F1 Sponsorship Golden Era

Quoting Bruce Springsteen, for many years sponsorship experts have defined the early 2000s as the glory days of F1 sponsorship when tobacco and financial companies were investing tens of millions in the sport. Today, after a decade of struggles for F1 teams to sign big deals, we are witnessing a new F1 sponsorship golden era and the main players are without a doubt technology companies, but they are not the only ones.

We have already discussed in another article why technology companies are investing so heavily in the sport, but why this is happening now and why F1 is attracting again brands from a variety of sectors?

Digital Channels: since the acquisition by Liberty Media, Formula 1 has become the fastest-growing sport on digital channels and today has 49.1m total followers and has seen the highest engagement rate with social posts compared to other major sports in 2021.

New Narrative: Opening up social media channels and the creation of behind-the-scenes content has given the sport the opportunity to take the narrative to another level. In this way, fans around the world got to know the challenges, complexities and peculiarities of the sport, while companies have discovered so many brand stories they can tell using Formula 1 as a platform.

Growing Markets: As a consequence, there have been significant rises in the last season's cumulative audience in several markets, including many of F1's biggest markets. The Netherlands stood out with an increase of +81% Year on Year, but there were also significant gains in the USA (+58% YoY), France (+48% YoY), Italy (+40% YoY) and the UK (+39% YoY).

Real Sustainability: Formula 1 is effectively making giant steps to make the sport more sustainable as possible: F1 cars have already a hybrid engine and they are way more efficient than our road cars, additionally they utilised E10 fuel, a mixture of 90% fossil fuel and 10% ethanol. But with the launch of the new generation of Formula 1 engines in 2025, they will run on 100% sustainable fuel.

Conclusively, Formula 1 did not rest on being the most popular annual global sport, they have listened to the brand's needs and taken the sport to a new level in so many aspects. That's why we are talking about a new golden era for F1 sponsorship and we, at Drive, are looking forward to speaking with you.

This is original editorial content from Drive Sports Marketing, an agency specialising in Formula 1 sponsorship, Formula E sponsorship, MotoGP sponsorship, and WEC sponsorship.