EPL side Tottenham has agreed to a "five-year sponsorship deal with insurance service providers AIA" from the start of the '14-15 season, according to SKY SPORTS.
AIA "linked up with Spurs at the start of this season" as FA Cup shirt partner but "will become principal global partner from the start of next term." AIA's logo "will appear on the front of Tottenham's shirts in all competitions until 2019."
The club hopes the agreement with the Hong Kong-based company "can act as a platform to grow the club's name in the Asia-Pacific region." Tottenham Chair Daniel Levy said, "Together we share long-term ambitions across Asia -- a region where the club has seen significant growth in recent years -- and this extended partnership with AIA ... will further help to support our objectives and engage with our supporters across the region" (SKY SPORTS, 2/13). The PA's Simon Peach reported the deal to be "worth far in excess of the £12 ($20M) million-a-year previously reported" (PA, 2/13). In London, Davies & Blitz reported Tottenham Hotspur "is chasing English football rivals Manchester United, Arsenal and Liverpool by launching a big push to win Asian fans after signing a multimillion-pound shirt sponsorship deal with AIA." Asia is a "huge market for the English Premier League, supplying by far the biggest share of overseas television broadcast rights money and more than 10 per cent of sponsorship revenue." The North London-based club said that it has 80 million fans in Asia and that Indonesia "is its largest single country for Facebook followers, ahead of even the U.K." But unlike its rivals, it "has failed to convert that fan base into revenues."
ManU, for example, "has 17 of its 35 global commercial sponsorships in Asia." Coventry University sports business academic Simon Chadwick said, "Tottenham’s deal with AIA is part of a more coherent market-entry and development strategy, which involves engaging with fans on a more immediate, direct basis" (FINANCIAL TIMES, 2/13).
