Motorsport is all about money, which is why sponsors are so important in this sport. Together, we will discover three motorsport sponsorships you should care about and why.
When Sponsors Become An Issue: Stake F1 Team Kick Sauber
In October 2022, Audi announced Sauber as their factory team from 2026. Of course, this meant that historic Italian brand Alfa Romeo had to leave the grid, making 2023 its last season in Formula 1.
The Germans will join the category in 2026 so for a couple of years Sauber will have a new, temporary identity, with Stake as title sponsor.
That’s where the issues started.
Stake.com is an online casino and sports betting platform, with people gambling with cryptocurrencies. The company is registered in Curaçao, a Dutch Carribean island, but the operations are run from Melbourne, Australia. The country banned online casinos more than twenty years ago, but they can work there as long as they do not advertise themselves to Australians.
This is going to be a problem during the Australian Grand Prix, considering that the name of the team itself is Stake. Plus, there are at least eight other countries where F1 will race that have banned gambling.
The solution, for now, is to use a different name where Stake is prohibited, Team Representative Alessandro Alunni Bravi said.
“As last year, we have Kick as one of our most important partners – our chassis name is a Kick Sauber – so where we are not going to race as Stake F1 Team, we will use a second team name.”
But it doesn’t end here.
Another country with heavy regulations on gambling advertising is Switzerland. To put it down simply, without the necessary licensing, the company’s operations are illegal in the country.
This leads to the Swiss Federal Casino Commission launching an investigation into the nature of Stake’s activities. If guilty, Sauber will have to pay a fine, but the team is positive about their compliance efforts, says Alunni Bravi.
We’ll see.
Charlotte Tilbury and the F1 Academy Sponsorship
On February 16th it was announced a partnership between F1 Academy and Charlotte Tilbury.
In case you don’t know, Charlotte Tilbury is a female founded global beauty brand: the first one to partner with the all female motorsport category. This will be their first ever sports sponsorship.
The shared aim is “to empower, inspire confidence, and encourage young women to chase their dreams“, the press release says. “As an Official Partner, Charlotte Tilbury will use its global platform to showcase F1 ACADEMY’s current drivers, shining a light on their incredible achievements and showing their audience all the opportunities available to women in motorsport – both on and off track.”
What it’s really worth mentioning is the fact that for the first time a brand that mostly sells its products to women decided to invest in motorsport, finally recognizing that the female fanbase is growing more and more.
In this way, a wider audience will have the chance to learn about the opportunities the traditionally male dominated filed of motorsport holds for women, too.
More specifically, Charlotte Tilbury will sponsor Lola Lovinfosse, driving for Rodin Motorsport. She will exhibit a special livery, suit and helmet with the brand’s signature colors.
New Sponsors, New Identity: Visa Cash App Racing Bulls
Unless you lived under a rock lately, you know it: we said goodbye to AlphaTauri, welcoming the new Visa Cash App Racing Bulls team.
It’s one of the motorsport sponsorships definitely had people talking.
Both companies are big names in the American market. F1 wants to grow more and more in the US, so choosing to have them as title sponsors means Red Bull wants to look appealing to this audience.
Kelly Brittain, Red Bull Racing’s director of the brand, said: “The growth of F1 globally has made us a really attractive proposition to big tech organizations that want to showcase their technological capability, and a lot of those tech companies are based in the U.S. So it’s the growth of fans, and then the growth of commercial interest in F1, and that’s kind of created this upward spiral.” Visa and Cash App definitely fit in this dynamic.
Of course, you also have to take into consideration the relationship between Red Bull and the now called VCARB.
Clearly, because of the extraordinary success in the sport, the Austrian team is collecting a growing number of sponsors who want to get a spot on the iconic livery. But there’s not much space left there so why not making the most out of their system team?
This strong synergy is highlighted by the fact that a new marketing and communication team was born in the past weeks, with personnel coming from Red Bull Racing and AlphaTauri, now working together in Milton Keynes.
What do you think about these motorsport sponsorships? Tell us in comments below or on our social media platforms!
