Jackie Stewart Tells B/R How He Brought Formula 1 and Heineken Together
MONTREAL — Formula One officially announced its long-rumoured Heineken sponsorship deal at the Circuit Gilles Villeneuve on Thursday with a large press conference/party befitting one of the world's largest breweries.
While the deal is good news for the sport as a whole, it could further exacerbate the preexisting financial inequality between the individual teams. Also, when companies like Heineken opt to sponsor the series as a whole, rather than a specific team, the sport's commercial rights holder takes approximately 35 percent of the cash before it filters back to the teams.
As part of the arrangement, the Dutch beer company will be the title sponsor for three F1 races each year, starting with the Italian Grand Prix this season. Heineken also introduced a new "If you drive, never drink" campaign, with three-time world champion Jackie Stewart as its spokesman.
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Stewart, who turns 77 on June 11, was instrumental in putting the deal together, as he explained to me and another reporter after the press conference.
"It's very satisfying. It's like winning a race—or a world championship, actually—when you think of bringing Heineken or Rolex into Formula One. I've always been interested in the sponsorship," said Stewart, who was one of the pioneers of personal sponsorship in the sport and has since helped bring several global companies aboard as advertisers.
"I loved it when I was racing," he said about the business side of F1, "but nowadays I get as much satisfaction from helping to put something like this together as I had from winning a grand prix or a world championship. I've probably brought more money into motorsport than any driver, ever, because I brought HSBC in, I brought RBS in, I brought a whole lot of major sponsors, major multinational corporations—and that, I enjoy doing."
There may not be an official table for that statistic, but Stewart is probably right. In addition to the companies he rhymes off, the Scot was also a key player in deals that brought Rolex and Unilever into F1, as he told Forbes' Christian Sylt.
Meanwhile, Stewart dismissed concerns about the Heineken deal enriching the Formula One Group and the bigger teams at the expense of the smaller ones.
"I think this is going to help other sponsors," he said. "I think Heineken coming in as a global brand is going to make Formula One even better recognised than it currently is."
He believes that the success of series sponsorships from companies like Rolex, Pirelli, Emirates Airline and, soon, Heineken, will entice more and more brands to sign on, some of them with individual teams.
At this point, it is worth remembering that Stewart has plenty of experience in drumming up sponsorship from a team's perspective. From 1997 to 1999, he was the owner of the Stewart Grand Prix team before selling it to Ford, which renamed it Jaguar (it is now called Red Bull—maybe you've heard of them).
Another aspect of the deal Stewart seems particularly proud of is the anti-drunk-driving campaign. It continues his legacy as a safety pioneer in F1.
"The drivers, myself, when we go to other countries, we can remind people...do not drink and drive," Stewart said. "I did it with seat belts, I did it with crash helmets and that saved lives."
As for the genesis of the agreement, Stewart said that he originally approached Heineken, rather than the other way around. Once the company was interested, he went to "senior management" (read: F1 CEO Bernie Ecclestone) and helped broker the deal. Altogether, it took nearly two years from concept to the plastering of Heineken signs around the Ile Notre-Dame in Montreal.
"I think it's the biggest thing that's happened in Formula One, probably ever, because Heineken are going to do it outside the track, as well as on the track," said Stewart, perhaps overstating things just a bit.
"Here in Montreal next year, you can be sure there's going to be a lot of Heineken events before the grand prix, which means the organiser's probably going to get more ticket sales than ever before."
That remains to be seen, and, frankly, it is a lot to ask from a sponsorship deal, no matter how much money Heineken is pumping into the sport. Stewart was in full-on pitchman mode, though, and the deal is certainly significant—it just may not result in record-breaking crowds.
Still, as Stewart noted, "I haven't seen a Formula One press conference attended by so many people—on a very cold day."
But maybe that was just the promise of free beer.
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