Nissan announced five key criteria for selecting sports sponsorships at the Leaders in Sport conference, emphasizing the value of global media exposure and emotional connection in automotive marketing. Allianz's Christian Deuringer discussed the company's strategic approach to stadium naming rights, while Heineken's Hans-Erik Tuijt expressed a desire for the European rugby competitions to expand. Additionally, industry leaders shared insights on effectively leveraging digital channels, engaging social media content, and the evolving landscape of sports sponsorships.

1. LEADERS 2014: Nissan outlines five criteria for sports
sponsorships
Date:
8 October 2014
All the major sports properties in Japanese carmaker
-
met five criteria set by the brand when selecting a sports
property, Roel De Vries, Nissan's head of brand strategy and
marketing told delegates at the Leaders in Sport conference
this morning.
Nissan, he said, addresses five criteria when picking a sports
property:
global
omers
There is a preference for properties with built-in media
exposure which does not put the onus for activation on the
brand.
Over the last three years, Nissan has shifted a proportion of
its marketing spend from conventional advertising to
sponsorship, including major deals with the Rio 2016
Olympics local organising committee, the African Cup of
Nations and Uefa Champions League football tournaments,
Football Group of professional football clubs.
De Vries said that communicating what a car brand is selling
via advertising can be wasteful given that consumers buy
cars, on average, just once every six years. The marketing
process is also complicated by the number of models on sale
and the number of decision-said.
a brand. Emotion is the biggest reason people buy cars. A car
is a reflection of who we are and what we like."
De Vries also announced Manchester City player Yaya Toure
as a new ambassador for the brand, alongside Paris St
Germain's Thiago Silva and FC Barcelona's Andre Iniesta.
LEADERS 2014: Allianz had arm twisted to sign Munich
arena deal
Date:
9 October 2014
Christian Deuringer, director of global brand management
at insurance company Allianz, said the brand had to be
heavily persuaded into taking its flagship stadium naming
In 2005, the brand signed a 30-year deal until 2034 with the
government of Munich for the rights to the Allianz Arena.
The stadium is multi-purpose but primarily used by football
clubs Bayern Munich and 1860 Munich.
The rights had initially been offered to German carmaker
BMW who turned it down because they felt there was no
value in a stadium deal in Germany, Deuringer said.
Deuringer said the experience in Munich was the catalyst for
its 'Family of Stadiums' programme. Allianz now has stadium
deals in the UK, Austria, France, Australia and Brazil.
Speaking at the Leaders Sport Business Summit in
London, Deuringer said it was Allianz policy to take a
sponsorship deal either as a stadium was under construction
or as it was about to open. He said that taking a naming
rights deal after another brand had already held the rights is
He highlighted the case of the stadium in Hamburg owned
by German Bundesliga club Hamburger SV. The stadium has
taken on three corporate names since 2001 and is currently
known as the Imtech Arena, after IT company Royal Imtech.
for the club, not good for the fans and, especially, it is not
Heineken wants "former Heineken Cup" to embrace
Spain and Germany
Speaking at the same conference session, Hans-Erik Tuijt,
global activation director for drinks brand Heineken, said he
would like to see the new European club rugby competitions
expand into more territories and include clubs from Spain
and Germany.
-level rugby and the
he said.
This month, Heineken announced it would be a top-tier
partner of the European Rugby Champions Cup and
European Rugby Challenge Cup tournaments. The former
competition.
Tuijt said he was unsure about the name of the new top-level
Champions Cup competition and joked that he would prefer
LEADERS 2014: Clubs not listened to by FIFA, European
football bosses say
Date:
8 October 2014
Real Madrid vice-president Pedro López Jiménez said
football's world governing body FIFA was "dysfunctional" in
communicating with European football club consortium
the ECA, speaking today on a panel at the Leaders Sport
mford Bridge.
The ECA (European Clubs Association), at which Jiménez is
vice-chairman, feels it has little voice within FIFA, he said, a
situation which did not reflect the importance of European
players and clubs to the world game and tournaments such
as the World Cup.
Qatar controversy
Karl-Heinz Rummenigge, chief executive of German
champions Bayern Munich and ECA chairman, also speaking
on the panel, said Fifa's decision to award the 2022 World
Cup hosting rights to Qatar is a decision that its executive
committee members would have to stick with and it would
not be fair on the country should it lose its rights.
However, should the event move from its traditional
summer slot, Rummenigge said FIFA would have to
compensate club football for the consequent loss of
revenues from disrupted domestic fixtures.
AC Milan director and ECA vice-chairman Umberto Gandini,
also speaking at the panel, suggested that the winter
Olympics - due to take place at the time FIFA are hoping to
stage it's 2022 flagship event - should be rescheduled as "it
is not a major competition like the World Cup and the
summer Olympics".
