This is a question that someone asked underneath a Facebook post announcing one of our latest youth sports sponsorship. Why sponsor so many teams? It’s quite a good one – so let’s break it down! Why do we spend over £10,000 every year on kids kicking a ball around?
1. To positively engage with the local community through sponsorship
We allocate a certain budget for every store to donate to a local youth teams each year. It’s not just football – we’ve sponsored rugby, hockey, GAA, and even figure skating teams in recent years! It’s just one way that we are able to give back to the communities that support us so much.
2. To promote youth health and wellbeing through sponsorship
There are so many great reasons to get children young people involved in competitive team sports. There’s the obvious one: physical health. But other fantastic benefits include: communication skills, teamwork, and problem-solving skills. Additionally, studies have shown a link between team sport participation and good mental wellbeing*. These local youth teams are able to provide this due to the financial support of local businesses, so that’s another reason why we sponsor so many!
3. To even the playing field
Apologies for the pun, but this is one is really cool! Sports clubs don’t exist for free. There are kit costs, groundskeeping, transport fees and much more. Quite often, these costs are passed on to the kids (well, mainly their parents/guardians), but how is that fair for those who don’t have the funds? In dozens of our sponsorship deals, we’re able to cover 100% of the kit costs – the main barrier to participation. In a recent deal with Ballyclare Comrades Football Club, we were even able to fund a new ‘Football Academy’ which exists to enable kids from low-income backgrounds to participate alongside their peers and benefit from all the things we’ve just talked about in reason number 2! Isn’t that awesome?
With sponsoring so many teams, we sometimes run into the issue of split-allegiances – where two of our teams are playing against each other. When that happens, we just celebrate everyone!
If you’re interested in finding out more about our sponsorship program, send an email to our Community Champion, Aine, on aine.condron@bobandberts.com.
*Source: https://childmind.org/article/what-role-do-sports-play-in-the-mental-health-of-children/