Every summer, sport takes over the calendar, Wimbledon fortnight, the Tour de France, Grand Prix show jumping, an international football tournament somewhere, along with a global diving and ocean conservation push, all landing in the same few months. Ticking away in the background of nearly every one of these events, usually on an athlete’s wrist or a scoreboard, is a Swiss luxury watch brand that decided decades ago this sport was worth investing in. Watch brand sponsorships in sport is one of the oldest ideas in marketing, with some of the partnerships over a century old, forged long before “brand ambassador” was even a job title. Rolex and tennis, Longines and show jumping, Tissot and cycling, Hublot and football, and Blancpain’s deep-rooted relationship with diving and ocean exploration are five of the most enduring watch-and-sport pairings in the world. As the summer starts to wind down, here’s a brand-by-brand look at how each partnership started, how it’s evolved, and the lesser-known facts about each of them.
Rolex and Tennis: Wimbledon Sponsorship Since 1978
The original sports sponsorship brand, which started when Hans Wilsdorf strapped its innovative Oyster to swimmer Mercedes Gleitze in her attempt to swim the English Channel in 1927. Tennis itself didn’t arrive until 1978, when Rolex added it to its sponsorship lineup, beginning with Wimbledon. Since then, it’s become the sport’s most quietly dominant sponsor, backing all four Grand Slams and a roster of “testimonees” including Björn Borg, Roger Federer and today’s stars Carlos Alcaraz and Jannick Sinner.
L-R: Rolex Datejust 41 “Wimbledon” Ref. 126334-0022 in Oystersteel; play on the Wimbledon’s Centre Court featuring a Rolex scoreboard; and the ivy-clad entrance to Centre Court with the Rolex clock.
The programme is now sufficiently important that Rolex have two former professionals – Arnaud Boetsch and Stéphane Simian – running the brand’s tennis activities. The relationship runs deep enough that it produced its own watch nickname: the grey-and-green Datejust known simply as the “Wimbledon,” its dial colour lifted straight from Centre Court’s grass. Not bad for a partnership that started as a discreet clock on the scoreboard.
Longines and Show Jumping: Over a Century of Equestrian Sponsorship
Longines association with horses happened almost by accident of geography. Saint-Imier, its Swiss hometown, was hardly equestrian country, but the brand’s founders adored the sport anyway. As early as 1878, Longines created a pocket watch engraved with a jockey on horseback, decades before “sports sponsorship” was a marketing category at all. The real milestone came a century ago, in 1912, when Longines partnered with a show jumping event in Lisbon.
L-R: Longines Master Collection automatic watch with blue dial and stainless steel case; action from Hickstead – considered the home of British showjumping, where Longines is timekeeping partner.
Longines eventually became the FEI (International Federation for Equestrian Sports) official timekeeper and watch partner from 2013 and now lends its name to marquee jumping fixtures like the Global Champions Tour and Hickstead’s Royal International Horse Show. Longines chose show jumping as a sponsor for precision. Judging jumps and clearing rounds to the hundredth of a second turned out to be exactly the kind of problem a watchmaker enjoys solving.
Tissot and Cycling: Official Timekeeper of the Tour de France
Tissot has been quietly handing out watches to triumphant cyclists since the 1960s, rewarding riders as early as the Mellaha Circuit in Tripoli and the Six-Day Race in Madrid, before any formal sponsorship existed. The crown jewel, the Tour de France, has been surprisingly and on-and-off relationship. Tissot started as official Timekeeper from 1988 to 1992, then stepped away before returning for good in 2016. Along the way it signed with cycling’s global governing body, becoming Official Timekeeper of the UCI’s Road, Track, Mountain Bike and BMX World Championships from 1995.
L-R: Tissot PR 100 Tour de France 2026 with asphalt-textured dial and 40mm black PVD sandblasted stainless steel case; Tadej Pogacar, in the yellow jersey, rides during the last stage of the Tour de France in Paris, Sunday, 26 July, 2026.
On race day, Tissot deploys eight to 15 timekeepers per stage, running a photo-finish system capable of separating riders by three ten-thousandths of a second, closer than most watches can even measure their own accuracy.
Hublot and Football: 16 Years as FIFA’s Official Timekeeper
Hublot’s football chapter is the newest of the five, and it just ended. The brand became football’s first luxury-watch investor in 2006, sponsoring the Swiss national team, then the Official Watch of UEFA Euro from 2008, then Official Timekeeper of the FIFA World Cup from 2014. Hublot’s real innovation was aesthetic, it redesigned the fourth official’s substitution board into the porthole-shaped “Big Bang” design, which is now so recognisable it’s practically part of football’s furniture.
L-R: Hublot Big Bang Reloaded Kylian Mbappé White Ceramic 44 mm; action from the round of 16 match between Spain and Georgia at the Euro 2024 football tournament in Cologne, Germany.
In December 2025, Hublot confirmed it wouldn’t renew its FIFA deal, ending a sixteen-year run across four World Cups, citing cost and a pivot toward UEFA and Latin American football instead. Which means the 2026 World Cup, was the first time since 2006, kicked off without a luxury watch brand’s name on the board.
Blancpain and Diving: The Brand That Invented the Modern Dive Watch
Blancpain’s relationship with diving is not just sponsorship, it’s closer to parentage. In 1953, Blancpain launched the Fifty Fathoms, created by a diver-inventor named Jean-Jacques Fiechter, and in doing so essentially invented the modern dive watch as a category: the rotating bezel, the water resistance, the luminous markings that let you actually see how much airtime you have left. Every dive watch since is, in some sense, working from Blancpain’s original homework.
L-R: Blancpain Fifty Fathoms Automatique on NATO strap with its iconic sapphire-capped unidirectional rotating bezel. As part of its commitment to ocean conservation, Blancpain works on the Great Barrier Reef with the Biopixel Oceans Foundation, protecting whale sharks.
Rather than sponsoring a league or a tournament, Blancpain went all in on the ocean itself, backing decades of scientific expeditions (the Gombessa project among them) under its “Blancpain Ocean Commitment” banner. The gloriously odd footnote that Blancpain has co-financed nearly twenty major scientific expeditions and, for a few limited-edition Fifty Fathoms watches, quietly donated $1,000 per watch sold straight into ocean conservation.
After decades at the side of the world’s great sporting contests, these brands have become part of the furniture. Their clocks, timing systems and specialist watches are woven into how the events look, run and are remembered. In some cases, it is hard to say where the sponsorship ends and the tradition begins.
Author: Andrew Hildreth
Other recent articles on our website about watches and sport sponsorship include The Cup That Holds No Water, about Panerai and The American Cup; and Two Wheels, Two Hands, on luxury watches and cycling.
Show Comments +