Dubai
The Dubai Sports Council (DSC) has set a sponsorship goal of reaching at least Dh80 million for select sporting events under its banner by the turn of 2022.
Figures on sponsorships released during DSC’s Board of Directors meeting last week showed that events on the annual calendar had attracted a total value of more than Dh39 million during the season. This sector included monetary sponsorship and allied services involving large and mid-companies from the government and private sectors.
Ahmad Ebrahim, DSC’s Marketing and Partnership Manager is aware of the challenges that lie ahead. “In our first year we managed a small sum of Dh1 million as the sponsorship amount. But by the second year we had scaled this to Dh10 million. And now after five years, we have crossed Dh39 million, and this amounts to nearly 50 per cent of the DSC’s budget for smaller events under its banner,” Ebrahim told Gulf News on the sidelines of the Eighth Hamdan Bin Mohammad U16 International Football Championships that concluded at the Dubai Police Officers Club on Thursday.
“If we can sustain our drive in getting companies involved with our events I am confident our department can achieve the target of doubling the sponsorship figure within the next four years,” he added.
Ebrahim joined the DSC in 2013 as its Investment Manager, and after a little more than a year and a half took over as marketing and partnership manager. “Our effort is to always to look at sponsorship possibilities for events and this has always been the thinking of the Board of Directors as well,” Ebrahim noted.
“The new challenge before us would be to see how many events we can cover under the sponsorship folio in the next few years,” he stressed.
One of the new initiatives that Ebrahim is seriously working on is sale of television rights for events organised by the DSC. “This can be a huge area for revenue. There is always a demand for live coverage from participating teams and nations and we can rope in substantial revenue for DSC through these,” Ebrahim disclosed.
“In addition, we can also probe activation of Artificial Intelligence (AI) in sports. Our leaders are always pushing us towards new initiatives and we need to lead the sporting sector. The use of AI in sports with the DSC spearheading the initiative can also be among the new challenges ahead for us,” he added.
