The US-based sportswear brand Nike has retained its top spot being the world’s most marketable brand in sport for the year 2021. Nike is followed by Adidas at second along with Emirates at third position. Santander and Red Bull are at fourth and fifth respectively. Puma, Statefarm, Monster Energy, Dream11 and Heineken complete the top ten in order. These rankings are provided by Hookit who uses advanced analytics to declare results.
The rankings provided by Hookit are based on two key parameters – multiplied together to determine a discounted adjusted ad value (AAV). Another thing to note here is that sponsorship value is assessed by Hookit in partnership with SportsGrap which uses computer vision technology to track social media engagement of different clubs and players.
The social and digital posts from professional athletes, leagues, teams events, and venues were examined between 15th August 2020 and 15th August 2021 for brand promotion. Over 8,000 brands were promoted along with 30,000 sports organisations and athletes posted during this period across platforms including Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, Twitch, Twitter, VK, Weibo and YouTube. In the end, Nike managed 8.77 billion engagements on social media and over $616.5 million in revenue which is almost $270 million more than Adidas.
“Our focus on social media sponsorship measurement allows us to leverage the power and depth of data across all the social media channels to remove any subjectivity from these rankings, built on over five billion data points,” said Scott Tilton, co-founder of Hookit.
“Brands are getting smarter and more data-focused in their marketing and this list has become a trusted benchmark for brands to know how they compare to competitors or peers, especially with the top tens by segment included in this year’s rankings.”
“It’s no surprise to see Nike still at the top, but there’s a significant shake up in this year’s rankings compared to 2020 due to sporting events coming back, like the Euros and Summer Olympics.“