Together Each Achieves More - PFJ says new Premier League sponsorship structure provides greater benefit to clubs
Published:Friday | December 18, 2020 | 12:15 AMLivingston Scott/Gleaner Writer
Professional Football Jamaica (PFJ) Commercial Committee Chairman Donovan White says the new Premier League sponsorship structure will allow clubs to gain more leverage from their assets and for sponsors to get more value for their investment.
White, also the Waterhouse Football Club president, says the new structure, which will include a presenting sponsor, a league sponsor, and 12 club or category/associate sponsors, will allow for more corporate involvement and diversification and make the league viable for all participants.
“The approach has always been to use the collective power of 12, versus the unilateral power of one, because we always feel there is a greater opportunity to leverage the entire league and the 12 clubs and provide more value for more sponsors,” White said.
“There will be no title sponsor. Title means your brand is a part of the naming of the league, and we have moved away from that because we feel it limits the opportunities to fully commercialise.
“So our objective is to have 12 sponsors at the club level, which will allow a sponsor to be assigned to each club, and that will allow us to leverage the most important asset, which is the front of the shirt, which then provides more leverage, as television product, for each of those brands.”
White says that apart from the five category sponsors already secured, PFJ is also in discussions with other institutions for the presenter and league sponsorships, and those deals, he says, as well as the category sponsors for the other seven clubs, are close to being completed.
STRUCTURAL CHANGES
Although the changes to the new structure have been significant, White says that PFJ’s method of distribution to the clubs will remain the same.
“Every dollar we earn from sponsorship will go into our revenue coffers, and we will manage the execution of the league, including television broadcast and production from those revenues,” he said.
“Net revenue is then shared among the clubs, which has always been our model. So that model has not changed. What we are trying to do is get more in the funnel as revenue and to do what we can to make more profit as we are a business, and we are operating to make a profit for our 12 clubs.
“The Premier League is the only professional league in the country, and so we are trying to make the profit and loss of the league viable for our clubs by bringing more corporate support into football.
“And overall, it is great for the league because it presents a more collective approach to show that we are moving to the next stage of commercialisation.”