BRITISH CYCLING AND SKY SHARE INSIGHT ON UNIQUE PARTNERSHIP AT FUTURE SPONSORSHIP

British Cycling and its Principal Partner SKY shared insight on the highly successful partnership at Future Sponsorship in Istanbul , demonstrating how SKY as a broadcaster has worked with one of the UK’s most exciting rights holders to turn a traditional sponsorship into a unique property.

Following cycling’s greatest ever summer with 16 gold medals in London, the first British winner of the Tour de France and Sky and British Cycling’s recent announcement that they have beaten their goal of getting one million more Britons on their bikes and cycling regularly by 2013, the presentation explored how SKY ‘did sponsorship differently’ and how it measured the value of the sponsorship.

Stewart Kellett, Recreation and Partnerships Director for British Cycling, who was speaking at the conference said, “The sponsorship has been very successful for us. We went from being a sport which wasn’t relevant to many – we were about winning bike races and not about reaching a wider audience in the UK.   We worked with SKY to create content, broaden our network and get more people on bikes. We have worked with SKY to reach the goal of getting 1 million people on bikes – this is a dream position to be in with a sponsor.”

Tricia Thompson, Sky’s Director of Cycling, said, “Sponsorship was new to SKY which was a large change for the business.   SKY wanted to address its contribution to sport on the ground and wanted to get involved in a sport which was accessible at all levels.   We recognised an opportunity to change the sport at every level, sponsoring the elite as well as helping more people to get on a bike.  We put clear metrics in place around social impact as well as brand awareness to measure the success of creating more fans of SKY as a brand.  The partnership has been an epic success story.”

The Future Sponsorship 2012 conference, in its seventh year, is taking place at the Ulker Sports Arena in Istanbul from 28-29th November, and is supported by Turkish Airlines and Euroleague Basketball.