Manchester United has signed a $48M, four-year deal
making UK-based mobile phone company Vodafone the team's new
principal sponsor starting June 1. Vodafone replaces Sharp
Electronics, whose name has appeared on the team's jerseys
for the past 18 years. In addition to logo placement on the
jerseys, Vodafone receives hospitality, stadium signage and
the rights to United's marks in ads and promos. Also,
Vodafone will develop wireless Internet service for the team
(Manchester United). The FINANCIAL TIMES' Harverson &
Garrahan wrote that the deal "dwarfs all other sponsorship
deals in British soccer." Vodafone "won the deal after
intense competition from other potential sponsors,"
including Emirates Airlines, Yahoo! and AOL (FINANCIAL
TIMES, 2/11). Harverson adds that the Vodafone deal is
"worth more than three times" the Sharp contract.
Sponsorship consultants give Sharp "low marks for its poor
handling" of its sponsorship, as the company has "done
little to leverage" its deal. United CEO Peter Kenyon said
the team "decided early on we wanted our next partner to be
in the media environment." While Harverson notes that a
mobile phone company "is not a media business in the purest
sense, it is ideally placed to exploit the coming
convergence of media technologies and platforms." Vodafone
will share with the club the revenues from future wireless
Internet services sold to United fans (FINAN. TIMES, 2/14).
