It is finally official. Yamaha have today announced that they have signed a five-year deal with Spanish telecommunications company Movistar to act as title sponsor for the factory Yamaha team.
The deal will see Movistar branding appear prominently on fairings, leathers, team uniform, team trucks, etc, and the team be called Movistar Yamaha MotoGP.
The deal had been rumored since the start of the year, and had been confirmed unofficially last week, when Movistar presented its TV schedules. But the formal announcement came only today, when the Spanish firm unveiled the price structure for its pay-per-view offering in Madrid.
The contract had been a long time in the making, as there was a conflict over fairing space with sponsor Monster, who had signed a two-year deal with team at the beginning of last season.
According to reports in Spanish magazine Solomoto, appearing on the US website Sport Rider, Yamaha Racing boss Lin Jarvis had flown to the US to help settle the deal with Monster.
This was key, as Movistar is both offering much more money than Monster – the Sport Rider report claims it is twice as much – but the deal is also for a longer period, stretching for five years, while the Monster contract expires at the end of this year.
The reason for the deal is to help promote the Movistar pay-per-view TV package. In a deal similar to that on offer in the UK, where BT Sport has secured the rights, Movistar is using its sports and entertainment packages to help sell broadband services. Having Yamaha’s MotoGP team be associated with Movistar will be a useful sales aid in the key Spanish market.
The livery to be used by the team has not yet been unveiled. That will be revealed ahead of the first race of the season at Qatar, in two weeks’ time.
Source: Yamaha Racing
This article was originally published on MotoMatters, and is republished here on Asphalt & Rubber with permission by the author.
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