‘Jumbo will stop as the main sponsor of the cycling and skating team after 2024’

Jumbo will stop as the main sponsor of the Jumbo-Visma cycling and skating team after next year. That reports the NOS. Jumbo is said to have already informed the team management at the end of last year.

The supermarket chain from Veghel concluded the million-dollar contract with the sports teams in 2018. Jumbo is a major lender to the athletes: the company is responsible for one third of the budget of a total of 36 million euros.

Jumbo only wants to confirm that the contract with the sports teams is finite. “At the moment we are looking at our positioning,” a spokesperson told the NOS. “We also check whether our sponsorship policy is still in line with our vision and ambitions and the needs of our customer.”

“The term sports sponsorship has become a bit contaminated within Jumbo.”

Sports marketing Bob van Oosterhout is not surprised that Jumbo is now stopping as the main sponsor. “Karel van Eerd was a huge cycling and skating enthusiast. Unfortunately, he passed away. And that money laundering case, in which Frits van Eerd is mentioned, is also taking a big hit. As a result, the term sports sponsorship has become a bit contaminated within the Jumbo group,” he says to the NOS.

“Add to that the fact that Jumbo’s market share is under pressure. The sum of this means that current policymakers are sitting around the table and asking themselves: do we still want to do this this way?”

“I felt the decision coming.”

Jumbo’s decision does not come as a surprise to Richard Plugge, director of the skating and cycling team either: “I felt the decision coming. A lot has happened there.”

At the beginning of this year it was announced that Jumbo would stop as a moneylender for motocross. At the time, the successor to Jumbo director Frits van Eerd, Ton van Veen, also said to take a critical look at the sponsorship of motorsport. Jumbo is one of the official partners of racing driver Max Verstappen.

Frits van Eerd in 2019, then still as director of Jumbo (photo: ANP).
Frits van Eerd in 2019, then still as director of Jumbo (photo: ANP).

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