If the pandemic allows, Barcelona will once again host a new edition of the Barcelona Open Banc Sabadell - Trofeo Conde de Godó in April 2021, the largest non-football related sports and social event held in the Catalan capital. Last spring's lockdown forced the cancellation of the 2020 tournament, which was the last one the bank chaired by Josep Oliu had signed by contract.
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After absorbing the blow of the cancellation, the board of directors of the Real Club de Tenis Barcelona (RCTB), chaired by Josep Jordi Cambra, quickly set about preparing the 2021 tournament. One of the main challenges was to renew the sponsorship contract with Sabadell in an environment of maximum uncertainty and in the midst of a global collapse in the business of sponsoring sporting events. Although the bank had a preferential right to renew the Godó sponsorship, the club explored alternatives, but in the end, it has once again received the trust of the financial institution, which will continue to support the tournament for at least one more year.
According to The New Barcelona Post, at the end of last week, coinciding with days of maximum intensity at the bank due to the frustrated merger negotiations with BBVA, Sabadell and the Barcelona Tennis Club signed a one-year extension of the sponsorship contract, although nothing prevents the agreement from being extended in 2021 if the sports industry manages to return to normality.
Although neither Banco Sabadell nor the club have wanted to make statements, multiple sources consulted assure that the extension has been made under the same economic conditions as the contract currently in force, that is, there has been no downward negotiation of the sponsorship amount, despite the fact that the conditions under which the event can be held are currently unknown. "The bank has signed an unconditional extension, without knowing what will happen in 2021, it is practically a blank check with the aim of ensuring the continuity of a tournament that is very important for the city of Barcelona," says one of the sources consulted.
The CEO of Godó and first vice-president of the club, Xavier Pujol, president Cambra himself, and another member of the board of directors, José Cuevas, a senior executive at Banca March, who is the treasurer of the tennis club, have been at the forefront of the negotiation. "Outside of football or Formula 1 in Montmeló, Barcelona only has the Godó, there is nothing else," explain sources close to the board to highlight the importance of having financially secured the 2021 edition.
It is estimated that as a consequence of covid-19, global investment in sports sponsorship could plummet by 40% this year, to 28.9 billion dollars, compared to more than 46 billion in 2019, according to calculations by the firm Two Circles. The financial sector, traditionally the largest investor in sports, will be the one to tighten its belt the most, with an estimated 45% cut in investment.
The agreement for the extension of Sabadell has been delayed because, in parallel, the board of directors of Tenis Barcelona has had to deal with a conflict with the IMG group, the company that has been in charge of organizing the Godó for more than 30 years. At the end of 2019, the winning board of the last elections decided to award the management of the tournament between 2021 and 2023 to the Barcelona agency Tennium. The 2020 Godó, therefore, was the last one that IMG should have organized. This multinational sports marketing company, however, invoked a clause in its contract that allowed it to automatically extend the exploitation of the event for one year due to exceptional circumstances, such as the suspension of the tournament due to covid-19. If the club decided to ignore this clause and still place Tennium at the head of the Godó in 2021, it only had two solutions: compensate IMG or go to court. The first option was chosen, that is, to reach an amicable economic agreement that could have been closed days before signing the contract with Sabadell.
Tennium, therefore, will debut next year at the Godó and one of its main missions will be, precisely, to renew the main sponsorship contracts of the tournament, either with Sabadell or with new operators. In addition to the bank, the sponsors of the Godó are the Barcelona City Council, Emirates, Peugeot, Estrella Damm and, at a lower level, the Generalitat, Dunlop, Lacoste, Mapfre and La Vanguardia.
Banco Sabadell has been the main sponsor of the competition since 2008, so in 2021 it will accumulate 14 years of association with an event that transcends the sporting plane and becomes year after year an important economic and social event thanks to the life parallel to the matches that takes place in the stands of the village and in its crowded restaurant. The entity has taken advantage of the tournament because for a good part of these years of sponsorship its image has been associated with that of Rafa Nadal, the great star of the Godó, with eleven titles.
Before Sabadell, the tournament had been sponsored by Seat ---for twelve years--- and, previously, Renault and two tobacco brands, Winston and Marlboro, something unthinkable today.
Objective: greater international projection
The new organizers of the Godó and the board of directors led by Cambra will have to combine the adaptation of the tournament to a post-pandemic environment with their initial objective of giving a strong boost to the sporting event, which they want to provide with greater international projection. In this sense, in October the club announced that the Barcelona Open Banc Sabadell will be part of the Roland Garros Pro Series, an initiative that links the Parisian Grand Slam with the best clay court tournaments around the world.
The 2021 edition, number 68, is scheduled to be held between April 17 and 25, according to the initial calendar managed by the ATP. According to the specialized publication 2Playbook, the Barcelona Open Banc Sabadell has historically managed a budget of between seven million and ten million euros per edition, with a profit margin that was distributed between the club and the company in charge of management.