{"id":238065,"date":"2020-03-13T08:00:07","date_gmt":"2020-03-13T07:00:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/rtrsports.com\/sponsorships-and-the-coronavirus-diminishing-the-negative-effects-on-investments-in-sports\/"},"modified":"2026-09-21T19:07:54","modified_gmt":"2026-09-21T17:07:54","slug":"sponsorships-and-the-coronavirus-diminishing-the-negative-effects-on-investments-in-sports","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/rtrsports.com\/en\/blog\/sponsorships-and-the-coronavirus-diminishing-the-negative-effects-on-investments-in-sports\/","title":{"rendered":"Protecting a sponsorship from disruption: force majeure and clauses"},"content":{"rendered":"

Almost everyone treats sponsorship as buying space. That is why, when a race is cancelled or a rider is injured, they discover they bought a promise rather than a right.<\/em><\/p>\n

Updated September 2026.<\/em><\/p>\n

In motorsport the unexpected is not the exception, it is a budget line. A season runs eight months, crosses some twenty countries and depends on bikes, weather, calendars, regulations and people. In thirty years of negotiations I have never seen a season play out exactly as it was sold in January. The difference between an investment that holds and one that crumbles is not luck: it is three pages of contract that almost nobody reads carefully.<\/p>\n

The analogy I use with clients is crop insurance. No serious farmer buys seed without knowing what happens if it hails. Many marketing directors, by contrast, sign six-figure sponsorships without knowing what happens if the most important race in their commercial calendar is cancelled.<\/p>\n

1. What a company is actually buying<\/h2>\n

The first clarification is technical, not legal. Sponsorship is not the purchase of physical space on a fairing: it is the purchase of a bundle of rights, normally covering visibility, use of marks and images, hospitality access, digital presence and sometimes rider days. Each of those rights carries its own exposure to risk. Images remain available even if the race is cancelled, hospitality does not. Television visibility depends on the calendar, use of marks does not.<\/p>\n

When a contract treats these elements as a single block, any disruption becomes an argument of principle instead of a calculation. When it treats them separately, the same cancellation produces a proportional, measurable reduction, and nobody fights.<\/p>\n

2. A taxonomy of disruptions<\/h2>\n

There are four families, and they need different names in the contract because they carry different consequences.<\/p>\n

The force majeure event.<\/strong> Pandemics, wars, disasters, acts of authority. This is the category that in 2020 stopped MotoGP after the opening race and restarted it only in July, at Jerez, behind closed doors. The clause must not merely suspend obligations: it has to say how the fee is recalculated, within what timeframe and with which alternatives in kind.<\/p>\n

The reduction in service.<\/strong> Not everything is cancelled: often races run without spectators, or the calendar is shortened, or a circuit is replaced. Here you need a proportionality criterion written in advance, usually tied to the number of events actually held or to the value of the rights actually delivered.<\/p>\n

The sporting disruption.<\/strong> A rider injured for half a season, a team switching manufacturer, a squad changing ownership. These are ordinary events that happen to somebody every year. The contract has to establish in advance whether the company is entitled to compensation, to substitution or to nothing, and at which thresholds.<\/p>\n

The rule change.<\/strong> This is the most underestimated risk of the current cycle. Formula 1 changed everything in 2026, with power units split almost evenly between combustion and electric and Cadillac arriving as the eleventh team; MotoGP will change in 2027, moving from 1000 to 850 cc, banning ride height devices and adopting 100% non fossil fuel. Anyone signing a three-year deal across a technical reform is buying two different products under one contract, and often does not notice.<\/p>\n

3. The numbers that make the clause worth it<\/h2>\n

There is a precise economic reason to negotiate those pages. In 2025 MotoGP brought 3.6 million spectators to circuits against 3.03 million the previous year, across twenty-two races, with nine attendance records broken and an all time high in France at 311,797 people. The global fanbase reached 632 million people, 12% more than in 2024.<\/p>\n

A championship growing like that makes every single event more valuable, and therefore more expensive to lose. The same proportionality clause that was worth a few thousand euros in 2019 is worth far more today, because it protects a higher per-event value. In my experience this is the calculation CFOs grasp immediately and marketing departments underestimate: you do not negotiate a clause out of pessimism, you negotiate it because it is the part of the contract with the best ratio of time spent to money protected.<\/p>\n

4. Three mistakes I see repeated<\/h2>\n

The first is handing the contractual part to the legal department without a commercial briefing. The lawyer protects the company from legal risk but does not know which of the purchased rights genuinely matter to the marketing plan, and tends to defend everything equally.<\/p>\n

The second is accepting the property’s standard wording. It is written to protect the property, which is legitimate, and in most cases it is far more negotiable than the first round suggests.<\/p>\n

