Are you willing to sponsor?
Are you ready to explore the transformative power of athlete sponsorship for your brand? Click here to learn more about how sponsorship can help brands grow and thrive in the exciting world of motorsports.
By Riccardo Tafà| Posted July 21, 2019 | In MotoGP, Sports Marketing
Let’s start this post with an example. After some research and various meetings, a company eventually decides to invest in sports marketing to engage its target more efficiently. The company management selects a sponsorship in MotoGP and they also rapidly decide the Team of the Motorcycle Racing World Championship they wish to sponsor. The only thing left to do is to contact the Team and finalise the deal. Easy, isn’t it? Access the Internet, google the name of the team and all of a sudden you will find yourself speaking on the phone with the right man in the right place. Honestly, reality is a bit more complex than that.
Each team – and each rider – is different and has distinguishing features. Some teams are breathtaking on the track, but they are not so handy when it comes to providing the operational marketing support required to implement the programme you have selected. Other teams provide high quality services, but they hardly excel on the track.
What about costs then? How can you be sure that the proposal you receive is in line with the market? A sponsorship agency who knows the riders and the rules of the race inside out can help you start off on the right foot. Besides choosing the right team, the annulment of the learning curve is an extremely important factor as it often appears to be a huge obstacle for those who are not habitual guests of the racing tracks and the microcosm that travels from one nation to another every week to bring one of the most exciting world championships into being.
Efficiency and time saved are positively reflected on the return on investment and, at least initially, the company does not incur any cost. Resorting to a sports marketing agency will not cost the company a penny more as the agency is paid by the team in the form of a commercial commission. The company is, of course, free to contact the team directly, but it will miss a major privilege – or luxury – which an agency can grant, i.e. to receive the agency’s most helpful advice (unlike teams, agencies are quite unbiased as they are paid in any case, irrespective of whether the company enters a partnership with one team or another).
The agency becomes a company’s partner and it starts having a cost only when and if the company designates it for the implementation of the on-track programme, a designation the agency needs to start helping you make your projects true.
The agency will also be helpful if you consider that your activities will necessarily be focused on a predefined programme which is broadcast in over 200 countries and cannot be modified to your own needs. Sector operators are masters in successfully dealing with all the obstacles posed and they will implement all agreed initiatives without any evident effort.
Although these are just hints, they should be enough to convince you to address your first phone call to an agency, rather than directly to a team, if you are interested in a MotoGP sponsorship.
All the considerations above also apply if you are willing to sponsor a Formula E and MotoE team or any other motor sport category (F1, Moto2 and/or Moto3). If you are interested you should read more about the Formula E Agency.
If you want to know more, you can alway reach us at info@rtrsports.com
Are you ready to explore the transformative power of athlete sponsorship for your brand? Click here to learn more about how sponsorship can help brands grow and thrive in the exciting world of motorsports.
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.
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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 sponsorship or sports marketing 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. Sports 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.
Sports 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 sports marketing and sports sponsorship agency like RTR has an objective, 360-degree picture of the scenario and can tell you what is really best for you: which sport, 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 sports 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 sports marketing project you need an agency that knows how to use sponsorship to engage the fanbase on the Web, 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 sports 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
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