25/08/2009
NEWS STORY
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McLaren may have missed out on gold in the European Grand Prix but off track its sponsors have been coining it in. According to an analysis of sponsorship exposure in the race by Formula Money McLaren's sponsors got more media value than those of any other team.
Media value is the value of the advertising of the sponsors' logos on-screen during the F1 broadcast since this would of course have to be paid for if the companies were to show their brands during a commercial break. McLaren's sponsors got a combined $13.3m (£8.1m) in media value with the team's title sponsor Vodafone getting $9.8m (£6m) - an impressive 20.8% of the total $47.1m (£28.8m) generated by all team sponsors during the race. It was followed by Mobil 1 which got $1m (£611k) and then Johnnie Walker with $900,000 (£550k)- ten times less than Vodafone.
Equally impressive was the exposure gained by BMW's sponsors. It may have finished the race in a relatively lowly position but overall it did better than most teams with an average lap position of 10.2 meaning that it got plenty of coverage on television. This gave the team's sponsors the second highest combined media value at $5.9m (£3.6m).
In contrast, Brawn's small roster of sponsors gave the team a combined $5.2m (£3.1m) with Virgin making up $2.3m (£1.4m) of that. Flying in the face of conventional wisdom, Virgin yet again changed its logos on the Brawn cars in Valencia and Marlboro, a sponsor which doesn't even have its name on its decals got nearly as much media value with $2.1m (£1.3m) generated during the race.
But whilst Brawn's sponsors weren't in pole position in the media value rankings, the team itself fared better financially. With one of the smaller budgets on the grid, and Barrichello getting top honours, scoring each of Brawn's 12 points cost the team just $610,000 (£373,000). At the other end of the spectrum, BMW's poor finish and its blockbuster budget together conspired to give it the worst financial performance rating spending an estimated $19.7m (£12m) for its solitary point. It is yet further justification - as far as the German company's bean-counters are concerned - of why the team is pulling out of F1.