By Paul Nicholson
January 11 – CONCACAF have issued a request for proposals to agencies to represent their worldwide sponsorship rights. The new agency will take over from disgraced Traffic Sports who held the contract exclusively but whose executives have been at the forefront of paying bribes and kickbacks in the region to secure commercial rights.
CONCACAF says that the “RFP marks beginning of bidding process”, indicating that it is looking for a minimum guarantee for the rights for its national team, club and youth competitions.
How high agencies are prepared to go with a guarantee will be interesting. While the Gold Cup was a huge success with fans, for obvious reasons it failed to attract significant new sponsors once the US indictments had seen the confederation’s president and general secretary banned from the sport due to corruption allegations – one imprisoned and the other collaborating with US investigators.
With a new broom promised and a new ethics code seemingly implemented, the structures still failed to prevent interim president Alfredo Hawit and a raft of other regional leaders being arrested on charges of corruption.
That said the confederation has forged on with some notable successes – not least the success of its blue riband Gold Cup national team event in 2015 and its intention to host – with the US federation and doubtless regulatory oversight – the CopaAmerica Centenario this year.
But lacking in this activity has been the emergence of new sponsors eager to take the opportunities of a growing profile for football in the US in particular.
In December 2014 CONCACAF announced Scotiabank as the first official partner of a revamped sponsorship programme. In an initial four-year deal, the bank became the title sponsor of the CONCACAF Champions League, the official bank of the confederation, and a main sponsor of the Gold Cup – at an estimated cost of $15 million per year.
The deal also included sponsorship for the next two editions of the CFU Caribbean Cup and the UNCAF Central American Cup, as well as CONCACAF championships in Beach Soccer, Futsal and the Girls’ and Boys’ under-15 levels. The U-15 event scheduled for 2015 in the Cayman Islands that had 36 entrant nations was cancelled after the Zurich arrests in May.
The CFU and UNCAF events are not part of the new CONCACAF offering. Even so, with the Gold Cup and Champions League there are some prime sponsorship assets that will be well marketed by the confederation in terms of ticket sales in particular.
“Through CONCACAF’s tournaments, we continue to see a rise in the quality of play and the competitiveness of the teams across the region, which is fueling a growing intensity of fan support,” said Acting General Secretary Ted Howard. “It is our responsibility to select commercial partners who share the Confederation’s vision and commitment to grow the game by giving all of our players and teams a more robust platform to display their talents, as well as creating world-class fan experiences at CONCACAF events.”
CONCACAF and CONMEBOL recently appointed US agencies Soccer United Marketing and IMG to handle sponsorship and broadcast rights to the CopaAmerica Centenario 2016 which will be played in the US. Host cities have been appointed though no sponsor or broadcast deals have been announced for the tournament that starts in June.
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