LEADERS 2014: Three tips for successful online sports
content, from Bleacher Report
Date:
9 October 2014

2. Dave Finocchio, founder of sports news website Bleacher
Report, shared some of his company's secrets for creating
strong sports content at the 2014 Leaders Sports Business
Summit this morning.
Finocchio set up Bleacher Report in 2007 with schoolfriends
Bryan Goldberg and Dave Nemetz. In August 2012 it was
acquired by media conglomerate Turner Broadcasting
System, part of Time Warner, for a reported $200m. It
currently boasts over 40m unique users a month, according
to comScore.
1) Stay True to the Target Audience
Bleacher Report is heavily used by a young demographic,
and Finocchio says it is committed to delivering content to
that specific demographic, rather than the widest audience
possible.
"When we think about who our audience is, we think about
a 25-year-old. So it's great if a 65-year-old loves our products,
that's fantastic, but when we're figuring out what we want
our voice to be we have a 25-year-old in mind," he said.
2) Sharing is the New Views
Sharing is a vital metric Bleacher Report uses to judge
whether a piece of content is successful.
"We've done very well with social; one of our main filters our
editors are forced to look at is whether they are creating
content people want to share with their friends...peer-to-peer
sharing of content has emerged as something we do in
our day-to-day lives," Finocchio said.
3) Use Data to Guide Coverage
Sport is unique in that events take place at roughly the same
time every year. Bleacher Report looked at how and when
users consumed content around specific events - using
Google analytics tools - and then put together a plan to
produce the right content at the right time the next year.
The NFL Draft was an event Bleacher Report found was
under-covered compared to the demand for coverage, and
so began to increase the amount of content around it.
LEADERS 2014: Beats 'didn't ambush London 2012'
Date:
9 October 2014
Omar Johnson, executive vice-president for marketing at
Beats by Dr. Dre headphones, has said the use of his
company's products by athletes at the 2012 London
Olympic Games wasn't 'ambush marketing'.
Beats by Dr. Dre is the most famous product line of audio
electronics manufacturer Beats Electronics, which was co-founded
by rapper and hip hop producer Dr. Dre
and bought by Apple earlier this year for $3bn.
At London 2012, Beats, which was not an official sponsor of
the Games, sent Great Britain team members special
versions of the headphones branded with Union
Jack colours, and also gave headphones to athletes who
visited its hospitality space at the Shoredtich House venue
in London. Athletes went on to mention the headphones on
social media and wore them during Olympics broadcasts.
"There was a lot of interest in what was going on...[but] there
were no paid athletes. And when you think about ambush
marketing, [that refers to] us going out to conspire to disrupt
an event. We are easily able to show we go to all big sporting
events...it was normal business for Beats," he said, speaking
at today's Leaders Sport Business Summit in London.
"Not everyone was happy but we didn't break any rules."
It is rumoured that under the NFL's new sponsorship deal
with rival manufacturer Bose, players are prohibited from
using any non-Bose headphones - including Beats - while
they are on camera. At this year's football World Cup, several
players had to take off Beats headphones ahead of matches
and at media events due to FIFA's sponsorship deal with
Sony.
LEADERS 2014: Trolls, technology and truth social
media lessons from Tom Daley
Date:
9 October 2014
Olympic Bronze medallist Tom Daley delivered a how-to
guide for athletes on succeeding on social media, at the
Leaders Sport Business Summit today.
The diver has more than 2.6m followers on Twitter, and has
learned some valuable lessons on how to survive in what can
be a treacherous arena.
Ignore the trolls
Following the London 2012 Olympics, Daley exposed a
down his late
father by missing out on an Olympic medal. He now believes
that ignorance is the best policy when it comes to trolls.
the time the trolls hide behind an egg profile picture, so it
makes them easier to ignore. Every athlete will get trolls on
Embrace technology
Daley relaunched his own YouTube channel this year, and it
has gathered more than 180,000 subscribers. His advice for
amera with you, wherever you
go.
and I have always got my camera with me which means if
something spontaneous happens, I can film it and share
Be honest
Daley hit the hea
his sexuality.
all the time asking me to promote something
on my Twitter like whenever I go to a new restaurant or
something
Don't overthink it
Taking care over what you post is a basic guideline for
anyone on social media, especially in a professional capacity.
But those wishing to develop their image online can
sometimes go too far in the other direction. A common trap
for athletes is to deliberate over every tweet they write,
which Daley said he has suffered with in the past.
probably did three or four takes before eventually using the
first one.
coming through writing. As
soon as you start overthinking it, you are not being natural
LEADERS 2014: Arsenal, Dortmund, Bulls and 49ers on
the digital opportunities clubs must be exploiting
Date:
9 October 2014
shared views on how best to use digital channels to
generate revenue from fans at the Leaders Sport Business
Summit today.

