April 8 – Manchester United shirt sponsor Aon, has swapped match day sponsorship for training kit and the naming rights to the Carrington training ground in an estimated £120m ($183.6m), 8 year deal.
As part of the deal the Carrington training ground will be renamed the Aon Training Complex and the company logo will appear on United’s training kit.
Aon have one more season of a four-year £80m ($122.7m) shirt sponsorship deal. Aon will be replaced by Chevrolet for the 2014/15 season in a deal that will see the car maker pay £365m ($559m) over seven seasons.
United had bought out the previous kit sponsor ship deal with DHL last year. DHL were paying £40m over 4 years. That sponsorship will now switch to Aon in a package that includes a number of elements.
Aon will be a partner of the team’s preseason tours and business network, will advise United on its plans for global expansion and offer value-in-kind services such as player and staff insurance, data analysis and research. Aon will have special access to the Carrington site for business meetings and conferences
In February the club announced a record second quarter with revenue up to £110m (up 8.7%) and profit up to £50.2m (up 11.8%). This quarter covered the final three months of 2012. The club also said it was on track to achieve 2013 target revenue of between £350 million to £360 million and profit of between £107m and £110m.”
Sponsorship and merchandising revenue have been the cornerstone of United’s revenue growth, up 13.7% to a record £117.6m in the last financial year. In the first six months of this year the club says commercial revenue is already up 26.4% on the same period and 17 new sponsorship deals have been signed.
United has split its sponsorship sales inventory up by territory, increasing the opportunity for new companies to get involved with the brand. Much of the growth has come from Asia. The club will play pre-season exhibition matches in Bangkok, Sydney, Yokohama, Osaka and Hong Kong in July.
Last August the Glazer family raised £233m selling 10% of the club’s shares on the New York Stock Exchange for £14 per share. Since then shares have risen 19% to $16.69 per share. Forbes magazine recently gave the club the moniker of being the most valuable sports franchise in the world when shares came close to the $17 mark, valuing the club at $3 billion.
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