BAS322 – Sponsoring & Sport Communication

20 September 2020
Final Assignment

Introduction
 Manchester United:
Located in Northwest England, the city of Manchester has the chance to have on its hands
two major English football club that have been established from the roots of the city,
Manchester United and City. Founded during the early 20th century, Manchester United has
managed to find their way to the top and become in present days one of the most successful
and iconic football teams around the world. Currently, Manchester has become one of the
leading brands in the world of football, as it has one of the largest and most loyal fanbase in
the United Kingdom and around the planet. Despite not having won the Premier League since
the departure of their legendary ex-coach Sir Alex Ferguson in 2011-2012, the Red Devils are
however still the English club with most English championships, putting them in the first
place in front of their biggest historic rivals, Liverpool Football Club. Football has seen under
the club’s colors numerous successful emblematic players that left an important mark at the
club, whom many remember through the sponsors of their kits. If you are addressing a
football fan, he will surely remember the “AIG” sponsor that the club had on their shirts
during the prime years of Cristiano Ronaldo at the club, the “Sharp” sponsors during
Cantona’s reign, or even the “Vodafone” one with David Beckham before he left and joined
Florentino Perez’ Galacticos of Real Madrid. Manchester United is without doubt to anyone
that understands sports and football, one of the top 5 clubs in Europe’s history.
 Malaysia Airlines:
Malaysia Airlines was founded in 1947 and has its headquarters located at the Kuala Lumpur
International Airport, which is the airport of the capital. The airline serves 50 different
locations worldwide with over 300 flights per day. The company operations are mainly
focused on Asia (notably South Asian region), Europe, Oceania, and the Middle East. It also
conducts flights to destinations in different corners of the world but not as frequently as the
areas that are mentioned above. The company’s fleets are the carriers of the national flag as it
is painted and designed on their airplanes and it is basically the nation’s number one airline.
They additionally claim on their websites to have had won numerous different aviation
awards, demonstrating that they are a well-established company. One notable thing to
mention about the company in relation to sponsorships in football, is the fact that it served as
the Global Airline partner of Liverpool for a couple of years before that partnership ended in
2019.
Assessment of sponsorships opportunities
In order to explain why Malaysia Airlines should invest and become a sponsor at Manchester
United, we will first start by looking at the customers/fans, who are one of the factors that
impact directly this deal between the two organizations. Manchester United like stated above,
is one of the biggest clubs in European football. With their three UEFA Champions League
and one UEFA Europa League trophies, their trophy cabinet is not just decorated with
English trophies but with European ones as well. Their presence in European competitions
has almost always been predominant, and that has led the club to become today the most
popular English within and outside of the United Kingdom. In a survey conducted by the
club, they learnt that the sport of football has 1.6 billion fans worldwide and Manchester
United has commercial partners in seventy-two different countries. The club’s total followers
online as of 2019 was a total of 73.28 million on Facebook, Instagram 32.18 million, and
Twitter 20.52 million followers (STATISTA) When the club directed their Initial Public
Offering (IPO) to enter the New York Stock Exchange, they mention in their official
statement that the club has a community of 659 million people worldwide. This number when
broken down, shows us that 325 million, or 49.32% of these fans, are from Pacific Asia, 173
million divided between the Middle East and Africa, 90 million in Europe, and the rest in
South America and North America where Malaysia Airlines operates the least in the region
(BLEACH REPORT). On top of having one of the largest fanbases in the world, Manchester
also plays in the Premier League which is the most watched league in the world. The Premier
League states on their website that the league was watched in 188 countries around the world
out of 193 recognized by the UN. During the 2018/2019 season, it has been broadcasted in
1.03 billion homes (all kind of broadcasts) for a grand total of 262,102 hours of coverage
(PREMIER LEAGUE). Let us discuss now the demographics of the viewers in question. In
an online survey conducted to an internet population aged between 16 years old and 64 in
each country, 3 in 10 internet users watch the EPL on TV, and other 15% streaming online,
notably in Asian countries. The top ten countries with fans that choose the Premier League
over other leagues are the following, from highest to lowest: Indonesia, Vietnam, Thailand,
India, Turkey, Malaysia, Ireland, Hong Kong, UK, South Africa. In this list, we notice that 6
countries out of 10 are countries located in South or South East Asia. Malaysia is 4th, with
39% of its football fans broadcasting the Premier League on TV and 14% online. When it
comes to ages groups, the two age groups that participated the most are 25 to 34 & 35 to 44
with 33% each broadcasting on TV and 22% & 15% online respectively. Moreover,
numerous of these EPL fans and viewers, are very involved in football, therefore leading 8
out 10 of them to watch videos clips of highlights additionally to matches. 62% also stated
that they follow online sport programs related to the league. (GLOBAL INDEX KHARA).
We can therefore conclude from these stats that Manchester United is one of the most
recognizable football brands worldwide, with a humongous fanbase and an increasing
percentage in the viewership of the league, making them the most viewed league in the
world. Furthermore, most of the fanbase and viewership recorded in the EPL are from
Pacific/Southern Asia, which is the region in which the sponsor operates the most. It can only
benefit them if they are trying to expose their brand in the region that watches the EPL the
most, a region where Manchester United also dominates in terms of number of fans. These
fans that engages with the club in different ways such as merchandise, online interactions,
viewership, etc. That being said, by investing into Manchester United, Malaysia Airlines can
be certain that its name and logo are going to be seen—by the target audience of the region in
which they operate the most and need most exposure—during numerous hours during the
next EPL seasons. Signing with a club as reputable as Manchester United, will benefit the
airline company from a brand awareness, exposure and will increase the consideration of
using the company’s services. The reason for Manchester’s popularity across the globe is
interrelated with the competitive strengths that the club was able to build throughout its
history. The stronger the club got the more followers they had amassed. Certain of these
competitive powers are things like their reputation around the world as a successful sports
team, they are a worldwide brand with a high number of followers, they are able to well
monetize their products making them a tempting partner and their success with other partners
demonstrates it. Other than its business success, the club seems to be heading tp a promising,
more successful sporting period. Despite not collecting many trophies in the recent years, it
seems like Manchester is going with a phase of reconstruction of the team. With the ex-player
Ole Gunnar Solskjær nowadays at the end of a club as a manager, and with many talented
youngsters at his disposition, the club will surely make a comeback to the top level in the
following years. They will have to fight hard for the first place against Liverpool &
Manchester City, their two biggest rivals, who are without doubt the best two teams in
England at the moment.
Citations
https://www.malaysiaairlines.com/my/en/about-us/our-story.html#:~:text=Malaysia
%20Airlines%20is%20the%20flag,of%20the%20oneworld%20airline
%20alliance.&text=The%20airline%20began%20as%20Malayan,Federation%20of
%20Malaysia%20in%201963.

https://bleacherreport.com/articles/1785620-power-ranking-each-english-premier-league-
teams-fan-base

https://insight.globalwebindex.net/hs-fs/hub/304927/file-2593818997-

https://www.statista.com/statistics/964280/manchester-united-facebook-instagram-twitter-
social-media-following/