3. The panel featured Craig Howe, consulting head of digital
and social media at the San Francisco 49ers and the Chicago
Bulls; David Görges, head of new media and CRM at Borussia
Dortmund; Michael Leavey, media, marketing and CRM
director at Arsenal FC.
Selling the followers
Rights-holders must sell the benefits of their social media
platforms, including their data on their followers, to brands,
Leavey said.
Social media follower data can be relayed to sponsors to
increase value, and can also be put to organisations looking
of
existing sponsors just expecting to be a part of your digital
strategy when you sign commercial deals, clubs should
actively tell them what their digital platforms can do for
The key, however, is collecting data on social media
followers and their interests, even outside of sport.
This may require significant investment, and there is little
point in doing it half- - it's
either central to your business or you shouldn't bother with
In-stadium experience
Görges suggested that clubs can replicate the intense
feeling of being in their stadium on digital platforms to
engage fans.
And Howe said tailored social media content should be used
to engage overseas fans, and this can sometimes be very
sim
public holiday in its local language.
platforms is so low right now that just two messages written
in Chinese, for example, a year is enough to
he said.
LEADERS 2014: Facebook and the NBA on creating
engaging content
Date:
9 October 2014
Mundane family photos, courtside experiences and getting
the timing right were among the themes as the NBA and
Facebook discussed how to create engaging social media
content at the Leaders Sports Summit this afternoon.
Among the nuggets from Melissa Rosenthal Brenner, senior
vice-president of digital media at the NBA:
 "Mundane family photos" accounted for some of
the most engaged-with NBA content
 NBA commissioner Adam Silver's vision is pushing
his team to convey the courtside experience to fans
via social media.
entertainment media for partnerships in Europe, the Middle
East and Africa:
 The social network's data suggests that fans do not
want minute-by-minute coverage of a game, and
prefer content such as squad formations
 Rights-holders are missing a huge opportunity if
they are not publishing content online before and
after a game, because that's when fans want to
discuss the game
 It is the amount of engagement, not the amount of
followers, that determines how well a sports
property uses social media. Over a third (36 per
cent) of footballer Wayne Rooney's Facebook
friends or likes are fake.
LEADERS 2014: Concacaf calls for return to World Cup
rotation
Date:
8 October 2014
Jeffrey Webb, FIFA vice-president and president of
CONCACAF, has called on football's world governing body
to reintroduce the continental rotation of the World Cup.
Webb, talking at today's Leaders Sport Business Summit at
Chelsea FC's Stamford Bridge, said that in 2007 when FIFA
scrapped rotating the World Cup from 2018, of the six world
football confederations, CONCACAF (the Confederation of
North, Central American and Caribbean Association
Football) "was the most [negatively] affected".
A CONCACAF member last hosted the World Cup in 1994,
when the United States welcomed international football's
flagship tournament.
scandals, also called for a "redacted" version of the report by
FIFA's independent investigator Michael Garcia - into the
controversial bidding process for the 2018 and 2022 World
Cups - to be made public.
LEADERS 2014: Olympics and army help Citi beat crisis
Date:
8 October 2014
Dermot Boden, chief brand officer of financial services
company Citigroup, said the brand's sponsorships of the US
Olympic and paralympic teams were highly valuable in
rebuilding its reputation after the financial crisis.
Boden, chief brand officer of financial services company
Citigroup, said the brand's sponsorship of the US Olympic
Committee (USOC) was highly valuable in rebuilding its
reputation after the financial crisis.
Speaking at the Leaders Sport Business Summit in London
today, Boden said Citigroup's reputation had been severely
damaged by the financial crisis and the role that financial
services companies had played. Citigroup used sponsorship
to "re-engage" with its audience and conducted research to
find the right vehicle.
"We found two things that were beyond reproach: the
military and the Olympics," he said.
The brand first sponsored Team USA in 2011, signing a two-year
deal to be the Official Bank that covered the London
2012 Games. It has since renewed the deal for 2013 to 2016.
The brand partnered with USOC because Citigroup is
"ultimately an American bank." It also sponsored the US
Paralympic team because of the number of ex-military
personnel in the team.
Boden said public perception of the brand had moved from
negative to positive just two weeks into London 2012,
according to its own research.
Williams cool on social selling
Claire Williams, deputy team principal and commercial
director of the Williams Formula One racing team, speaking
in the same conference session as Boden, said the team was
currently not in favour of selling goods to fans directly via
social media channels, as it might turn the audience away
from what is an important platform for the team and its
sponsors. Platforms including Facebook enable direct sales
of goods to the network's users.