The Changing Face of Marathon Sponsorships

Published by Boston.com on February 10, 2014

With over 500 marathons being run annually across the United States encompassing an annualized average of 500,000 finishers (2010 – 2012) no one can really question the popularity of our sport. As more and more people look to take on the challenge of a marathon and more cities look to stage them, it's not surprising that more businesses are taking notice of the branding and marketing opportunities they afford.

As for the nature of the sponsors, one common thread for many of the major marathons is they have been mostly business that are aimed at connecting with the consumer marketplace. Chicago, London and Boston are all sponsored by financial services companies, and Berlin is sponsored by BMW. The logic of these kinds of sponsors is further confirmed when you look at the nature of marathon runner demographics in terms of income and education levels.

Therefore, I was very surprised when last fall I saw the following post in my Facebook news feed about the New York City Marathon:

Needless to say, I had no idea who TCS, otherwise known as Tata Consultancy Service, was or what they did. As the previous sponsor ING was very much a household name, needless to say I was intrigued to find out more.

So who is TCS? In nutshell that they are global IT services, consulting and business solutions provider based out of India who deploy over 277,000 consultants in 44 countries across the globe.

So why would a global IT consulting firm want to sponsor the New York City Marathon? At first it seemed rather puzzling. When you look at the sponsors of the other World Marathon Majors noted above, it seems like a logical partnership in terms of why they would want to connect with the marathon community and use a major marathon as a means to further communicate their value and benefits of their brand. Therefore, how could a IT consulting firm, who’s target is clearly a B2B audience, really benefit and connect with those associated with the New York City Marathon? What I mean here is, how many of these runners and spectators are really looking to purchase IT consulting services?