Manchester United have moved to answer the question surrounding their shirt sponsorship after the departure of AIG, by replacing them with Chicago based AON Corporation.

The deal is thought to be worth around £80 million and starts in the 2010-11 season.

According to the AON Website, "Manchester United is the number 1 brand in the number 1 sport in the world. 333 million fans worldwide follow Manchester United with unrivalled passion ? more than 80 percent prompted awareness in Japan, UK, China, Germany, South Africa, and Korea. The Manchester United web site has 60 million web page impressions per month ? 70% outside of UK.

The beauty of shirt sponsorship is that even the counterfeit shirts work for you. According to AON, they will be happy to have 6.6 million walking billboards - the number of official and unofficial Man United shirts sold every year. Along with the 227 countries in which the MUTV channel is telecast,

AIG the outgoing sponsor enjoyed exceptions brand results through the same route. After one year's sponsorship of Manchester United, the AIG brand was entered as the 47th most recognized brand in a survey of globally recognized brands
. 90% of Manchester United fans sited AIG as sponsor after first year AIG then jumped from 84 to 30 on Barron's most respected list.

Manchester United have dominated the commercial aspects of football in the past and seem set to continue the trend, despite the best efforts of other clubs. Of course, it's all tied to the performance on the pitch and so far, under Sir Alex Ferguson, that has not been lagging.

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