Carlsberg pulls England football sponsorship in focus shift

23-Feb-2018 - Last updated on 23-Feb-2018 at 14:11 GMT

End of an era: Carlsberg stops England sponsorship

Brewer Carlsberg will pull its England football team sponsorship after this year’s World Cup in Russia, ending the 22-year partnership.

Carlsberg will continue to sponsor eight Premier League English clubs, including Liverpool and Tottenham Hotspur, but will look to spend more on experiential events such as festivals and music, The Morning Advertiser has been told.

The move follows a major rebrand of Carlsberg Export in 2016, which took the beer “back to its Danish roots”.

Export has seen free-trade volume sales rise by 25% in the fourth quarter of 2017 versus the same period in 2016.

Football sponsorship

Football sponsorship is crowded, with many brands including Budweiser, Carling and Heineken, paying large sums of money for exposure at big games.

Carlsberg UK vice-president of brands Liam Newton said: “Carlsberg has enjoyed a long-standing relationship with the Football Association and England for more than 20 years, however, we now feel it is time for us to broaden our partnerships as a brand in the UK.

“We get most value out of partnerships that create rich content and fantastic brand experiences and enable us to tell our unique story, history and heritage.

Carlsberg experiential activity 1 — Carlsberg focuses on experiences

“As such, we will start to shift the balance of focus into new areas such as our extended, five-year partnership with Live Nation.

“We are also delighted to be entering our 11th year as official beer of the Glastonbury festival and we’re particularly excited to be working with them in 2020, which sees the 50th year of the festival.

“Rest assured, football will continue to play a role, and we’re excited as ever to be official beer to eight Premier League clubs, including Liverpool and Tottenham.”

London Fields Brewery

Meanwhile, Carlsberg launched beers from its recently acquired London Fields Brewery brand at Craft Beer Rising this week (22 February) with its Hackney Hopster 4.2% ABV pale ale and 3 Weiss Monkeys (5% ABV Hefeweizen/IPA).

However, the new brews are being produced at the Hackney Wick-based Truman’s Brewery until the new London Fields site is operational at the end of this year.

On producing the beers for London Fields, new Truman’s Brewery founder James Morgan said: “Several of our team, both past and present, started their careers in beer at London Fields and it is great to be in a position to help them rebuild.

“We both have big plans for the future and the current beer scene offers so much opportunity for us to work together.”