for every penny you spend how much you are making.
When first approaching a motorsport sponsorship project, it is difficult to know immediately which stakeholders are correct, what the decision flow is, and what the right timelines are for each process. Motorsport is a very specialized field of action, and fitting effectively into its paths can take a lot of time and therefore money. We, on the other hand, know referents and spheres of action and know who to talk to, when and how. So you are also more effective.
Experience the power and put your brand in front of millions with motorsport sponsorship. Whether it's Formula 1, MotoGP, NASCAR, IndyCar, or WEC, RTR Sports give your brand the opportunity to appear on television at the most prestigious race tracks in the world.
Sponsor a motorsport team today
Managing Director for RTR Sports, Riccardo graduated in law at the University of Bologna. He began his career in London in PR, then started working in two and four-wheelers. A brief move to Monaco followed before returning to Italy. There he founded RTR, first a consulting firm and then a sports marketing company which, eventually, he moved back to London.
The online platform where you can discover the latest trends, strategies and insights from the exciting world of sports marketing.
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Read MoreIn an era where it is possible to get anywhere with a click, there is a strong temptation to approach teams and properties directly for sponsorship projects.
By doing so, we are convinced that we are shortening the value chain, saving time and money. However, these DYI methods are anything but risk-free and what initially appears to be a competitive advantage soon turns into a problem that is difficult to resolve. That’s why there are agencies. And this is why you should rely on us for your sponsorships.
When first approaching a motorsport sponsorship project, it is difficult to know immediately which stakeholders are correct, what the decision flow is, and what the right timelines are for each process. Motorsport is a very specialized field of action, and fitting effectively into its paths can take a lot of time and therefore money. We, on the other hand, know referents and spheres of action and know who to talk to, when and how. So you are also more effective.
Motorsport is an immense passion, and for our heart colors we would be willing to do anything. But business is a different business, and it is important to make the best possible strategic decisions based on independent research, statistics and reliable data. A motorsport sponsorship agency like RTR has an objective, 360-degree picture of the scenario and can tell you what is really best for you: which racing series, which athlete, which team. This is because we possess a great deal of data and information on ratings, segmentation and attitudes. Because the numbers don’t lie. Never.
Activations are the real heart of motorsport sponsorship. Without them, there remains only a blank sticker on a motorcycle, car or uniform and no contact with the public, no emotional connection, no impact on the bottom line. Then how do you do it? It certainly won’t be the teams or the athletes who will help you leverage sponsorship and enjoy the many marketing rights you have paid for. To bring out the best in a motorsport marketing project, you need an agency that knows how to use sponsorship to engage the fanbase online, to reach out to Shopping Centers, to organize hospitality, to develop B2B and B2C opportunities, and to get “your” athletes in front of millions of potential consumers.
Would you ever go to the dealer who sold you the car and ask if the competitor’s car is better? No, of course. So, how do you expect to get firm measurements of the effectiveness of your sponsorship if you do not rely on someone super partes? At RTR, we have always worked with independent third-party agencies that allow us to know the return on any exposure of your brand on TV and in the media. In addition, we believe in calculating ROI as the ultimate measure of your success-so we can tell you for every penny you spend how much you are making.
We have been involved in motorsport sponsorship and sports marketing for more than 15 years. We are consultants in the sense that our goal is to maximize your investment, but we are also an agency that manages the project from start to finish. We have been doing this since 1995 with passion and professionalism, following three principles that have become cornerstones of our business: independence, verticality and transparency.
I would like to highlight the fact that one of the qualities of RTR is its great ability to approach the sponsorship scenario strategically, together with its passionate attitude, its amazing enthusiasm for solving problems, and its high level of professionalism.
Gianluca Degliesposti
Executive Director Server&Storage EMEA
Eurosport is truly delighted with its business relationship with Riccardo Tafà, who has become extremely popular, thanks to his detailed knowledge of the sports marketing sector and his highly diligent attitude to work.
Francois Ribeiro
Commercial Director
Passion and Expertise are the features that I have found in RTR since the very beginning. Serious and reliable professionals but also very helpful, nice and open-mind people, willing to listen and compare different ideas. All the values in which RTR believes make this agency a partner, not just a supplier, a partner with whom we have had the opportunity to achieve significant commercial results in term of success and image.
Luca Pacitto
Head of Communication
We have been working with RTR Sports Marketing for over 10 years. The objectives and the programmes of collaboration continue to be renewed and to grow with mutual satisfaction. I believe RTR is a team of great professionals led by Riccardo Tafà, who I consider a manager of exceptional skills and with a great passion for his work.
Lucio Cecchinello
Team Principal
I have known and worked with Riccardo Tafà since 1995 when we collaborated for the first time on a project for the Williams Formula 1 team. Several clients followed. After leaving Williams to work for Gerhard Berger then owner of the Toro Rosso F1 Team, I turned again to Riccardo to seek his help in finding a tool supplier for the team and Riccardo duly obliged with an introduction to USAG, a partnership with Toro Rosso which endured for five years. I recently started a new role as Group Commercial Director for the renowned Andretti Autosport organisation and I find myself working with Riccardo once again on a number of interesting projects. Why has this relationship with Riccardo endured ? He’s smart, knows the commercial side of sport inside out and back to front and he’s honest and trustworthy. Riccardo Tafà is a “doer” not a “talker”: in over 20 years I have never had a dispute either with him or with a company that he has introduced and each partnership introduced by Riccardo has delivered quantifiable ROI to rights holder and sponsor alike. I can think of no better testimonial of Riccardo’s diligence, knowledge, contact base and hard work than that.
Jim Wright
Group Commercial Director
The online platform where you can discover the latest trends, strategies and insights from the exciting world of sports marketing.
View our blog
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The 2026 Formula 1 season represents a transformative moment for both the sport and its commercial ecosystem. With a radical overhaul of technical regulations, teams will compete in vehicles [...]
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