The last years have seen most FX brokers opt for a football led marketing strategy.
Football still remains the most popular sport of choice for the online trading sector since 2010 when the first broker sports deals came on the scene.
Since then, over 70% of investment into sports sponsorship has been allocated to football related deals. Nearly every club in the top European leagues now has an online trading partner – on the shirt, on the sleeve, on the back of the shirt or as a global/regional partner.
More recently we have seen Jordanian based INGOT Brokers become regional partner of La Liga across MENA. It was the first time a broker has sponsored a league instead of an individual team. A huge launch event in Jordan was recently attended by the Jordanian Royal family and legendary footballer Luis Figo.
CFI have doubled down in the region. First securing the services of Manchester City manager Pep Guardiola to act as a brand ambassador, the partnership is adorned across outdoor media in Dubai as well as on television commercials on airlines such as Emirates.
CFI have gone on to become official partner of the Abu Dhabi Mubadalah World Tennis Championships taking place in December 2022 featuring some of the top tennis players in the world.
There is a tremendous opportunity for established brokers and new entrants in the Middle East. This opportunity is further accelerated by regulators’ willingness to create the legal frameworks needed to solidify sustainability and innovation in the financial industry.
Why football ?
It is demographically relevant to the client base, it offers significant tangible benefits such as brand exposure to global audiences, and a transfer of intangible benefits such as credibility by association to world class partners who enjoy sporting success.
But the football sector is seeing a greater deal of density than ever before, there may be a point that another broker announcing yet another football deal doesn’t quite hit the mark that it used to. Brokers are starting to look for standout in a market that is becoming increasingly cluttered.
One route round this issue within football itself has been to dominate the landscape. Etoro as example now have partnerships with over 20 clubs around Europe giving them permanent visibility week in week out.
Another issue has recently come into play. Whilst FX brokers are now expanding into crypto related sectors, this creates complex product category discussions with rights holders who are trying to maximise the revenue from every angle of online trading. Online trading as a category used to be quite straightforward but not anymore. In many cases a greater investment is needed to ensure exclusivity across multiple category sectors.