LONDON — Against crippling headwinds, luxury watch brands are looking for quick wins, sinking millions of dollars into sports sponsorships. With exports of luxury watches in a long period of decline, high-profile, high-tariff commercial sports deals can look like a “Hail Mary” as brands fight tooth and nail for attention – and sales.
“In today’s world, we have to find a way of reaching the lady waiting at the bus stop,” Omega chief executive Raynald Aeschlimann said.
Sport sponsorship can range from partnerships with elite-level competitions and athletes to the role of official timekeeper — giving high visibility to a brand logo — or getting a timepiece on the wrist of a sports star.
Efficient for reaching audiences, lasting sales success is harder to guarantee.
Deals are becoming bigger and increasingly complex, requiring a long-term approach and huge costs.
“If a brand can’t afford to do it properly and attempts a cheap or half-hearted execution, it will cost them dearly with little to no return on investment,” cautions Anthony Schaub, founder and CEO of Geneva-based The Consultancy Group.
At the same time, Schaub stresses the risk to luxury brands of pulling back too much during challenging economic times.
“They risk losing top-of-mind awareness entirely,” Schaub said.
The Race for Dominance
Some watch brands including Rolex, Omega, Breitling and Norqain are charging ahead.
Breitling has deepened its relationship with the US National Football League (NFL), the world’s wealthiest sports league.
Omega this year kicked off three months of events with the Tiger Woods and Rory McIlroy-backed TGL golf league, while Norqain, an ambitious independent watch company founded in 2018, has struck a deal with North America’s National Hockey League (NHL).
“Everybody knows the NFL and people now associate us with it,” Breitling CEO Georges Kern said. The deal, which is estimated by analysts to cost the brand around $30 million a year, has included a capsule collection of 64 watches, two for each of the league’s 32 teams.
For Omega, the Milan Winter Olympics mark its 32nd games as official timekeeper. Two years ago, the brand amplified its impact through a partnership with France’s Léon Marchand, who became a figurehead of the Paris Olympics in 2024 with four gold swimming medals, bringing instant visibility.
“Daily visits to our site doubled,” said Aeschlimann.
In this competitive environment, dominance has become key.
The flurry of sports-related activity comes as TAG Heuer’s Formula One timekeeping partnership enters its second year – riding a wave of popularity for the motorsport’s premier competition. It’s part of a landmark contract between the brand’s parent company LVMH and the sport’s owner Liberty Media, thought to be worth $1 billion over 10 years. Encompassing other big-name LVMH labels like Moët & Chandon champagne, the sprawling deal, which ousted long-time sponsor Rolex, sets a new benchmark for sponsors.
Rolex, meanwhile, continues to concentrate on tennis and golf, sponsoring all four tennis Grand Slams and all nine of golf Majors – for undisclosed sums – as well as a new deal with LIV Golf, giving it blanket coverage of golf’s leading tours.
Brands can join the ranks of sponsors in a given sport – and compete for airtime – or own it outright, as sole sponsor.
“Owning a territory makes an enormous difference,” said TAG Heuer’s chief marketing officer George Ciz. While other watch labels are involved in the sport – including Breitling which just announced a partnership with the Aston Martin Aramco Formula One team – TAG Heuer is the event’s only timekeeper and its branding dominates broadcast coverage of the races.
“It gives us a unique credibility and authority in the sport, and allows us to tell a clear, instantly recognisable story to consumers, media and B2B partners.”
The partnership has made TAG Heuer the leading watch brand for engagement on Instagram for 2025 for the first time in its history – “a real surprise,” given the tough economic environment, Ciz said.
Traffic in stores has been boosted by 15 percent, thanks to events organized around Formula One, Ciz added, declining to detail investments.
Sales of related products, like the Formula 1 Solargraph and the square-cased Monaco, a watch named after the sport’s blue riband event, grew more than 20 percent last year, with interest from both men and women as well as proving a strong entry-point for younger consumers, Ciz added.
The increased visibility is lifting second-hand market values, too. Richemont retailer WatchFinder & Co. said sales of racing-inspired watches climbed 52 percent last year, a trend led by TAG Heuer’s Formula 1 Sparkling, a 2010s version of the design set with diamonds that increased by 112 percent year on year, the fastest-growing watch model in the UK by sales.
Retailers see the benefits of sports marketing investments but note they have become costly.
“Clearly the consumer is very responsive to sports associations,” said Brian Duffy, CEO of The Watches of Switzerland Group, which operates stores in the US and UK.
He said TAG Heuer’s Formula One watches linked to individual Grand Prix events “disproportionally” benefitted sales while demand for Breitling’s Six Nations collection of rugby watches exceeded supply.
“A lot of sports sponsorship is very expensive,” Duffy added, noting sports brands have “pushed the envelope a little far.”
For Swiss label Norqain, the foray into ice hockey with its largest sponsorship deal ever is aimed at raising its profile in the United States and Canada where most of the sport’s 600 million fans are based. The young company’s chief executive Ben Küffer said opportunity would give Norqain visibility at 1,400 games over a single NHL season.
“It’s clearly the biggest deal we’ve done in terms of financial investment,” said the executive, declining to provide financial details.
Despite the uncertainty brought by tariff threats, the US is the watch industry’s largest market as demand in China suffers from subdued property prices.
Further Investment Required
Adding to the upfront cost, however, is the need to invest beyond the initial deal. Küffer has brought on three new employees to the company, which employs 80 people, to manage the partnership. The executive agreed with analysts who say brands should at least match every dollar spent securing a partnership in activating it.
For Schaub, the consultant, while seven of the top 10 Swiss watch labels by revenue have high-level sports sponsorships, brands shouldn’t fall into the trap of considering involvement in sport as essential, given the increasingly competitive environment.
“The key difference now compared to five years ago is that an opportunistic, short-term approach simply doesn’t work anymore,” said Schaub. “The direction of travel is clear: authenticity and sustained engagement will separate the brands that truly cut through from those that simply add to the noise.”
Brands need to be realistic about their means. “If they can’t do high-level sponsorship justice, they shouldn’t do it at all,” Schaub said.
Some brands have found rising costs are pushing sponsorship out of reach.
Hublot, owned by LVMH, is reducing investments in football after playing a strong role in the sport for two decades. It will not return as official timekeeper of FIFA’s World Cup this summer, ending a deal that started in 2010.
“Football is a great driver of emotion, but over the last years, there’s been a lot of inflation in deals done with sport and we have to put some limits,” said CEO Julien Tornare.
“We cannot put all our eggs in the same basket,” Tornare added, noting he aims for a balance between football, sport, music and art.
Disclosure: LVMH is part of a group of investors who, together, hold a minority interest in The Business of Fashion. All investors have signed shareholders’ documentation guaranteeing BoF’s complete editorial independence.
