Euro 2020 - The Advertising Juggernaut

It's difficult to say what the intention was behind Michel Platini's zany idea to celebrate the 60th-anniversary of the European Football Championships by hosting it in multiple cities across Europe. It greatly favoured some sides more than others in terms of travelling, and that's without considering the cost to the loyal supporters that like to follow their national teams.

However, Euro 2020 broke all kinds of records on the pitch, including the total number of goals in the tournament stage and a staggering number of ten own goals. Furthermore, looking at it from a marketing and advertising perspective, this format was a dream come true. It opened up so many more markets - local and international - for sponsors to work in. Of course, the pandemic restricted their efforts to a degree, but it's still fair to say Euro 2020 was a roaring success on and off the field.

New Brands Enter the Scene

As with all major football tournaments, gambling websites played a role, as was seen in the uptick of customers that were getting started with Casumo. However, they weren't among the global partners that were front and centre.

Coca-Cola and Hisense were the only two main sponsors that remained from Euro 2016, although Adidas were still present as one of the tournament's official licensees. The famous Dutch beer company Heineken and Qatar Airways signed up to become global partners in 2020, as did the TikTok, Vivo and Just Eat Takeaway.com. The inclusion of these last three brands highlights the changing trends in sponsorship deals at major sporting events.

It's predicted that UEFA generated around €500 million from its global and local sponsors for Euro 2020. This figure is roughly the same as Euro 2016 (€483 million), which given the covid-19 circumstances, is mightily impressive.

Ronaldo Annoys Sponsors

With an estimated TV audience of more than 2.5 billion, global partners pay millions of euros to have their logo and/or product front and centre, so the eyes of the world can see them. Coca-Cola and Heineken were two of these partners that had contracts for their products to be placed on the tables during their press conferences.

Football legend Cristiano Ronaldo took offence to this product placement when he sat down for one of Portugal's pre-match pressers.

He swiftly grabbed the two bottles of Coca-Cola in front of him and moved them out of sight of the camera, and replaced them with bottled water while saying, 'drink water!' Nearly $4 billion was wiped off of this soft drinks supplier's share price the following day, and while there's no clear evidence linking the two, it is somewhat coincidental

This led to other players, including Manuel Locatelli and Paul Pogba, doing the same. Pogba, who's a Muslim, made it known he was going to sit with a green bottle of Heineken in front of him, despite the fact that it was a 0% alcohol beer.

UEFA Step In

UEFA soon jumped in and made it clear these actions wouldn't be tolerated, and teams and players should respect the association's partners and the contribution these companies make to European football.

We shouldn't forget that players get a share of the revenue UEFA pulls in. The 24 teams that competed in Euro 2020 shared €371 million in prize money - part of which national federations will use to pay players bonuses.

Additionally, hundreds of men's and women's football clubs get to share a €200 million windfall that comes from Euro 2020 revenues. UEFA also gives out grants to many of its 55 member countries for development projects to be carried out between 2020 and 2024.

(Devdiscourse's journalists were not involved in the production of this article. The facts and opinions appearing in the article do not reflect the views of Devdiscourse and Devdiscourse does not claim any responsibility for the same.)