The third, and the costliest, is assuming a refund is the best outcome. It almost never is. A company that built a communication plan around an event does not want its money back: it wants the contacts, the visibility and the occasion it had planned. Compensation in kind, extra rider days, extended digital rights, replacement events, is usually worth more than a credit note and costs the counterparty less. That is where to start.<\/p>\n

5. How we handle it<\/h2>\n

The method is less sophisticated than it sounds. First you map which rights in the package carry the marketing plan and which are accessory. Then you assign each one a recalculation criterion, because they are not worth the same. Then you negotiate compensation in kind as the first option and a refund as the second. Finally you check consistency with duration: a deal that spans a technical reform needs a mid-term review window, not litigation at the end.<\/p>\n

It is the same approach we apply when helping a company choose what to back between rider, team, race and championship<\/a>, and it holds for every category, from MotoGP sponsorship<\/a> to Formula 1<\/a>. And when something does go wrong, as it eventually will, there is the communication chapter, which we covered in our playbook on crisis communication in sport<\/a>.<\/p>\n

A sponsorship is not protected when the hail arrives. It is protected in January, with three pages of contract. Always.<\/p>\n

Sources:<\/strong> MotoGP, record breaking growth in 2025<\/a> \u00b7 MotoGP, 2025 attendance passes 3.6 million<\/a> \u00b7 MotoGP, the 2027 technical regulations<\/a> \u00b7 Formula 1, guide to the 2026 regulations<\/a><\/p>\n

\r\n\r\n

Frequently asked questions<\/b><\/h2>\r\n \r\n
\n
\r\n\r\n

\r\n What should a force majeure clause cover in a sponsorship contract?<\/b>\r\n <\/h3>\r\n\r\n
\r\n
\r\n

It should not merely suspend the parties’ obligations. It has to set out how the fee is recalculated when an event does not take place or takes place in reduced form, within what timeframe that recalculation happens, and which alternative compensation in kind applies, such as extra rider days, extended digital rights or replacement events.<\/p>\n <\/div>\r\n <\/div>\r\n\r\n <\/div>\r\n
\n

\r\n\r\n

\r\n Which disruptions should a sports sponsorship contract regulate?<\/b>\r\n <\/h3>\r\n\r\n
\r\n
\r\n

Four families: force majeure events (pandemics, wars, acts of authority), reduction in service (closed door races, shortened calendar, replaced circuit), sporting disruption (injured rider, change of manufacturer or of team ownership) and technical rule changes, which alter the product purchased during the life of the contract.<\/p>\n <\/div>\r\n <\/div>\r\n\r\n <\/div>\r\n
\n

\r\n\r\n

\r\n Is a refund better than compensation in kind?<\/b>\r\n <\/h3>\r\n\r\n
\r\n
\r\n

In most cases compensation in kind is better. A company that built a communication plan around an event does not recover the lost value with a credit note: it recovers contacts and visibility through extra days, extended digital rights or replacement events, which also cost the counterparty less and are therefore easier to obtain in negotiation.<\/p>\n <\/div>\r\n <\/div>\r\n\r\n <\/div>\r\n
\n

\r\n\r\n

\r\n Why is a technical rule change a contractual risk?<\/b>\r\n <\/h3>\r\n\r\n
\r\n
\r\n

Because it alters the sporting product during the life of the contract. Formula 1 changed power units and aerodynamics in 2026 with Cadillac joining as the eleventh team, and MotoGP moves in 2027 from 1000 to 850 cc with ride height devices banned and 100% non fossil fuel. A multi-year deal spanning a reform should include a mid-term review window.<\/p>\n <\/div>\r\n <\/div>\r\n\r\n <\/div>\r\n
\n

\r\n\r\n

\r\n How much does losing a single event cost today?<\/b>\r\n <\/h3>\r\n\r\n
\r\n
\r\n

More than it used to, because per-event value has grown. In 2025 MotoGP recorded 3.6 million spectators at circuits against 3.03 million the previous year, and a global fanbase of 632 million people, 12% more than in 2024. A proportionality clause therefore protects a higher unit value than it did a few years ago.<\/p>\n <\/div>\r\n <\/div>\r\n\r\n <\/div>\r\n
\n\r\n <\/div>\r\n \n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Almost everyone treats sponsorship as buying space. That is why, when a race is cancelled or a rider is injured, they discover they bought a promise rather than a right. Updated September 2026. In motorsport the unexpected is not the exception, it is a budget line. A season runs eight months, crosses some twenty countries […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":14,"featured_media":158592,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[20024,20026],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-238065","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-marketing-sportivo","category-sponsorizzazioni-sportive"],"acf":[],"contentshake_article_id":"","yoast_head":"\nProtecting a Sponsorship from Disruption<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Force majeure, reduced service, sporting disruption and rule changes: the four clauses that protect a sponsorship investment when a season goes wrong.\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" 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