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Recession hitting Asian sports

AFP, Hong Kong
As the global economic turmoil batters the world's biggest banks and financial institutions, concerns are growing that the Asian sporting events they support could be bundled into touch.
This weekend, Hong Kong hosts its annual Rugby Sevens tournament, traditionally an excuse for the region's high-flying financiers to jet into the southern Chinese city, dress up in costume and overindulge on hospitality.
But as financial giants take their begging bowls to governments, such corporate largesse is decidedly out of favour.
"Activity around this year's rugby sevens will be a fraction of what we did last year in recognition of the very different market environment we now operate in," said a spokeswoman for Royal Bank of Scotland (RBS).
RBS, long a stalwart supporter of rugby, has received more than 29 billion US dollars in bailouts from the British government.
Other major firms have either sublet their boxes - which can each cost around 80,000 US dollars a year -- or scaled back the party, according to organisers and reports.
This reduction in corporate entertainment reflects the wider recession-driven belttightening, where any non-business spending comes under careful scrutiny, including sponsorship of sports events.
"You will find that events will no longer be supported simply because they happen to have been the favourite pastime of the chief executive," said Hass Aminian, a director of business development at global sports marketing firm Sport Five.
"The deals will have to be run on even more strict business models," he said, adding that fewer deals had been agreed in recent months.
The Asian sports marketing industry has boomed in the past 10 years, in particular since the success of the 2002 World Cup in South Korea and Japan.
It has provided a crucial mechanism for global firms to raise their profile in the region and for regional firms to let the world know about their products.
Aminian said it was very difficult to quantify the entire Asian sports marketing sector, but its importance can be demonstrated by last year's Beijing Olympics, which attracted 866 million dollars from its 12 leading sponsors.
However, the sports that have benefited from the aggressive increase in activity are now having to scramble for support.
In December, Japanese automaker Honda announced it was scrapping its Formula One team, as the general export market for its cars collapsed.
The firm spent an estimated 400 million US dollars on the glamorous sport every year, a sum it could no longer justify, and the team was only saved from collapse earlier this month by former principal Ross Brawn.
Fellow Japanese automaker Suzuki pulled out of the World Rally Championship soon after Honda's decision, citing the "global economic turmoil".
Fuji Heavy Industries, maker of Subaru cars, also dropped out of the championship, while motorcycle maker Kawasaki said in January it was pulling out of the MotoGP.
Swiss bank UBS has pulled its five-year sponsorship of the Hong Kong Open golf tournament after coughing up 2.5 million US dollars in prize money in 2008, amid huge losses.
Even HSBC, one of the few global banks to avoid bailouts, said it was weighing up its sponsorship of golf tournaments, including the two-million-dollar Women's Champions in Singapore.
"Losses are linked with the main business objectives and these do change. We might consolidate in one market and grow in another. But you don't stop marketing in a downturn," Giles Morgan, head of sponsorship for the British-based bank, told the StraitsTimes.
Reports of new deals between sports apparel giant Nike and the Chinese Super League football competition, as well as logistics firm DHL's backing for the Asian Football Confederation's Champions League are signs that support will continue for major events.
"Niche sports that try to sell themselves as a mass awareness event will be in trouble," said Aminian.
"But bigger sports like football will continue to offer value to both big and small brands."
Many finance firms are determined to keep using sport as an opportunity to forget the gloomy balance sheets.
CLSA, an Asia-based brokerage, will entertain clients with booze and dancing girls in its Hong Kong Sevens corporate box, although the usual record-spinning DJ has been substituted for an IPod.
But the cost-cutting hasn't dampened CLSA's sense of humour: it will be serving beer under its own cheeky label declaring the brew to be "free of taxpayer's money, conflicted advice and credit".