Oppo has downgraded its sponsorship deal for the Uefa Champions League to become one of the competition’s new second-tier partners for the next three-year cycle.
The Chinese mobile phone brand previously served as a top-tier global sponsor of the confederation’s leading men’s club competition but has recently pared back its spending in sport, deciding not to renew deals with the Wimbledon tennis championship, the Lawn Tennis Association and the French Open when they expired in 2023.
Under the new deal for the 2024-25 to 2026-27 cycle, Oppo will be designated the ‘Official Smartphone Product Partner’ of the Champions League, albeit with smaller amounts of branding inventory and digital rights than a top-tier global sponsor and is expected to use the deal to promote its smartphones, headphones and smartwatches.
Uefa and its exclusive global sponsorship sales agency for men’s club competitions, Team Marketing, are aiming to generate €750m per season ($833.1m/£632.7m) in sponsorship and licensing income from the federation’s three men’s club competitions for 2024-27, in what would be a 39.2-per-cent-increase on the average of €538.7m per season generated in the last cycle.
The new revenue targets are based on the creation of new sponsorship and licensing rights, as well as an increase in the number of matches in the next cycle of the Champions League under the new ‘Swiss Format’. The second and third tier Uefa Europa League and Uefa Conference League are sold together as a separate sponsorship package.
New rights
For this cycle, Uefa has expanded the uppermost ‘Global Sponsor’ tier for the Champions League from eight to nine slots, in addition to creating the new, more bespoke second sponsorship tier. Sources have previously described the new tier, where Oppo will sit, to be like an ‘enhanced licensing’ category.
Part of the thinking is to create an entry point for brands that are interested in associating with the Champions League but lack the financial capacity to reach the Global Sponsor level. The new category is also designed to appeal to licensees that want to add more promotional rights to their agreements.
Oppo first became a Champions League sponsor one year into the last three-year cycle having asked the federation if it could delay its entry into the portfolio after the onset of the Covid pandemic.
The delay allowed Uefa and Team Marketing to sign a stopgap, one-year global deal with travel technology company Expedia.
It is understood that Expedia, which was a global Champions League sponsor from 2018-19 to 2020-21, had bid unsuccessfully to renew its rights into the next three-season cycle. When the opportunity came up, the brand was therefore keen to take the one-season package – especially as it came at a relatively low seasonal cost.
When Oppo finally came on board, Expedia went on to strike a lower-tier regional sponsorship deal with rights to activate in the US, as well as acquiring global licensing and supplier rights to the competition. Sources say the flexibility of the one-and-a-half-year deal set a template for the new enhanced licensee packages launched in this cycle.
In May, Uefa invited bids from mobile handset makers for all three of its club competitions for the new cycle. So far, the Europa League and Conference league have not announced a smart phone sponsor.
As it stands, Team Marketing has one more of the nine global sponsorship positions to fill for the Champions League, with the final slot expected to be taken by a brand from the airline category.
The Europa League and Conference League are also searching for one further sponsor having recently announced deals with German supermarket chain Lidl and gambling firm Betano.
In a statement to announce its extended Champions League deal, Billy Zhang, president of overseas marketing, sales and service at Oppo, said: “Our collaboration with Uefa over the past two years has highlighted our shared values in connecting and inspiring fans of all generations.
“We look forward to continuing to strengthen our partnership over the next three years, connecting fans closer to the match through Oppo’s innovations in imaging and AI technologies, and dedicating more resources to helping young players and the broader global football community experience the magic of football.”