Students are required to identify and recognize new sponsorship opportunities in a complex sport competitive environment and analyze the factors to be considered and the feasibility of the project: •...

SPORTS SPONSORSHIP – MSP303
Table of Contents
Introduction    3
Analysis    3
Conclusion    13
References    14
Introduction
Partnerships are joint efforts which contribute various opportunities to the business for achieving the desired business objectives. Even if the business is small, two or more partners can enter into a partnership business. Merchants and traders from traditional days made use of strategic partnerships for conducting the business. Further, business owner partners with other firms for investing, sharing of technical knowledge and ideas. Hence, it must be right partnership which must be agreed between the two parties for making the business a success. Hence, it is through strategic partnership agreement the business is able to grow its customer base. Thus, it’s a good business partnership which helps to make the business better by lifting up the weaknesses and enhancing the strengths.
The partnership which will take place between Gymshark and FC Aston Villa in Birmingham. Gymshark was invented by Ben Francis at the age of 19 years. The company became one of the fastest growing fitness apparel companies in the world. On the other hand, FC Aston Villa is a skilled football club which is located in Aston, Birmingham. It is a club which was founded in the year 1874 and is also one of the clubs which have won the European Cup in 1981-82. The club has huge number of fans and supporters who are mostly from the Midlands and various parts of the world. The partnership which will take place between the two companies will be in terms of jersey and sponsorship. There will be two properties which will also be sponsored by Gymshark in collaboration with FC Aston Villa. These two properties will be a marathon and a stadium which will be partnered for a price of $10 million.
Analysis
The two companies are Gymshark and FC Aston Villa in Birmingham. It will be a partnership of $1 million between the two companies’ jersey and sponsorship. There will be two types of jersey which will be provided by Gymshark to the players of Aston Villa. One will be for domestic games and another will be for the international matches. For the home matches it will be maroon shirts with navy blue colour on the sides and Gymshark written in bold in the middle portion of the shirt. For the away matches it will be white shirts with red horizontal stripes and the name of the company Gymshark written in the middle. Further, the shirt will be made of pure 100% cotton. The accessories that will be provided Gymshark to the football players will be equipment such as sweat towels, foam roller, gloves for goalkeepers and wrist straps along with socks, bottles and bags. It will be Villa Park which will be the home ground of FC Aston Villa. Further, it will be The Birmingham 2022 marathon which will be of 26.2 miles held and sponsored by Gymshark in collaboration with FC Aston Villa. A certain amount of money will be paid by Gymshark to FC Aston Villa for getting the sponsorship rights and for fixing the bilateral games and international fixtures (Visua, 2022).
Opportunities
The opportunities that will be available due to the partnership of FC Aston Villa and Gymshark are that there will be an increase in the number of customers of Gymshark purchasing more sport apparels. Further, since Gymshark is sponsoring the well-known football team FC Aston Villa it will be able to target the population between the age group of 18- to 35-year-old demographics. Further, it is evident that a certain brand can offer huge benefit in the form of revenue generation from the sports sponsorships and by targeted advertising in the stadiums. Further, since the highest grossing sporting event in the sports industry is football, Gymshark can take advantage of this situation. Further, sports sponsorship is valuable for both Gymshark and FC Aston Villa as it can attract massive audience which they are able to reach. This can be linked to high rate of Return (ROI). Also, there are numerous numbers of fans of FC Aston Villa who will start purchasing the various merchandises offered by Gymshark.
Since Gymshark is sponsoring the jersey and the properties of FC Aston Villa, the members of the football club will start subscribing for the products of Gymshark. Further, Gymshark have acquired 5 million viewers as on January, 2021. There are sports celebrity trainers such as Kim Kardashian and Melissa Alcantara along with big time fitness athletes and sport icons who will promote FC Aston Villa with the Gymshark logo jersey of the sporting club. Further, this partnership will help to increase the number of Facebook followers of both the companies. The Facebook page of Gymshark company till now have received more than 1.8 million likes (Leighton, 2021).
The opportunities with respect to the holding of marathon in 2022 will be in the form of getting huge viewership of the Gymshark brand and its collaboration with FC Aston Villa. The logo of the brand Gymshark presented on the shirt will attract more customers for the apparel store.
Success factors
The success factors which can be used for the partnership between Gymshark and FC Aston Villa are with respect to the management skills which are of huge significance for efficiently administering and maintaining a cordial the relationships. These factors form the foundation for commencement and enabling the partnering process. Following are the success factors which can help to measure establish cordial relationship among the two companies.
1. Sufficient availability of resources: There is need to enquire the extent to which the organizations require resources from the partners. Further, the resources in case of Gymshark will be with respect to finance, raw materials, human resources such as labours and staffs. Also, one partner needs to keep the other partner informed of the changes with respect to information for execution of the work. From FC Aston Villa’s point of view, it will be making the stadium available for displaying the Gymshark advertisement throughout the stadium and the arranging for the marathon within the deadline.
2. Support from the management: This is with respect to the...