Emirates Airline is planning to renew its partnership with Arsenal Football Club when the deal expires in 2021.

The carrier says the £100 million (Dh576.8m) sponsorship – one of the biggest ever in English football – represents “a fantastic bargain”.

The partnership between Emirates and the English Premier League (EPL) team includes shirt sponsorship and the rights to have the club’s London stadium named after the airline until 2021.

The 15-year contract was signed in 2004 and implemented two years later.

Sir Maurice Flanagan, the executive vice chairman of Emirates Airline and Group, said the carrier planned to extend the partnership with Arsenal, adding that the sponsorship costs the airline US$8m (Dh29.3m) a year.

“The sponsorship deal will run until 2021 and will doubtless be renewed. We are very happy with it. For Emirates it is an extremely cost-effective way of maintaining worldwide exposure for brand Emirates,” Sir Maurice said, adding the existing deal had been a success.

“Our sponsorship deal with Arsenal is spread over a number of years. Annually it comes to around $8m, a fantastic bargain. We measure the ROI [return on investment] in terms of the worldwide value of the television exposure, using well-established criteria, incorporating all our markets,” he said.

Seth Holmes, the director of consulting at the sports marketing agency IMG Middle East, said Emirates “got a huge amount of brand awareness” from the Arsenal deal.

“From Emirates’s perspective, they’ve been very savvy about the deals they’ve done … there’s usually a very strong rationale.”

Mr Holmes said the Arsenal deal was the biggest in English football history when signed but added that the team’s rivals are commanding higher annual sponsorship rates. He cited the example of the £80m, four-year shirt sponsorship deal signed between Manchester United and Aon last year.

“If Arsenal went back in the market they would not be trumping Chelsea or Manchester United in terms of deals. Arsenal just doesn’t get the same following … they’d be happy to stick with Emirates.”

Bashar Abdulkarim, the managing director at the sports marketing and sponsorship consultancy Relay MENA, said the Arsenal deal represented a “good strategy” for Emirates because the airline “looked at the UK as a hub”.

However, he pointed to a recent poll on the popular Arabic sports website Kooora.com, in which 57 per cent said they preferred the Spanish league, compared with just 17 per cent who chose the EPL.

Sir Maurice said the Arsenal sponsorship had helped to build the Emirates brand in the Middle East as well as globally.

“The starting point of our sponsorship of the Arsenal shirt and stadium is that Arsenal are among the top two or three clubs in the English Premier League and so their matches attract world-wide attention,” he said. “The coverage which they receive is global, which of course accounts for the Gulf market where their matches are widely viewed.”

This article was first published on thenational.ae

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