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Re: Betting companies as sponsors during Hearn's era

Postby Iranu

Wildey wrote:Yea too many eggs in one basket and Hearn being so pally with betting firms are definitely putting other companies off from sponsoring and the same could be said about tobacco in the past.


Snookers World Championship has got a long term contract with Betfred so realistically would other product want to get in on the act sponsoring the English Open while a Betting firm has a strangle hold of the Big one

I don’t think that’s so much the issue. Remember, assuming each sponsor puts the same proportion into the prize fund, Betfred put 7x as much money into the WC as 19.com put into the English Open last year. So a betting company only has to be 1/7 the size of Betfred as a minimum to see the English Open as a viable sponsorship opportunity.

The problem is that because gambling companies rely heavily on sports their revenue has been ravaged by the lack of events, and also because there are fewer sporting events going on sponsorships are less lucrative than they would ordinarily be, so it’s a double hit.

It’s definitely true though that snooker has relied too heavily on betting companies. The good news according to Hendon is that because of increased ticket revenue and TV coverage money, snooker’s in a good place compared to a lot of sports. Hearn is apparently envisaging getting through this season relatively unscathed without sponsors and is concerned with bringing them onboard for next season.

And if it means less reliance on betting companies, all the better.

Re: Betting companies as sponsors during Hearn's era

Postby chengdufan

Wildey wrote:Yea but at the moment who has money to throw on sponsorship you don't know from one minute to the next who will be locked down next they will have to tighten the belts, so they come out the other side still trading a hell of a lot of firms are finished in a lot of sectors.

I would be looking at companies that have a presence in China's domestic market and are relevant to the snooker fan demographic here. In fact, I would have been doing this for a while.
Most snooker fans here (and this is without doing any market research, just my intuition) are men aged about 26-45 I think. Meaning most who will be spending money on consumer goods and services will have young families.
I'd perhaps look at the main sports equipment retailers like Decathlon. But my best bet (excuse the pun) would be car manufacturers (Kia for example invest heavily in lower tier sports sponsorship), education service providers (AI education solutions are getting a lot of advertising space here at the moment), and investment funds.

Re: Betting companies as sponsors during Hearn's era

Postby chengdufan

I would love to see what a WST marketing pitch to potential sponsors is like. Does anyone know?

They may well do it very professionally, but for some reason I get the impression that they probably don't do the boardroom suited up, snazzy presentation followed by expensive meal that most execs expect. Maybe just the expensive meal bit..?

Re: Betting companies as sponsors during Hearn's era

Postby Alex0paul

SnookerFan wrote:
Alex0paul wrote:The Ideal Boilers Series has a nice ring to it


Can Boiler Man come tournaments?


Boiler Man v Baggie Bird