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What makes Wimbledon such an exciting prospect for sponsors?


Jodie Cormack - 3rd July 2017 - 0 comments

Wimbledon is one of England’s greatest sporting events. Year-on-year the tournament grows in players, visitors and viewing numbers, making Wimbledon an exciting prospect for sponsors.

The total attendance of last year’s event was 493,928 over the course of the 14-day competition. The 2016 attendance went up by 9,537 attendees from 2015’s Championship. Through broadcasts, the contest has a global audience. The BBC is the host broadcaster until 2024, the Men’s final had a peaked viewership of 13.3 Million and 1.9 million requested to watch the Livestream in 2016.

The All England Tennis Club (AELTC) is launching new innovations to grow its audience and build the future of the brand. Formerly known as ‘Live @ Wimbledon’, this year the competition is introducing a new approach for its digital videos, radio and online presence. As part of this, they will be providing multi-pronged media coverage for the whole event. The channel is available on Wimbledon.com, the Official App, Youtube, Twitter and selected segments on Facebook.

As sports viewership moves online, social media and digital platforms are playing a significant role in reaching a new global audience. Their TV channel reached 1.5m in 2016. They received 106 million video views and over 23.6 Million people visited the mobile site.

One of the main areas which are attractive to sponsors is the range of platform activations, experiences and engagement tools used.  Last year some of these included Facebook Frame, Facebook 360, #Wimbledon emojis, Live @ Wimbledon on YouTube, Pinterest Wimbledon food, YouTube 3D, Custom Snapchat filters and Live Stories of the Finals. These engagement tools allowed fans to build content and be a part of the Wimbledon action wherever they were.

Sports stars have a huge online following and many get paid thousand, even millions by sponsors to have their products used, worn or promoted. With Wimbledon providing only their sponsored goods, spectators at the venue and at home will see tennis stars using these items, this will expand reach worldwide due to how many followers athletes have globally.

As of 2017, Wimbledon has 14 Sponsors. The mutually beneficial supplier agreements allow for The Championship to provide goods and services which are essential to running a quality sports event. Sponsors receive global recognition. Not only are their products shown on all forms of media, these will be the only types of products which can be bought at the event by fans in attendance.

Their longest standing sponsor is Slazenger, as the official tennis ball supplier since 1902. Slazenger will supply over 52,000 balls for this year’s tournament. Other long-standing sponsors include Robinsons, Ralph Lauren and Evian. As of 2017, the competition’s newest sponsor is Pimms. These two brands are positioned as summer events, with Pimm’s strapline ‘Pimm’s O’Clock’ becoming an icon of British summertime – just like Wimbledon.

As technology developed Wimbledon partnered with IBM, making these their official information technology partner in 1990. IBM provides the All England Lawn Tennis Club and The Championship with continuous innovating developments which add to the fan experience. Stats like the speed of serve, real-time data and commentator digital solutions help to provide fans with a more integrated and engaged experience. In 2017, Wimbledon will be introducing Artificial Intelligence, producing a chat bot which provides information, stats, player data, all of which will help to develop a more all-around interactive experience.

What makes Wimbledon so attractive to sponsors is their guiding principles – continual improvement. The AELTC knows that each year they will attract sponsors and will have no problem when it comes to selling tickets. But to future proof the success of the brand the Championship needs to grow audiences in fast-growing economies where knowledge on Wimbledon – and perhaps tennis overall – is small. A way in which they have looked to resolve this issue is by producing the content-led campaign called ‘In Pursuit of Greatness’. This campaign includes nine 30-second, short films which tell the story of the year-round efforts which go into putting on the Wimbledon Championship and making it one of Britain’s biggest and best sporting events. All videos are to be released prominently on Facebook, YouTube and Snapchat to target a younger demographic.

As sports events go, Wimbledon is one of Britain’s most loved and consistently viewed occurrences. The mutually beneficial agreement leads to a significant exposure to brands which raise awareness to a global audience. With the AELTC providing innovations in social media, engagement technology and broadcasting platforms, Wimbledon can retain its unique, traditional image whilst future-proofing the success and growth of the brand to a wider global demographic.

 

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