Let's look at the numbers

The Volvo Ocean Race is a great place to dig into the numbers that show that sailing does, indeed, deliver for sponsors. It has a global reach that is incredibly unique in the sponsorship marketplace due to its 9 month duration and its physical touch points in most of the worlds major markets.

The preliminary numbers from the first half of the 2008-9 VOR are outstanding, both in their absolute size and also in their growth from the 2005-6 race.

• In the first 5 months of the race, 2.41 million unique visitors visited volvooceanrace.org, up 39% for the same period in 2005-6.
• In the first 5 stopovers, the total number of spectators to pass through the turnstyles of the race village was 2,350,392. This is a 250% increase over the first 5 stopovers of the 2005-6 race
• The pro-am race day in Alicante brought 68,400 people to the village, while the total stopover attendance was 937,000 people.
• Cochin India, by comparison, brought in a total of 811,677 people with a peak day attendance of 107,289. Yup over one hundred thousand people in the race village on a single day. You'd have to see it to believe it....From being there I can assure you that it was absolutely amazing.

Unfortunately we don't have data from the individual teams that participated in 2008-9 quite yet. However, we will look at two examples from 2005-6 to set a base line; Ericsson and ABN Amro. Here are some very top line results their sponsorships in 2005-6;

Ericsson 2005-6:

• Estimated their media value benefit at US$ 65 Million.
• Put on 500 B2B focused events where they entertained 4,600 decision making customers at the Executive, VP, and Senior level.
• Engaged employees through over 100 seminars and workshops focused around the race.
• Estimate their total value of sponsorship at close to US$100 Million, which is a 450-500% ROI.

ABN Amro:

• Estimated their media value benefit at US$ 77 Million.
• Entertained 35,000 key customers and clients worldwide
• Engaged employees and developed corporate pride as demonstrated by the 25 Million intranet hits that their employees generated on the team's website.
• Measured their tangible total economic return on investment at 600%