中国某体育基金向英超曼城俱乐部的母公司城市足球集团注资4亿美元购买其股份，这无疑能推动足球的发展，特别是中国的足球，在未来将会受益于对方对职业足球管理、运营等方面的知识和经验。但是，这个新闻很快就会失去热度，投资商的名字也会被大部分人遗忘，当然对投资公司而言也许并不重要。

然而，会有一大部分中国的公司希望投资国际足球产业，并且希望得到赞助带来的最大化的曝光度。但问题是，这些企业往往不知道如何有效地将赞助货币化。在中国，如果企业付钱让其商标出现在俱乐部的比赛队服上，它便视其为沉没成本。是的，企业会得到球员穿着印有企业商标服装的照片，并小小地炫耀，但是他们并没有真正“激活”赞助权益。

所以，当我审视一个在欧洲的赞助机会时，最初的成本可能会比在中国赞助类似赛事要贵上一些，但是，曝光度和利用赞助费的机会将会是巨大的。让我们来举一个例子

在英格兰，联赛杯是第一至四级职业联赛全部92支职业俱乐部参加的淘汰制杯赛。赛事将会以赞助商名字命名，现在的冠名赞助商是信用卡公司CapitalOne，所以杯赛被称为Capital One杯。不仅仅在英格兰，在全球其他各个地方的电视、纸面和广播媒体中，也包括球迷中，赛事都被称为Capital One杯。联赛杯每年都会在全球190多个国家进行直播，有大约6亿球迷观看超过5,000个小时的比赛直播和报道，意味着这些人都对Capital One耳熟能详。

在每一场比赛，Capital One在赛场内、观赛手册等各个地方遍布球迷的视线。联赛杯的比赛涉及所有英格兰职业俱乐部，因此Capital One名字上与英超顶级俱乐部如曼城，下至英乙小型俱乐部如Morecambe的92家俱乐部相联系，毫无疑问的是，它与地球上最好的联赛体系共同发展。如Capital One这样的赞助商，商标在各个方面的曝光度完全能够覆盖支付的赞助费用，也许获得了十倍赞助费的媒体价值！

除了企业的名字和商标的大量曝光，冠名赞助也包括和所有俱乐部的合作，运作线上活动，邀请客户现场出席比赛等众多选项。所以我想问一个问题：为什么一家拥有国际野心的中国企业不在下个赛季赞助联赛杯？不将品牌与多家世界顶级足球俱乐部相联系而只花费购买一家顶级俱乐部的零头？

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Thenews that a Chinese investment fund will put $400M into the company that ownsManchester City is good for football and particularly football in China thatshould benefit from the knowledge transfer that will come as a result in time,but quite soon, this news will stop being current and the name of theinvestment company will be forgotten which probably does not matter to them atall.

However,there will be many Chinese businesses that want to invest in internationalfootball and want the visibility that it can bring, but the problem for most isthat they do not know how to effectively monetise sponsorship. In China if Ipay to have my company name on a club shirt, I see this as a sunk cost. Yes Iwill have pictures of players with my companies name across their chest and Ican show off a little but none of these businesses really ‘activate’ their sponsorship.

So ifI now look at a sponsorship opportunity in Europe, the initial cost might behigher than what I will need to pay in China, but the exposure and opportunityto leverage that money is huge. Let me use and example.

InEngland, the League Cup is a knock out tournament that involves the 92 clubsfrom all four professional leagues. The competition is named after the titlesponsor, which is currently the credit card company Capital One, so thetournament is called The Capital One Cup. This name is seen on the TV, in theprint media, on the radio and amongst the fans, not only in England but, aroundthe world including China. The TV viewing figures alone cover over 190countries and almost 600 million people who watch almost 5,000 hours of matchcoverage. That's a huge number of people seeing the CapitalOne name in a year.

Ateach match the Capital One name is also seen around the ground, in theprogramme and in multiple places. Because the matches involve all the Englishclubs, Capital One have their name associated with huge Premier League teamslike Manchester City and small league teams like Morecambe,but its association with some of the best football on the planet is undeniable.To the sponsor like Capital One the cost of the sponsorship is returned in themonetary value of its name being seen everywhere, which is worth maybe tentimes the actual cost they paid.

Inaddition to its name being seen all the time, it can be involved with all theclubs, run online competitions, invite its customers to attend matches, theoptions are big. So I ask the question; why wont a Chinese company that hasglobal aspirations sponsor the League Cup next season, it would associate itsname with top class football and costs a fraction of the money needed to investin or buy a professional club. It also links the company name to Englishfootball and 92 clubs, not just one?

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声明：文中观点仅代表作者本人观点，不代表懒熊体育。