Nielsen Forecasts Strong Sports Sponsorship Recovery in China

A recent study by Nielsen Sports has forecast that China will account for a third of all growth in the global sport sponsorship market over the next decade.

Nielson acknowledged all nations are recovering at differing speeds as they tackle the economic repercussions of the COVID-19 pandemic, and emphasised that the slow introduction of vaccines will make the easing back into normality simpler for some, and difficult for others.

According to the World Bank in January, China’s economy is tipped to rise by 7.9% for 2021, following 2% growth in 2020, which will be the fastest and largest expansion globally.

In comparison, US GDP is predicted to contract by 0.1%,  while Europe’s is predicted to fall 3.8% over the same period.

The research agency noted that the advent of sporting investment for the Chinese commenced at the Beijing Olympics, with “Chinese companies increasingly using sports sponsorship as a platform to support the growth of their brands,” the study said.

Chinese smartphone company, Vivo, is one of these brands, and has achieved significant clout in the global sports sponsorship market recently.

They are a major sponsor of FIFA, with football being seen as large investment opportunity in China for the past decade. In the Asian sports sponsorship market, they are still title sponsors of the Indian Premier League (IPL), the world’s richest T20 tournament despite political tensions nearly scuppering the deal, and creating a premature end to the partnership. 

Chinese-based brands had a +8.9% Compound Annual Growth Rate (CAGR) in sponsorship spend between 2015 and 2019, a reflection of the way brands in China are adopting sponsorship and sports platforms to enter new markets, and on own home soil.