Pharma and the Age of Sports Sponsorship

The Germans, known for their proclivity for long compound words that sometimes sound scary, have come up with a not-so-scary creation to describe the situation many of us have been finding ourselves in since May 2020 – Coronaspeck. Literally referring to a bacon-like substance that German shoppers would find at their local grocery store, the term drives home the concept of the excess fat deposits we would find within us since the lockdown entered our lives.

A study conducted by researchers from New Mexico State University on around 3400 people found that nearly half of them had gained weight during the first 12 months. A similar study in India with a smaller sample size of 100 witnessed a weight gain trend in 40% of the cohort with increased diabetes risk in 7% in the lockdown.

But why was the pandemic so hard on our health? One of the most prominent contributing factors was the stress that came with the sudden upheaval of the status quo. Work from home brought in irregular work hours and financial instability brought in job insecurity. Stress eating became a pandemic of its own. More importantly, the closing down of sports facilities, gyms, and health clubs caused a drastic reduction in physical activity. Now if you are like me, plain exercising (especially at home, during the quarantine) is probably the last resort and in no way has the same appeal that any sporting activity brings. The competitive environment indulging in any sport creates is more than enough to get the juices flowing and the body fat burning. Safe to say, the relaxed measures since the end of last year and the reopening of football turfs and table tennis courts have at least paved the way in my quest for a return to fitness!

On a related note, Sanofi’s sponsorship of the 2024 Paris Olympics and Paralympics, reportedly worth 80-150m euros, got me thinking – what would the benefits of/motivations behind such a large-scale sponsorship be for a pharmaceutical company? This led me down the rabbit hole of researching previous such pharma-sport affiliations. Let us look at some examples to potentially understand the motivations behind such endeavors:

-?????????GSK signed on as a Tier 3 sponsor of the 2012 London Games, providing world-class facilities and equipment in an attempt to keep the games clean and assist the IOC’s then biggest anti-doping effort. While it was a purely patriotic partnership for the 2012 Olympics alone, they pledged $30m to the games, and committed to and built a state-of-the-art testing facility at Kings College.

-?????????Bayer is one of the largest sponsors of sporting events and associations in Germany. Starting this initiative in the early 20th century as a means to provide an outlet for their employees to blow off some steam, today they sponsor some of the largest clubs in the Bundesliga as well as the National Paralympic Committee there.

-?????????Novartis has been a long-standing sponsor for FC Basel, their hometown club. With FC Basel being one of the most successful clubs in Switzerland that counts the likes of Roger Federer among its fan base, this 20-year-old partnership can only be synergistically beneficial to both parties. In addition, Novartis plays an active role in sports development in the city.

-?????????Recently, Eli Lilly signed up to support the US Olympic and Paralympic teams in Tokyo 2020 (2021) and as part of this came up with a hard-hitting ad campaign focused on the state of health in the US with a focus on therapy areas like diabetes, cancer, and psoriasis –for which they are marketing drugs. Interestingly, Lilly has previously partnered with NASCAR driver Ryan Reed (and by extension sponsored NASCAR events) who was diagnosed with Type 1 diabetes.

The most obvious motivations behind such collaborations are the links between sports and health. Professional athletes represent potential peaks in physical fitness and pay utmost attention to health and wellness. In addition, sport serves as a unique outlet for marketing and promotion for a pharma company and its products with an ability to reach all strata of society and thereby increase general healthcare awareness.

Above all, sponsorships serve as another avenue for these companies to reaffirm their commitment to corporate social responsibility and maintain a healthy (no pun intended) image among stakeholders at all levels. An industry known for its capitalistic and cash-grabbing tendencies can certainly do with a little bit of goodwill!