Equestrian Sponsorship - can it really work for everyone's benefit?

I’ve never really understood sponsorship or accepted that it can work to everyone's benefit.

For me it’s basically like pyramid selling; those at the top will benefit but ultimately the vast majority of us, who fill the base of the pyramid, are simply subsidising those who sit above us.

Philanthropy?

We have to assume that all the companies who provide sponsorship are in it to make money and will expect to see a return on their investment. I don't think there any who sponsor on purely philanthropic grounds, but if there are I apologise to them. I guess investing in a sport with the long term intention of growing participation, and therefore your customer base, could be seen as a kind of benign philanthropy as after all there is no guarantee of success.

Sponsorship - very much part of the equestrian scene
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Sponsorship as cheap advertising

Most suppliers will use sponsorship as a relatively cheap and certainly more targeted form of advertising. In the main sponsorship allows suppliers to pay for advertising with product rather than with hard cash. Suppliers can also be certain that the product and celebrity endorsement will definitely reach their target audience by checking out the social media profile of the riders they choose to sponsor. Product endorsement is both real, as when the rider assures us how good the product is, or assumed, when we simply want to believe the product is effective simply by its association with a successful equestrian.

What is an Official Feed Partner?
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Product endorsement isn't without its pitfalls, as you see when sponsors suddenly ditch an individual who has committed a misdemeanour, or you may be cynical and think "yes, well I'd say something was good if you supplied it to me for free". Either way it is probably more believable than the supplier telling you how good the product is, as happens with more conventional advertising, and at the end of the day you have to feed your horse something.

"I'm always particularly galled when a rider opens their latest box of sponsorship goodies on their social media, - they're basically telling their followers "look what you've paid for me to have now"

Creating a Market

Like most things, sponsorship has grown in the equestrian world by the generation of "must have" products for people to spend their money on. Take the simple stirrup iron for example. I'm sure in my day you had two choices, the leather either attached to the top of the iron, or if you wanted something special, the attachment was offset slightly (and you had to make sure they were fitted on the correct side of the horse). Nowadays there a plethora of makes, styles and colours to choose from. A quick review of the Colne Saddlery website (other Equestrian websites are available) gave me a choice of about 80 stirrup irons across 12 suppliers with the most expensive not leaving much change from £300! (People assured me that ~£300 was for a pair although opinion was divided as to whether the additional expense was worth it or not!).

Spoilt for choice

And don't get me started on riding hats and the associated bling. I visited a dressage competition recently and wasn’t sure if I was witnessing sport or fancy dress?

Event sponsorship comes at a price

Another avenue for sponsorship is event sponsorship, with title sponsorship at the highest level but which also breaks down to class sponsorship and in eventing, fence sponsorship. Again we can look at this as a kind of targeted advertising which clearly offsets the cost to venues of running events and can in some circumstances result in a bigger prize fund. Without this funding we can expect that events would cost more to enter, more to spectate at and presumably the prizes wouldn’t be quite so exciting. Instead competitors and spectators pay for the event indirectly through their support of the sponsors’ products and services.

Two tier spectating
©Harveywetdog

At the same time event sponsorship comes at a price. Sponsors appear to need to be entertained (witness long snake of Land Rovers guiding sponsors around Gatcombe), forward parking is demanded, lunch has to be provided and much champagne has to be quaffed. At the large events sponsors will want their own hospitality, taking up the best seats in the house and generally making a nuisance of themselves (witness the noise created from the posh seats at the Winter Dressage Championships at Hartpury and them having to be told to keep the noise down by the commentator). I'm old enough to remember when the enclosure at the south end of the main arena at Badminton was reserved for BHS Members, not anymore, it is now the reserve of the Weatherby Hamilton Members who are prepared to pay dearly for the privilege.

Many sponsors benefit from being able to provide their own corporate hospitality at these events and are able to either reward their staff or their customers (or both). Sponsors can also benefit from having their trade stands in the most prestigious and advantageous locations. for example when SsangYong took over as Blenheim Palace title sponsors the media marquee was moved to the back of beyond so that the cars could be put on display adjacent to the main arena.

Live streaming - slowly killing our sport? 

A trend over the last few years has been to see closer ties between livestreaming companies and the sport governing bodies. This is another form of sponsorship as it gives the broadcast company the rights to the sport itself plus it gains access to the members. Members are forced to pay to view the sport and be subject to another round of advertising for the privilege of watching. It is hard to know who gets the best deal out of this, Hugh Thomas once told me the only rights worth having in eventing were Badminton's, and while I might say Burghley and Badminton I can't believe other events demand much of an audience.

Dressage is going the same way but without their number one star I imagine they are currently struggling for audience as well. What is clear is that visitor numbers to events is falling with the consequential impact on trade stand and atmosphere. 

Be careful with your data

The most valuable asset any of the governing bodies hold is its list of members, or more precisely their e-mail addresses. Suppliers go to great lengths to get this information out of us via questionnaires and competitions and while some of the resulting email traffic is useful a lot of it isn’t. A select number of suppliers are given access to this information hence the emails we receive, supposedly from the governing body but which are in fact simply advertisements. I appreciate you can unsubscribe from the mailing lists but I did that for BD and now I don’t get anything from them at all!

We all matter!
Source BE download

The big picture - how high do you fly your helicopter?

So what's the answer, does sponsorship really work in the grand scheme of things? It depends on just how big your big picture is, how high are you flying your chopper for your helicopter view. 

Yes sponsors benefit from access to their target audience, individual events and a select group of riders will benefit directly leaving the rest of us to pick up the bill from the sponsor to offset their largesse.

Is it possible we would all be better off if sponsorship didn't exist and everyone simply paid their way without discounted fees and free gifts?

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Author - David Robinson  

David spent approaching 50 years in Her Majesty's Electricity Supply Industry before retiring

He was part of the highly successful design team on the Sizewell B Nuclear Power Station Project before spending 25 years producing safety cases to keep our aging AGR fleet generating for the good of the nation

He is responsible for the Harveywetdog YouTube Channel which he maintains as an outlet for his creative talents

David is currently recovering from blood cancer but refuses to be a victim

All views are his own but might be influenced by the drugs he's currently having to take