Avoiding the Drop

Manchester United are expected to announce today that they’ve reached an £80 million deal with American insurance/reinsurance broker AON Corporation. The four year deal (which will kick off in the 2010-11 season) is the largest kit sponsorship deal ever. Also, it’s the second straight kit sponsor for Manchester United that most people have never heard of, and one that sells virtually nothing that’s available to your average fan.

I understand the concept of kit sponsorship; put your logo on a shirt, get free advertising, rinse, wash, repeat. Everytime you see Chelsea, for example, you’re also seeing Samsung. I didn’t know Emirates was an airline before they started sponsoring kits; now I do. I hadn’t ever drank Carslberg before I became a Liverpool fan; now, I know that it’s basically an imported version of Rolling Rock and that I’m not interested in it.

AON doesn’t sell beer or airline tickets or places to gamble, though; they sell insurance. Specifically, AON is a risk management firm that specializes in…oh, hell, I don’t know. Here’s their product offering; I’d imagine that if you’re looking for Kidnap & Ransom Insurance or Terrorism Risk Management consulting, they’re a fantastic organization to deal with. At the end of the day, though, what do they have to gain from this sponsorship?

I mean, there’s no tangible product here. I bought Carlsberg from the grocery store specifically because I saw it on the Liverpool kit; there was a direct relationship between their sponsorship and my purchase. A company like AON is selling something that, if I needed, I would buy based on research and a product need; it’s not the same kind of thing.

I understand the need to promote your company; I’m sure AIG’s profile was raised in England when they took on the Manchester United sponsorship. I guess I just wonder if they actually saw any additional business out of the £14 million/year deal they put into the kit sponsor. I mean, did anyone buy auto insurance because they saw the logo on Rooney’s chest? I doubt it.

And while we’re talking about AIG, it seems worth mentioning that AON is basically the same kind of company. Heck, they even got themselves into recent government trouble: just this January, England’s FSA fined them a record £5.25 million for “failing to properly assess the risks involved in its dealings with overseas firms and individuals.” I’m not a brilliant businessman, but if your business is risk management and you’re assessed a record fine for not doing that properly than you may be scamming someone.

Either way, the biggest benefit to Manchester United fans will be this time next year, when AIG kits are dumped at cut rates to make way for the new AON kits.