According to this study, titled “Dirty money: how fossil fuel sponsorships are polluting sports,” football, motorsport, rugby and golf are among the most heavily supported, with backing from the likes of Aramco groups ($1.3 billion), Ineos ($777 million, Shell) ($470 million) or TotalEnergies ($340 million).
The petrostates of the Near and Middle East are increasingly involved in the financing of sports, a study the authors of which regret that it was published at a time when the summer of 2024 was set to be the hottest summer ever recorded on the planet.
205 agreements signed
To reach their conclusions, the authors of the study examined all sports agreements signed by companies linked to fossil fuels that emit large amounts of greenhouse gases. They identified 205, of which only 41 specified the total amount.
To fill the data gap, the authors then made estimates based on comparisons with similar deals with known amounts in the same sports category or other sectors (electronics, alcohol, transportation) from the SportBusiness database and publicly available sources.
The world of sports is no longer immune to questions from the public, politicians and athletes about the impact of this activity on global warming.
In a rather symbolic example, TotalEnergies, the sponsor of the Rugby World Cup in 2023, had to remain vigilant in its fan zones in Paris. The group had already withdrawn from sponsoring the Paris-2024 Olympic Games in 2019 following a letter from Mayor Anne Hidalgo to the Olympic organizing committee (Cojo).
