More germane to our industry, will the winners be official sponsors such as Coca-Cola and T-Mobile or the celebrity-fuelled Pepsi and Vodafone?
A study by sponsorship consultancy The Works, obtained exclusively by Marketing, reveals that brand sponsorship of a sporting personality - say, David Beckham - is more likely to change consumer perceptions of a brand than sponsoring a team or an event would.
While some brands have covered themselves by taking more than one approach - Coke sponsors Euro 2004 as well as Wayne Rooney - it is bad news for Hyundai and MasterCard, which are solely event sponsors and have shelled out about £20m for the privilege.
So what is it about individual endorsement that makes it a better bet than other sporting link-ups? First, it is because however a team fares in a competition, an individual's talent at this level tends to be a given.
England may crash out after the group stage, to the country's disappointment, but it is not going to stop many of us wishing we were David Beckham.
Second, and more importantly, sponsoring an individual enables a brand to take on a personality that is very difficult to build through two-dimensional team or event tie-ups.
Following the TV ads showing Beckham playing with the first Vodafone Live! picture phone, the brand reported that many consumers were simply walking into shops and asking for the 'Beckham phone'.
The real advantage of individual endorsement is that one can get the sports icon to actively enthuse about the brand - think Beckham and Jonny Wilkinson chuckling as they swap roles in one TV ad, sporting their Adidas predator boots.
But as this week's feature 'Hands off, he's mine' on page 32 demonstrates, marketers need to do more than simply snap up the big stars. To stand out in this cluttered brand environment, due diligence is needed before putting pen to paper.
Another soft-drink brand may look askance at Michael Owen, when he already endorses Lucozade, Pepsi supports the England team and Coke has decorated the stadium.
So, for the sake of the brands involved, here's to a stimulating Euro 2004, a successful tournament for England and more free-kick benders from Beckham than late-night benders from the stars involved.
- England 0:0 Brands, page 37.
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