Tottenham’s progression through to the group stage of the Champions League is a momentous achievement for a club that just 20 months ago sat bottom of the Premier League.
Having broken the big cup monopoly of the supposed big four clubs, United, Chelsea, Liverpool and Arsenal, to finish fourth in the league and eventually ensure Champions League qualification, the club is set for a considerable financial windfall.
The economic benefit to the club will be substantial, as will benefit to the clubs image and reputation across Europe as an emerging football power, but perhaps the biggest winner isn’t the club at all, instead it is the second choice shirt sponsor Investec.
At the start of the season, Chairman Daniel Levy announced that the club would be implementing a pioneering dual sponsorship deal on their shirts.
Software infrastructure company Autonomy was announced as the White Hart Lane club’s shirt sponsor in the Premier League, while Investec would be the shirt sponsor for Champions League and domestic cup competitions for the next two years.
A novel way for the club to make extra money for the club, Levy is clearly an astute business man.
The deal for Investec however was far from guaranteed to ensure exposure of the brand, as it relied on Spurs progressing in the cup competitions, but now that they’ve qualified for the biggest cup competition of them all, Investec will be surely be smiling shrewdly that their gamble has reaped a considerable reward.
According to the BBC the deal is believed to be worth £5m over two years, although the club has not disclosed the value, but at that price the deal appears to be a bargain.
The Champions League is now the most-watched annual sports event globally having knocked the NFL’s Super Bowl off top spot and it draws a global audience of 109 million people, according to BBC.
Not merely confined to small attendances on wet Tuesday nights against lower league opposition in domestic cup competitions, or a brief highlights reel on BBC or ITV, the Investec brand will now have a global reach according to Kevin Alavay, the report’s director.
“While the Super Bowl has secured free-to-air broadcasting deals in a number of important European markets such as the UK, France and Germany, its distribution and popularity in the key Asia-Pacific region lags far behind the Champions League.”
Bearing this in mind Bernard Kantor, Global Managing Director of Investec highlighted his enthusiasm for the deal “we share a common goal for high energy performance, a strong team spirit and developing talent. We look forward to an exciting season ahead with Spurs.”
Tottenham’s progression through to the Champions League was far from guaranteed when the deal was signed and after their 3-2 away defeat in Berne, Investec’s gamble seemed to be a considerable one, as if they had been eliminated the brand would have had a considerably smaller market share and been restricted to Channel 5ive and ITV4’s screening of the Big Vase and highlights of the domestic cup competitions.
Instead the Investec shareholders will now be able to flaunt their impending wealth and rub their formerly nervously nail bitten hands with glee, as they look forward to the global exposure that the Champions League brings.
What the company’s bemused looking zebra mascot makes of the news is unclear though.
Posted By Dan Mobbs - Thursday August 26, 2010.As Tottenham qualified for the CL, Investec now have to pay more to the club. It’s win-win.
The exposure on the CL will be great for their company and the money will be great for Tottenham.
“According to the BBC the deal is believed to be worth £5m over two years, although the club has not disclosed the value, but at that price the deal appears to be a bargain.”
Blimey!!How to write a long detailed article based on the guess of a BBC journalist with absolutely no basis of fact. A bloke who knows my milkmans neighbour has a friend who has a column in a local free paper who thinks the deal is worth double. See anyone can write a competent article. Don’t confuse us with FACTS as when someones mind is made uyp who needs facts.
It was never much of a gamble for club or sponsor really. The whole deal is structured in a way that pays more if Spurs do well, and less if Spurs don’t.
Other clubs will no doubt follow suit. Frankly how this split hadn’t been explouted before is anyone’s guess.
Thanks for the comments guys.
The Champions League is an exciting prospect for Spurs and Investec, as it’s uncharted territory for both and will promote them to audiences that were perhaps unaware of them previously.
Regarding the specifics of the amount Investec have paid for the deal, neither party has so far released a statement specifying an amount, so a source from the well regarded and fastidious BBC should hopefully be close to the mark. An Insider, if your milkman’s neighbour’s friend has researched a different amount I would genuinely be interested to know it.
Not sure what you mean in your last sentence though. What is ‘us’ that has been confused with facts and whose mind has been made uyp?
If Spurs hadn’t progressed and had a difficult cup season, Investec wouldn’t have seen much bang for their £5million bucks, so it was a gamble in that sense, but even if it’s revealed the fee increases along with Tottenham’s progression, it‘s still a shrewd venture.
As DannyMackay pointed out, other clubs could now follow suit in copying Spurs’ example to raise additional funds.
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