OIL AND GAS ‘SPORTSWASHING’ NOW A $5.6 BILLION INDUSTRY
The new report from New Weather Institute, Dirty Money - How Fossil Fuel Sponsors are Polluting Sport, has found that major oil and gas companies are spending at least $5.6 billion on the sponsorship of global sport across 205 active deals.
The study finds high-profile sports with the most deals are football, motor sports, rugby union and golf, with key sponsors including Aramco ($1.3 billion), Shell ($470 million), TotalEnergies ($340 million) and petrochemicals giant Ineos ($777 million).
In a foreword to the report former captain of the Australian men’s football team, Craig Foster, writes, “Recently, the social licence of sport has been increasingly appropriated by oil and gas companies, eager to align themselves with moments of inspiration and with legendary athletes, to deflect from the damage they are causing. Not just to sport. But to the planet. This report could not be more timely for a much needed reckoning in sport.”
Middle Eastern petrostates are also highlighted as the fastest-growing area of investment. More than $4.5 billion has been invested in sports leagues and clubs by the Gulf states’ sovereign wealth funds in 2020-2023, according to an analysis by the Sovereign Wealth Fund Institute. The Gulf states also own several major football clubs, host four annual Formula 1 races, and are major funders of cycling, while Qatar hosted the 2022 world cup and Saudi Arabia is set to host the 2034 competition.
The findings follow the hottest summer on record, which saw warnings from athletes and climate experts that future summers of sport will be “impossible” due to climate change, and come just days ahead of the UN’s Summit of the Future later this month, where UN Secretary-General António Guterres is expected to call on advertisers to bring to an end alliances with the oil and gas sector at the event.
Samuel Mattis, 2x US Olympian, USA Track and Field Champion and NCAA Champion said:
“In the US we're no stranger to athletes dying from heat. In terms of the sports taking money from oil and gas companies, the phrase that comes to mind is “penny wise dollar dumb”. Yeah, you can make a little more money short term working with these fossil fuel companies. But in the long term you're risking sport’s ability to make money, the health of fans, the lives of athletes and the health of the entire planet. It's just immoral.”
The lack of publicly available information on how much money is being spent, on the length of sponsorships and whether other donations or ‘payments in kind’ were included in such deals, means that the estimate represents a highly conservative minimum amount. Even where more detail is available, figures may not include additional spending on public relations, social media, hospitality and other promotional work. This means the actual sum of fossil fuel company money in sport is very likely to be significantly higher than the figures of the report.
Morten Thorsby, Italian Serie A club Genoa and the Norway national team said:
“It’s shameful that football is the sport with the most deals from fossil fuel sponsors. It is a paradox that these oil and gas companies are spending billions of dollars sponsoring sport, whilst killing off sport's future and the future of young players through climate change. We should be spreading the message through football that our future is one that is free from oil and gas."
The report urges sporting authorities to end sponsorship from fossil fuel companies and demands transparency on sponsors’ emissions data and mitigation measures. Fresh from her gold medal winning performance in rowing at the recent Paris 2024 Olympics, TeamGB Olympian, Imogen Grant said: “It’s not necessary for…sports to accept a poisoned chalice from oil and gas sponsors. Any short term financial gain is just not worth it, when we can see the devastating impacts that are playing out in communities worldwide, in grassroots sport and sport more widely."
Read the full report here: Dirty Money - How Fossil Fuel Sponsors are Polluting Sport
