Business and Sport are a familiar mix in Ireland as around the world. There are many very valid reasons for the bottom line being helped by an association with an activity that means something to the people who see it and that is what sport delivers.
The 2013 Sports Sentiment Index from Pembroke Communications which we wrote about yesterday highlighted the principal areas in which people’s love of sport is most obvious. This is in the stars and at the elite level but sport goes much deeper than that through participation, youth sport and to the very core of how we see ourselves.
Next Monday we will carry more detail from some of the business statistics revealed through the survey, ones which may not have captured the headlines of the national media but which are nevertheless critical when it comes to making business decisions on where to invest their marketing and other spends through 2014 and longer term.
We will do this in the form of ten key take aways to emerge on how sport and business are considered to be interacting by the public who follow the sports, play the sports and buy the product of those who support those sports.
As a taster of how the Irish public view the role of sponsorship and business support of sport, no fewer than 77% of those surveyed believe that business has an important role to play in the promotion and development of Irish sport.
Ian Murray of Bank of Ireland who spoke at the launch of the event urged the sporting bodies present to “create propositions around sport that feed into grassroots because that is what is important to business from a corporate social responsibility perspective.”
There are powerful figures that validate the importance of sport in any corporate planning for the next 12 months and we look forward to sharing them with you.
