27 September 2026 · 6 min read · Oscar Markham
Is sponsoring a local club worth it?
Almost every Irish small business is asked to sponsor something — a club, a team, a fundraiser, a programme. Most say yes out of decency and get nothing commercial back. The money is rarely the problem; what is missing is everything that should happen after the cheque.
The sponsorship itself is not the marketing
A logo on a jersey is seen by people at matches, most of whom already know you exist. That is goodwill, and goodwill is worth something, but it is not a campaign.
The commercial value comes from what you do with it: the announcement, the photographs, the website link, the mention in the club's newsletter, and the fact that you can now honestly say you support the club when you advertise locally.
Ask for the link
Almost every club has a website with a sponsors page. A link from it is a real, relevant, local backlink — the kind that is genuinely hard to get and that improves how often Google crawls your site.
You have already paid for it. Most businesses never ask, and most clubs are happy to add it. This is the single most valuable and most commonly wasted part of Irish club sponsorship.
- A link from the club website to yours
- A named mention in the announcement, not just a logo
- Permission to use the sponsorship in your own advertising
- Photographs you are allowed to publish
- A mention in the match programme or newsletter
Make the announcement do work
A club posting 'thanks to our sponsor' reaches the club's followers. You posting the same thing reaches yours, and the two together reach considerably more people than either alone.
Put a modest budget behind your own post targeted at the town. It costs very little and it turns a private arrangement into local visibility.
When to say no
If the club is not in an area you serve, if the sponsorship is purely a logo with no link and no mention, or if you are being asked mainly because you are known to say yes.
Saying no to sponsorship that produces nothing is not meanness. It leaves money for the one that does.
The honest arithmetic
A few hundred euro for a jersey, properly used, buys a real backlink, local goodwill, content for the year and a story you can tell in your advertising.
The same money spent with none of that buys a logo on a jersey. Same cheque, entirely different outcome.
Written by Oscar Markham, founder of Dublin Growth Digital. We run lead generation for Irish estate agents and trades, reported every Friday in enquiries and booked work.