There seems to be no end to the recognitions and awards for the first professional Slovenian women’s cycling team BTC City Ljubljana. In the scope of the last night’s SPORTO Awards 2014 ceremony, where awards were given for extraordinary accomplishments in the field of sponsorship and marketing by the Slovenian Marketing Association, the BTC Company in the role of the team’s sponsor, together with the City Municipality of Ljubljana and the founder of the team, the cycling society KD Rog, received a special award for developing a new brand, for its brave selection of a less recognisable sports discipline, i.e. women’s cycling, and for the project as a whole.

Among the 33 applied projects the international jury and the technical marketing public have recognised the BTC City Ljubljana women’s cycling team’s results and success. According to the jury, the project represents one of the success stories in the field of sports sponsorship and marketing, and has thereby set high standards for planning and realising future marketing activities in sport across the entire Adriatic region.
Positively influencing several areas, the twelve cyclists of the BTC City Ljubljana team have created a quality brand name by achieving outstanding results –15th place in World Cup and 16th in the UCI ranking. The team and its brand are responsible for the development of women’s cycling in Slovenia, the popularity of this sports discipline among the general public, the recognisability of Slovenia, Ljubljana and BTC City across the world, and for the acknowledgement of our efforts by the professional international cycling public. The latter recognised the quality and professionalism of the entire team and of its supporters – the cycling society KD Rog, the City Municipality of Ljubljana and the BTC Company. Recently, Slovenia has been assigned the organisation of the most prestigious multi-stage women’s race Giro Rosa, which is going to be a pilot project for determining the standards for candidature, organisation, realisation, and for evaluating the effects of bigger international sports events on the national level.

The success of the SPORTO Awards winning projects sets the path towards a bright future for sports marketing and sponsorship in the Adriatic region. All the applied projects also help build the excellence of sport marketing year after year.

Additional information:

Maja Oven, Director of the Market Communications and Public Relations Sector