With the CS, the most generous Swiss sports sponsor dies – whatever that means

What an irony of history: in 1977, the Schweizerische Kreditanstalt SKA (later: Credit Suisse) launched the blue-red-white ski cap. The idea: image correction after the Chiasso scandal. It involved about 2.2 billion from Italy illegally bunkered in Liechtenstein by the SK branch in Chiasso. 800,000 hats will be given away. Today, these hats have a cult following, trading for as much as 100 francs, making a promotional gift more recently worth more than a CS share.

A major Swiss bank discovers the advertising effectiveness of sports. What started as a hat for ski camps grew into a successful sponsorship model. CS currently supports the Football Association, is title sponsor and namesake of the Super League, supports major golf events (European Masters), equestrian sports (CHI Geneva, White Turf St. Moritz), supports mass sports and individual athletes (Roger Federer, among others): CS should invest more than 10 million a year in our sport. The commitment to football (since 1993) even has international appeal: the money not only flows to the national team and the professional league, but also to all junior national teams.

All in all, half of the money invested should benefit young and popular sports. An example concept.

The contracts have not become irrelevant with the acquisition of CS by UBS. Simply put, the new bank is required by law to assume these obligations. The flow of money does not just stop. There is a transition period.

But there are several questions that need to be answered: Will the contracts be renegotiated? Can they be renegotiated? Are there exit clauses in the contracts? It can be assumed that hardly anyone took the demise of CS into account when drawing up the contracts. Lawyers can certainly look forward to mandates. But the really big question is: is UBS equally involved in Swiss sport? Will she continue the CS business?

The problem is precisely the success of CS sponsorship. It is difficult to launch a new brand overnight where another brand has been so successful for years or even decades. In addition, there are concerns whether the “sulphur smell of the crisis” that CS now has in the public eye will carry over to the new sponsor.

After the loss of CS, not only the sponsored sports associations and athletes fear for the financial support and income. If an estimated $10 million a year is invested in sponsorship, almost as much is also invested in the execution of that sponsorship: customer service, advertising, advertising. Printing the company logo on the dress is not nearly enough. Sponsorship must also be disclosed. The demise of CS also affects the advertising and inventory industry.

Ultimately, the question is also: does the amount that CS has invested in the sport come from other companies in the medium and long term? Or is the volume of sports sponsorship shrinking by a double-digit million? After the demise of CS, which relied heavily on sports sponsorship, are there still fundamental considerations for large companies to invest in sports?

After the sinking of the CS, there will be a quake in our sport. But the importance of sports as a “vehicle” for advertising messages and as a “big player” in the entertainment industry is so great that the disappearance of CS will ultimately only go down as a brief shock in our sports history.