Saudi Arabia expands global reach with 900 sports deals

Scott Heppell/Reuters

• 910 global sport sponsorships
• 1,400 Saudi positions in sports
• Newcastle seen as best investment

Saudi Arabia’s vast number of sports sponsorship deals, now in excess of 900, are part of the kingdom’s strategy to diversify away from oil but their long-term success will not be known for some time to come, experts have said.

Play the Game, a publicly funded sports ethics institute in Denmark, compiled a list of 910 sponsorships the kingdom holds in the sporting world. It also lists 1,412 positions held by Saudis in sporting organisations, both domestically and worldwide. 

More than a third of the deals are attributed to Saudi’s Public Investment Fund (PIF), the $925 billion sovereign wealth fund that has spearheaded much of the kingdom’s investment in recent years. 

Stanis Elsborg, head of Play the Game and co-author of the report, says the sponsorships are “part of a much larger strategy to reshape how the world sees Saudi Arabia”. 

Thomas Søndergaard/Play the Game

“They’re using these big, high-profile events to project an image of success, prestige, and modernity,” he says, adding that it helps to move attention away from the country’s human rights record. 

“At the end of the day, these investments are about influence and image-building,” Elsborg adds. 

“They’re leveraging sport as a powerful platform to tell a story – a narrative carefully designed to reshape their global reputation and cement their place in geopolitics.”

Simon Chadwick, professor of sport and geopolitical economy at Skema Business School in France, and an AGBI columnist, says the kingdom’s involvement in sports is more than just political. 

“There is a political element to it because many of the Saudi Arabia entities that are now involved in sponsorship deals are state-owned and so this is not marketing products and brands in the same way as Coca-Cola, McDonald’s or any of these other organisations,” he says. 

“The political dimension to this is that the kingdom is trying to raise awareness of a nation, of a nation’s values, of a nation’s ambitions and aspirations.”

Ben Gordon, a sports diplomacy expert at Dentons Global Advisors, says the strategy behind the sponsorships is that there will be a return on their investment, but this is not limited to the financial income that might be generated. 

He says the sponsorships are “part of a broader, comprehensive push to generate non-oil economic return for the Saudi economy”.

“The brand awareness or soft power aspect is part of the economic return because it is ultimately about boosting economic activity in – and international tourism to – the kingdom,” Gordon says. 

Chadwick says Saudi Arabia is seeking legitimacy in the eyes of the international community, as well as economic benefits. Every country uses sport to try to “shape popular perceptions, to shape image, to shape reputation, to secure legitimacy in the eyes of the world,” he says.

The kingdom seeks deals with properties that have a global footprint and picked out the Newcastle United deal as the standout for its worldwide reach as a high-profile Premier League club, Chadwick adds.

• Saudi Arabia: The making of a sports nation
• Why cricket could be next on the list for Saudi Arabia’s PIF
• When Saudi Arabia caught the football bug

“They're also looking for sports that are commercially immature, like cricket,” says Chadwick. 

Gordon says the Saudis take a long-term view with their investments in sport. 

“Like its other high-profile Vision 2030 projects, such as Neom and other giga-projects, we won’t be able to tell whether the investment was ‘worth it’ for several years,” he says. 

“The kingdom’s commitment to its sports investment strategy reflects a bet that investing large sums up front will lead to significant long-term revenue streams from domestic economic activity and international tourism, creating a more sustainable Saudi economy for decades to come.”