$764.5 Million: What Alcohol Beverage Brands Spend Per Year On Sports Sponsorship

A total of $764.5 million is spent on sport sponsorship an annual basis by the thirty leading alcohol beverage brands,  with Bud Light as the top spender. That figure arises after digging into 281 active deals in the space, 89% of which are between sports entities and beer brands.

The aforesaid data is provided by Sportcal, a sports market intelligence company. In its report, Sportcal further revealed that the top ten alcohol beverage brand spenders account for 87.6% of the estimated $764.5 million in annual sports sponsorship spend and roughly 55% of the 281 active deals. Thus, they are averaging approximately the same number of deals as the next group of brands, but are spending much more money in consideration for what the sports entities are offering.

Bud Light is the biggest spending brand by a large margin. It is believed to spend approximately $250 million per year, which would represent 35.2% of the total global alcoholic beverage sports sponsorship spend alone. The brand’s spend is boosted by deals with the National Football League and England’s Football Association. Its deal with the NFL was renewed in 2015 to last through 2022 in exchange for $1.4 billion.

Following Bud Light is Heineken ($118.3 million annual spend), which represents 16.7% of the category’s annual spend on sport sponsorships and 11% of the deals in the space. The 11% share of all deals makes Heineken the leader in deal flow within the space. Its deals with the UEFA Champions League and Formula 1 help push Heineken into the second position.

After that is Budweiser ($84.4 million annual spend and 7.1% of all active deals) in the third spot, Amstel ($64.1 million annual spend) in fourth and MillerCoors ($59.5 million annual spend) in fifth with regard to sport sponsorship spend.

The top thirty alcohol beverage brand sport spenders are heavily focused on putting their money to work in Europe. 59.1% of the sport sponsorship money flows to that continent, followed by North America at 20%. Europe maintains such a powerful position despite France having legal restrictions on alcohol advertising.

Additionally, brands are very interested in single market deals, making up 84% of the spend, as opposed to continental or worldwide partnerships, which account for 16%. The United Kingdom market is the most active among individual countries with 27% of sport sponsorship deals across the world.

Of the sports considered by brands, soccer easily leads the pack in deal share. A whopping 49.1% of the deals brokered by alcohol beverage companies in sport were in association with soccer.

Overall, Sportcal identified a total of 716 deals within the beverage industry in connection with sport. 60.8% of them, not covered here, are with non-alcohol brands.