FEBRUARY 17, 2006

Motorsport sponsorship on the increase

The IEG Sponsorship Report, a Chicago-based trade magazine, says that US corporations have increased their sponsorship in motorsports by 5% in the last year with a total of $2.9bn being spent in the sport in 2006.

The IEG Sponsorship Report, a Chicago-based trade magazine, says that US corporations have increased their sponsorship in motorsports by 5% in the last year with a total of $2.9bn being spent in the sport in 2006. The publication says that most of this increase is due to new companies becoming involved rather than increased spending by the existing players. These are mainly financial services companies which have finally concluded that motorsport is a better idea for their business rather than golf or tennis. This is mainly due to the fact that NASCAR is growing in the United States but the report did point out that AMD and Intel are both moving into the sport as they fight it out to show that their technology is better than that of their rivals. Formula 1 has picked up some of the money coming into the business but not very much as the sport's penetration in the North American market remains weak.