Welcome to Insider Sport’s latest edition of the Partnership Playbook, where we bring you details on the latest sports partnerships and sponsorships.
Would you like to watch basketball courtside with your friends without travelling to the game? While teleportation is still yet to be discovered, FIBA is using VR headsets to offer fans the next best thing.
Elsewhere, Bayern Munich has signed a first-of-its-kind partnership with the NHL, giving both organisations a way to reach fans in each other’s markets.
Lazio, meanwhile, has replaced one gambling-related sponsorship headache with a new partner still closely tied to the betting sector.
The final story in today’s edition looks at a tyre company sponsoring snowboarding. And no, Pirelli is not launching an off-road skateboard; the partnership makes a fair bit of commercial sense.
FIBA turns VR into a ticketed courtside seat
FIBA has signed a three-year rights deal with L1VE, giving 3×3 basketball fans the chance to buy a virtual ticket and watch events courtside using a VR headset.
The agreement covers the FIBA 3×3 World Tour, Women’s Series and World Cup, starting with the World Tour event in Debrecen on 29-30 August.
L1VE captures venues in stereoscopic 360° 3D, allowing fans to watch live from a virtual courtside seat and invite friends into the experience from anywhere in the world.
Sport has dabbled with immersive viewing before, including Burnley offering supporters a virtual seat at Turf Moor for a pre-season fixture against Lazio last year. However, the club has not used the technology again since.
A key difference between Burnley’s experiment and FIBA is that 3×3 competitions take place in different cities around the world, making it difficult, if not impossible, for supporters to attend the majority of events in person.
I went to a FIBA 3×3 event in Vienna last summer and the appeal was about a lot more than the basketball. There was music, competitions, games and a festival-like atmosphere, so bringing more of that experience to fans at home is an interesting next step.
“3×3 basketball was built to bring the game closer to the fans,” said Alex Sanchez, FIBA’s 3×3 Basketball Managing Director.
“Working with L1VE over the next three seasons, we are exploring new ways for audiences around the world to experience the intensity and energetic setting of our events.”
Lazio finds another route back to betting sponsorship
Lazio has replaced its partnership with Polymarket, although it hasn’t strayed far from the betting sector.
The Serie A club has signed a two-season sleeve deal with kaiyunsports.news, a sports media platform connected to Asia-focused betting and gaming company Kaiyun Sports.
Lazio recently scrapped its €22m front-of-shirt agreement with Polymarket after Italian regulator ADM determined that the prediction market platform fell under gambling rules.
As reported by SBC News, the decision made the sponsorship incompatible with Italy’s Dignity Decree, which bans gambling advertising and sponsorship.
Lazio’s new deal works because the agreement is with its sports media brand rather than the betting operation, a model used elsewhere in Serie A.
However, the new deal doesn’t fill the gap left by Polymarket, with kaiyunsports.news taking a position on the sleeve rather than the front of the shirt, leaving the side without a principal partner.
NHL borrows Bayern’s reach to grow hockey in Germany
The NHL has teamed up with FC Bayern in what it describes as a first-of-its-kind partnership between the league and a club from another sport.
The multiyear agreement aims to help the NHL grow in Germany and provide Bayern with another route into North America.
Keith Wachtel, President of NHL Business, said: “This does not exist; a league invests and partners with a team in another sport.”
It’s a big claim, and one I tried to disprove, but I think he is right. There are examples such as Paris Saint-Germain collaborating with the Brooklyn Nets on merchandise, but league-to-club partnerships across different sports are hard to find.
So how will they use the relationship? The partnership will include street hockey events in Munich, watch parties, Allianz Arena activations, youth programmes, co-branded content and merchandise, as well as player appearances and hospitality.
It also comes as the NHL increases its presence in Germany. Düsseldorf will host two regular-season games later this year, with Munich and Cologne set to stage further games in 2027/28.
Bayern, meanwhile, gains another touchpoint in a North American market it has targeted for years.
Snowboarding gets a tyre sponsor… but it makes sense
Pirelli has become an official partner of US Ski & Snowboard, which at first glance feels like an unusual fit considering neither skis nor snowboards require tyres. Then again, tyre companies haven’t been picky about sponsoring sports in recent years.
The Premier League has been full of tyre brands over the years, and the reason is that these companies are global businesses looking for reach, visibility and audiences with spending power.
The Pirelli deal runs through the 2028/29 season and will include athlete-led content, digital and broadcast activity, branding on US Alpine Ski Team uniforms and a presence at domestic World Cup events.
Winter sports are also a more natural fit than football because it puts Pirelli in front of people travelling to mountains and driving in difficult conditions, which is where tyres matter most.
Claudio Zanardo, CEO of Pirelli North America, referenced this in his comments, stating that “Whether it’s navigating winter roads to reach the mountains or competing at the highest level of international sport, performance, confidence and control matter.”
In other news
- PGA TOUR has signed a multi-year partnership with Uber and Uber Eats, covering rideshare and food delivery across PGA TOUR and PGA TOUR Champions events.
- Nottingham Forest has kept former front-of-shirt sponsor Bally’s Intralot on its men’s shirt as a sleeve partner and named BoyleSports its official betting partner.
- Manchester City has named AUX its official air conditioner partner in the brand’s first global sports sponsorship.
- The League of Ireland has partnered with Kitman Labs to introduce one data and player-development platform across all 22 academies.
- Adidas has become the official apparel and footwear sponsor of the Union Jack Classic, which will see Division I college football played at Wembley for the first time in September.
- Hull City has brought McVitie’s back as a club partner, with the biscuit brand taking sleeve sponsorship for the club’s first Premier League season in a decade.
- AC Milan has named FPG Fortune Prime Global a premium partner and official online trading partner.
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