By David Owen
27 January – Capital One thought about sponsoring the FA Cup before its four-year deal with the Football League covering the competition that has now become known as the Capital One Cup.
Michael Woodburn, Capital One UK’s chief marketing officer, told Insideworldfootball in an interview that the competition which started in 1960 as the Football League Cup had better brand resonance for the company.
Capital One also preferred it from “a value-for-money perspective”.
The Nottingham-based UK arm of a US bank with a balance-sheet in excess of $200 billion is enjoying an exciting first season as title sponsor of the competition, contested by all 92 clubs in the top four tiers of English football.
The final on February 24 will see rising force Swansea City from south Wales take on fourth-tier Bradford City, who have earned the right to be at Wembley by upsetting a string of Premier League sides including Arsenal and Aston Villa.
Though terms of the deal have not been disclosed, Capital One is thought to be paying somewhere between £4 million and £5.5 million a year for its sponsorship of the competition.
By comparison, the FA Cup, still widely seen as the most prestigious national cup competition in world football, is currently sponsored by Budweiser, in a deal that has been reported to be worth up to £8 million a year.
Under the deal, the competition is known as “the FA Cup with Budweiser”.
In the past, Capital One has had shirt sponsorship deals with two English clubs, Nottingham Forest and Sheffield United.
Woodburn explained that the Forest deal came at a time when Capital One was entering a new market as a foreign company and needed to recruit a considerable number of people, as well as establishing itself as a credible part of the community it was coming into.
The Sheffield United sponsorship was inherited when Capital One acquired the company that was the original sponsor.
Woodburn also hinted that the company might look to add a second string to its UK sponsorship bow, though not necessarily in sports, in a year or more’s time.
(For more see David Owen’s Inside Write column)
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