Sponsorships within sports are an attractive concept to businesses from every sector. Each sport is like its own stage at a musical festival, they’re all playing music, but to crowds of varying tastes and demographics.
Online trading is one sector which has significantly increased its presence in the sports sponsorship space in recent years. A SportQuake report, published May 12, found the online trading sector has tripled its sports sponsorship spend since 2019, reaching $183m during the 2024/25 season.
Fans will perhaps be acquainted with names such as eToro, Robinhood, and Swissquote, even if they are not exactly sure what these companies offer. This is because these rank amongst the largest three spenders, with the top 10 brands collectively spending an average of $11m per-year.
This may seem like a large sum of money for financial companies to part with over sports sponsorships, however, Matt House, CEO of SportQuake, explained why sports is attracting this money.
“Sport is now a well-established part of the marketing toolkit for online trading brands providing a proven value proposition from brand building and awareness to supporting other key parts of the sales funnel,” he said.
A focus on football
The report highlights football as the sport most targeted by online trading companies, with 59% of football spend focused on Europe’s top five leagues – England’s Premier League, Spain’s La Liga, Germany’s Bundesliga, Italy’s Serie A and France’s Ligue 1.
Diving deeper, the Premier League appeared to be the most attractive destination for these types of deals. SportQuake revealed England’s top-flight accounted for 44% of all football sponsorship spend from trading companies, an increase of 10% year-over-year.
Despite the benefits of sponsoring the most globally watched league in the world, there could be a larger strategy at play.
Starting from 2026/27, Premier League clubs will be banned from showcasing gambling-related brands on the front of their kits. Currently, 11 clubs have front-of-shirt agreements with betting brands.
These clubs will be searching for new partnerships, leaving a large gap in the market for online trading companies to slide into. eToro, which already has relationships with Everton and Crystal Palace, may be a perfect replacement.
In an interview with Insider Sport last year, Stephanie Wilks-Wiffen, Director of Marketing for UK and DACH at eToro, explained why football sponsorships are so attractive.
“Football fans come from all walks of life and so do investors. By educating football fans and clubs on investing, we can empower millions of people around the world to use investing to grow their wealth and improve their overall financial well-being,” she said.
“There is a big knowledge and awareness gap when it comes to investing and speaking to a huge audience in an environment in which they are highly engaged feels like the best way to address this gap.”
Racing to sponsor teams
However, trading companies haven’t just entered the field to spread their branding, but also the racetrack. Seven Formula 1 teams boast partnerships with trading brands, rising from two in 2021.
In February, Aston Martin penned a deal with American cryptocurrency exchange Coinbase. This agreement stands out due to Coinbase financing its sponsorship fees entirely using cryptocurrency, demonstrating how these partnerships offer exposure, as well as an opportunity to shine a light on their areas of expertise.
Formula 1’s relationship with online trading is not expected to slow down anytime soon, with SportQuake stating that market tracking predicts all F1 teams will have trading partners by the 2026 season.
House concluded: “Sports’ ability to provide high reach and frequency against large, engaged investment minded audiences through premium IP has driven spend to all-time highs. This trend looks set to continue as ‘brand’ becomes more important to the sector.”
