Football and everything else. Polish sport is gaining in value every year

The preparations of the Polish team for the Olympic challenge in the French capital cost nearly PLN 472 million. The Games are the most important sports event in the world, the eyes of the entire globe are focused on the competitions of our compatriots and compatriots, for the glory of their own homelands.

Big money and few medals – a disappointment after the games in Paris

It was no different in Poland. The performance of Polish athletes at the 2024 Olympics sparked a nationwide discussion. Tradition has actually become enough, because when there are no sports results, there is ubiquitous lamentation. The facts are, however, that only ten medals brought from Paris is the worst result for the Polish Olympic movement in 68 years.

What’s worse, it ended with only one gold medal, won by Aleksandra Mirosław in sports climbing. If it were not for this relatively new discipline on the Olympic card, it is possible that there would never be an opportunity to listen to “Mazurka Dąbrowskiego” in Paris. To complement, Poland also won ten medals in 2004, at the Olympic Games in Athens. At that time, however, we had three gold medals, which is more highly valued in the all-time Olympic tables.

The achievements from Paris can be compared one to one to the result of the Polish national team from 1956 at the Olympic Games in Melbourne. That is, the post-war period, when the country was more concerned about reconstruction than sports results. Still on this topic, even Ukraine had more medals at the 2024 Olympics.

Therefore, annual Olympic preparations in Poland cost just over PLN 116 million. And we’re only talking about subsidies that went directly to sports associations for preparations for the games in Paris from the Ministry of Sport and Tourism.

As Interia reported in August this year, this was not supposed to be the last word from the ministry. The ministry planned to provide additional funds of over PLN 225 million, part of which is to be used for preparations before the winter games in Milan-Cortina d’Ampezzo in 2026.

The Polish Olympic Committee has not had anything to be proud of in recent months not only in terms of the medals won. Frictions between the president of the Polish Olympic Committee, Radosław Piesiewicz, and the minister (of the above-mentioned ministry), Sławomir Nitras, were one of the main post-Olympic topics. And they are still going on. However, if we look at the POC from the sponsors’ perspective, in this respect the association can count on stable, long-term support. Strategic sponsor? PKN Orlen. And they are treated as a “sponsor” on the official website of the committee: Enea, Plus and Adidas.

Football and volleyball chase. Then everything else

As parkiet.com reported in a report prepared by Sponsor Insight, 2023 was the third year in a row in which the value of the Polish sports sponsorship market increased. What’s more, this is a record result in national history.

How much money have sponsors pumped into Polish sport? This result amounts to PLN 1.35 billion. For comparison, in 2016 it was 832.4 million.

There was, is not and will not be a surprise in terms of the discipline that is the biggest sports business. In 2023, football will receive half a billion zlotys from domestic business. Share in revenues from the sale of sponsorship rights? Again citing Sponsor Insight, football generated 37.5 percent of the total sports market in Poland. Who completes the podium in this category? The second leader is volleyball (18.9%), followed by motor sports (8.7%), although in this case speedway is not included.

Who gives the most money to sports? We need to look again at PKN Orlen, where the advertising equivalent for 2023 from sponsoring activities in the sports sector is approximately PLN 1.9 billion. Moreover, the participation of the State Treasury through its companies in this sector is crucial.

However, Orlen is definitely number 1 in this respect. PGE (including the title sponsor of the National Stadium and the speedway league) and Enea (including the above-mentioned Polish Olympic Committee and Lech Poznań stadium) are also important.

Orlen, Enea, PGE, Totalizator Sportowy – but also zondacrypto and InPost

Examples of sports sponsorship of a Polish leader? In the case of Orlen, it is actually difficult to find a space where the logo of this most famous Polish oil company does not appear. The Polish men’s and women’s national football team, similarly in the case of volleyball, and supporting athletics figures – headed by the Olympic and Paralympic family. The same applies to the support for the great speedway champion, Bartosz Zmarzlik.

Orlen is also the title sponsor of the national handball games, of course also including the handball teams. It is also support for amateur sports, popularization of physical activity and health prevention. Plus something new that appeared in 2024, i.e. “Sportowy ORLEN” – a large-scale program for children and youth. To encourage the youngest to an active lifestyle. It is worth visiting the official website of PKN Orlen, where an updated list of sponsorship agreements in 2020-24 is available. Looking only at the current year (as of November 18), there are 67 positions. There, we can best see the scope of Orlen’s activities, not only sports ones.

Lotto also plays an important role in Polish sports. Since 1994, Totalizator Sportowy has transferred over PLN 16.7 billion to the Ministry of Sport and Tourism. Lotto also supports, among others: football league, although not as a title sponsor.

PKO Bank Polski is such a company. Lotto is a partner of the league’s mobile application and, additionally, of the Fantasy Ekstraklasa game. The cooperation between Ekstraklasa and Totalizator Sportowy has been going on since 2014.

