BORA remains fully committed to its sponsorship agreement with the BORA – hansgrohe UCI WorldTeam

Raubling, 30 April 2020. News is surfacing that several UCI WorldTour cycling team sponsors are dialling back their sponsorship commitments. The BORA – hansgrohe cycling team’s title sponsor BORA is bucking this trend, however, by continuing to sponsor the team in full as contractually agreed. Willi Bruckbauer, CEO of BORA Lüftungstechnik based in Raubling, Germany, emphasises the company’s commitment, saying, “We want to set an example. Even at a time like this, we think that we should still honour our agreement. We will stay fully committed to the team.” The company partnered with the team back in 2012, and this is its sixth year being the title sponsor for one of the most successful UCI WorldTeams. As things stand, the Tour de France – which accounts for around three quarters of BORA’s media value in a year – is set to take place in autumn and so is likely to be the only large, international sporting event of 2020. It seems the company’s advertising value from taking part will be unaffected due to the event’s enormous TV coverage.

“We’ve had outstanding media value over the last few years from our sponsorship activities, boosting BORA’s commercial success,” explains Bruckbauer. “That is why we are staying the team’s reliable partner in these challenging circumstances and helping the riders to prepare as best as possible for the new, shorter race calendar. We are also continuing our commitment as we are hoping for exceptional ratings in this exceptional year, and by the same token, we are continuing to place accompanying TV adverts. Investing in the future like this should also help us to secure jobs,” says Bruckbauer, who is seeing a significant drop off in orders at the moment. Nevertheless, he thinks that the company is well equipped for the future after performing very well in Q1 thanks to its new products and strong brand identity, and because the supply chain remains fully functioning as upstream suppliers in Germany and Austria are showing great commitment too. “Right now we’re sticking to our company objectives,” says Bruckbauer today.

Even though some employees needed to have their hours reduced as part of the ‘Kurzarbeit’ scheme due to the nature of their work, the company intends to stop this scheme as soon it can so as to restore and maintain full employment and, as far as possible, hire new employees in line with the company’s goals. Willi Bruckbauer explains, “That’s how we’re approaching the situation. My personal goal is to fulfil our commitments to our employees too.”

“For me, the pandemic is in the past, and I’m looking to the future with positivity,” continues the Bavarian businessman. Bruckbauer is unequivocal about his disappointment in how the German government is handling the crisis: “I’m hoping politicians make a U-turn and safeguard the future. They have been putting fundamental freedoms and economic prosperity at stake, not just now but for future generations too, by overemphasising the data over the last few weeks and months. The State’s excessive regulations will bring us economic ruin. Even politicians make errors of judgement, they are human. Apologising would be the most honest way to respond.”