New Weather Report finds Oil and Gas ‘sportswashing’ now a $5.6 billion industry

Time is now to ask “uncomfortable questions” regarding sponsors who threaten future of sport, says former Australian soccer captain Craig Foster

“The fact that Paris created a fossil fuel free Olympics games shows that it’s not necessary for other sports to accept a poisoned chalice from oil and gas sponsors. Any short term financial gain is just not worth it, when we can see the devastating impacts that are playing out in communities worldwide, in grassroots sport and sport more widely.” Imogen Grant, Paris 2024 Olympic Champion and 2x TeamGB Olympian

“Oil companies who are delaying climate action and pouring more fuel on the fire of global heating, are using big tobacco’s old playbook and trying to pass themselves off as patrons of sport. But air pollution from fossil fuels and the extreme weather of a warming world threaten the very future of athletes, fans and events ranging from the Winter Olympics to World Cups. If sport is to have a future it needs to clean itself of dirty money from big polluters and stop promoting its own destruction.” Andrew Simms, co-director of the New Weather Institute

A New Weather Institute report Dirty Money – How Fossil Fuel Sponsors are Polluting Sport released today reveals that major oil and gas companies are spending at least $5.6 billion on the sponsorship of global sport across 205 active deals.

Our study finds high profile sports with the most deals are football, motor sports, rugby union and golf, with key sponsors including Aramco ($1.3 billion), Shell ($470 million), TotalEnergies ($340 million) and petrochemicals giant Ineos ($777 million).

The findings come just days ahead of the UN’s Summit of the Future later this month. New Weather’s work on fossil fuel sponsorship of sports through its Badvertising campaign has already contributed to shifting the conversation to question the acceptability of oil and gas money in sport at a time of climate crisis. This report shows the huge scale of the issue and the urgent need to clean up the sports sponsorship world.