A word about our sponsors: How the money men benefit from sport

Cricket

Sunday league cricket

attracts the male AB audience that the insurance company seeks, and portrays the right image. AXA Equity & Law provides Family Awards to reward those counties that do most to promote attendance of families - they feel that it is imperative to get kids hooked early before Nintendo takes over.

Costs pounds 1.2m a year. Sponsorship to be extended until 1998 - a pounds 3.5m investment which indicates that AXA Equity & Law is getting what it wants. As well as goodwill and opportunities for corporate entertaining, it reports greater awareness of the company.

Corporate hospitality for key business clients and staff. Sponsorship campaign supported by vigorous merchandising (baseball caps, bags with AXA logo). Perimeter boards at matches.

Nintendo Virtual Sunday League

Bowls

National championships

Sanatogen Cod Liver Oil is designed to alleviate stiffness in the joints; the

comparatively elderly bowls audience is the ideal target.

Net cost for three tournaments (EBA

National Championships; Sanatogen Champion of Champions tournament; Sanatogen National 55s-and-over competition) pounds 50,000, including marketing support. Increased sales represent a six-fold return on Sanatogen's spending.

Logos on hoardings at events, and free samples handed out (but not forcibly administered to spectators). A questionnaire distributed to the EBA's membership enabled Sanatogen to target them with literature on cod liver oil.

Preparation H English Open

Football

FA Premiership

Most ardent football fans are aged between 18 and 30 - Carling's target group of consumers. Aim: to raise profile and image among younger drinkers and attract new consumers from other brands. Premiership occupies more TV time, column inches and pub conversations than any other sport.

The deal will cost Carling pounds 12m over four years. Research shows that since the deal kicked off in 1993, there has been extremely high awareness of Carling's role, particularly among the targeted younger drinkers.

Plentiful: hospitality for Carling customers at matches; perimeter advertising; editorial space in match programmes; Man of the match competition on Sky Sports; pub promotions, newspaper and radio competitions.

The Carling Premier League Two

Motor racing

Williams Formula One team

Cigarette manufacturers are concerned to associate their product with glamour, excitement and high achievment. Formula One, the pinnacle of motor sport, delivers these ingredients, as well as offering invaluable television airtime to companies that are banned from advertising on the medium.

A top F1 team spends around pounds 40m a year. Rothmans gets a chunk of the most-watched sport on television apart from the World Cup and the Olympics. In the first five grands prix this year, Williams, Ferrari and Benetton occupied 83 per cent of grand prix coverage.

Hospitality for Rothmans' VIPs. Kiosks selling baseball caps, T-shirts and team jackets. Full-size mock-up Williams computer simulators at the track-side for would-be Damon Hills.

A world champion who smokes

Boat race

Oxford v Cambridge rowing contest

The Boat Race is a uniquely English sporting landmark. Beefeater wanted to link a classic brand with a classic British event. The location of the race also helps: Beefeater is the only gin distilled in the capital. Beefeater is gunning for the ABC1 market, and alumni of the two competing universities fit the bill.

Cost: pounds 1.35m over 3 years, plus the same again on promoting the race. Beefeater is paying for exposure of a product that until recently could not be advertised on British TV. Won the Institute of Sports Sponsorship's Best Televised Event award.

Hospitality for trade and international distributors of the brand. Merchandising of T-shirts, anoraks, umbrellas etc. Sampling opportunities at pub promotions and rowing nights in London, Oxford, Cambridge and overseas.

Schweppes tonic to sponsor the Isis/Goldie second team race

Snooker

World Championship

Severe advertising restrictions for tobacco companies mean the championships are vital for creating brand awareness. The company is banned from using players, equipment or even brand colours in any ads or logos so it needs some way of accessing smokers, who make up the bulk of snooker watchers and players.

Total prize money for the next championships (sponsored by Embassy for the 21st time) is pounds 1,132,000. Add a hefty six-figure sum for accommodation and staging. In return, a recent survey showed instant recognition of Embassy through its association with snooker.

Corporate hospitality for Embassy clients.

Clearasil to sponsor Stephen Hendry

Rugby league

1995 World Cup

The Halifax and rugby league share common northern roots, but the game is developing internationally. So the sponsor gains local goodwill and international connections.

Tricky. The Halifax, true to its status as a trustworthy custodian of others' funds, will not reveal how much it has paid to be main sponsor of the tournament. It is the Halifax's first sports sponsorship of any kind, and it is "very happy" with the response so far.

The Halifax is not overplaying its presence at matches, but is instead promoting the competition through its branches and advertising. It is also keen to develop business links through corporate entertainment.

The Halifax to sponsor Halifax rugby league team at last