Lotto sponsorship support also includes: Tour de Pologne cycling, 3×3 basketball or Polish tennis. As the title partner of LOTTO SuperLIGA, but also the main partner of the women’s and men’s national teams, thanks to cooperation with the Polish Tennis Association. It was no coincidence that the Lotto logo was visible, among others, during the recent Billie Jean King Cup finals with the participation of, among others, Iga Świątek.

Bookmaker companies also play an important role in Polish sports: STS (including the Polish national team, Jagiellonia Białystok), Superbet (including the Polish Ski Association and the football club Lech Poznań), Fortuna (including Legia Warszawa and Konfrontacje Sztuk Walki ) or Betclic – as the title sponsor of the 1st, 2nd and 3rd league football games.

It’s also worth looking at zondacrypto. The cryptocurrency exchange with Polish roots is involved in sports sponsorship on a global scale. The most famous example is a football legend straight from Serie A, Juventus. It is no coincidence that an exceptionally recognizable Polish footballer, Wojciech Szczęsny, appeared on this company’s advertisements. Although “Szczena” no longer plays in Turin, he still operates in the zondacrypto space, already as an FC Barcelona player. The company’s ambassador, next to the Pole, is former European champion Giorgio Chiellini.

Interestingly, in addition to the club from Turin, the sponsorship portfolio of the Polish cryptocurrency exchange includes three other clubs from the Italian Serie A: Atalanta, Parma and Bologna (playing in the Champions League). Additionally, apart from football, zondacrypto sponsors cycling through activities with the Giro d’Italia and the Tour de Pologne. In women’s sports, in addition to Giro d’Italia Women, it sponsors tennis player Magdalena Fręch and Canyon//SRAM Racing, a professional cycling group run by Poles Katarzyna Niewiadoma and Agnieszka Skalniak-Sójka.

InPost is also making its presence felt on the sports sponsorship market. Rafał Brzoska, who is in the top ten of the “Wprost” List of the 100 richest Poles for 2024, knows the power of sport. InPost is the strategic sponsor of the Polish national football team. However, the company also has the InPost Sport Team (just like Orlen), where it supports talented Polish athletes. Examples? Natalia Bukowiecka (formerly Kaczmarek), Wojciech Nowicki, but also the talented athlete Michał Gawenda.

As in the case of its general activities, also in terms of sports sponsorship, InPost has expanded beyond the borders of Poland. Parcel lockers suddenly became associated not only with compatriots, but also with fans of such football clubs as Newcastle United (England, Premier League) or Atletico Madrid (Spain, LaLiga and Champions League).

PlusLiga as an interesting example of sponsorship competition

The silver medal at the Olympic Games is not the only reason why volleyball enjoys unflagging interest in Poland. This is also the result of the product that is PlusLiga – the national volleyball competition. The absolute world leader. Suffice it to say that in the years 2021-23, Grupa Azoty ZAKSA Kędzierzyn-Koźle triumphed three times in the most prestigious competition on the Old Continent, i.e. the Champions League. Moreover, in 2023, in the final in Turin, ZAKSA played against Jastrzębski Węgiel for the title. Let us add that the club from Kędzierzyn-Koźle has felt the problems of Grupa Azoty in the last dozen or so months, but Orlen came to the help of the volleyball players – of course.

PlusLiga (the female equivalent is Tauron Liga, although not as prestigious) is a competition between clubs supported by state-owned companies and private players. It’s best to look at the final lineup from the 2023/24 season. On one side, the mentioned Jastrzębski Węgiel, i.e. the mining concern JSW. And on the other hand, Aluron CMC Warta Zawiercie, a club strongly supported by the private sector. Additionally, in the PlusLiga you can find teams such as: PGE Projekt Warszawa, Bogdanka LUK Lublin (an interesting state-private hybrid), PSG Stal Nysa, PGE GiEK Skra Bełchatów and finally Asseco Resovia Rzeszów. The latter is rightly associated with the Polish Microsoft, straight from the heart of Podkarpacie. Adam Góral, founder of Asseco, volleyball enthusiast, also present on the “Wprost” list for 2024.

Additionally, sponsors are attracted by great figures. In the current season (i.e. 2024/25) in PlusLiga you can find such volleyball players as Bartosz Kurek, Tomasz Fornal, Jakub Kochanowski and Wilfredo Leon. Contrary to the football reality, Polish representatives do not leave the country for a better reality abroad. Because it is in Poland that they feel the best, also in financial terms.

The volleyball players also defended themselves in the Olympic context off the pitch. The best-watched broadcast of the games on TVP was the final match of the men’s volleyball tournament. According to Nielsen data, it was watched by 4.9 million viewers. During the France-Poland clash, more than half (51%) of the TV sets were turned on TVP1.

And financially, Polish Television also had something to be proud of thanks to the games. In a special TVP announcement, it was announced that the event ended with revenue of PLN 22.5 million. This is an increase compared to the Olympic Games in Tokyo (2021) by PLN 13.7 million.

As you can see, you can earn quite a lot from sports in Poland.