While much of the world is still trying to shake off the effects of the recession, recent headlines suggest that the financial crisis was only a spectator sport for for the world’s biggest football teams: after a summer highlighted by record transfer fees for some of the top names in the sport, football grabbed the headlines again last month when Standard Chartered Bank agreed to a four-year, £80-million shirt sponsorship with English Premier League team Liverpool.

With Liverpool games broadcast around the world – and drawing a huge following in Asia – the deal promises to raise the profile of Standard Chartered greatly. Such sponsorships have proven lucrative for both sides of these deals previously, however the massive sums of money involved seem to put the prospect of sports sponsorships or endorsements out of the reach of anyone without an advertising budget that is larger than some national GDPs.

But wait! Even if your brand is still just one of the little guys, you don’t have to give up quite yet.

“There are many opportunities for smaller brands in less commercialised or more ‘niche’ sports, where the big brands aren’t heavily involved,” explains Philip Shaw, Director, Brand & Communications, for Synovate in the United Kingdom.

Case in point – Joe Sillett. In 2002, Sillett founded a little-known company named Woodworm, which made cricket bats with distinctive cutaway edges. Selling just 200 bats in that first year, Sillett knew that in order to make it big he needed to raise the profile of his brand. Though he had gathered a modest amount of start-up capital, he was far short of the funds that would be needed to advertise at big games or secure the endorsement of one of the big names in English cricket.

Instead, Sillett took a risk on signing on with an up-and-coming member of the English team – Andrew “Freddie” Flintoff. When Flintoff’s career took off in 2003, so did Woodworm’s sales. Just two years later, the company was selling upwards of 15,000 bats per year.

Looking back on it Sillett admits there was a risk in choosing a young, unproven player, but it paid off by allowing Woodworm to grow along with Flintoff’s career. By 2005, Woodworm was doing so well that it signed lifetime deals with Flintoff and teammate Kevin Pietersen for £250,000.

Even after the company was hit hard by the credit crisis in 2008 and had to release Flintoff and Pietersen from their contracts, they still looked to find value in upcoming stars. After being bought out by The Sports HQ, one of the first orders of business was scouting the next generation of England cricketers to sign up under the Woodworm brand.

“The opportunities for smaller brands with smaller budgets lie in those sports where they can use a ‘deep and narrow’ strategy – i.e. where they develop deep knowledge and expertise in a narrow more niche area and so are able to recruit up-and-coming talent without the threat of big brands beating them to it,” Shaw says.

So while your brand may not have the financial resources to grab yourself a spot on next season’s Manchester United jersey or sign up Kim Clijsters, there is great value to be found in up-and-coming stars and sports that reach your target audience.

This story is the first of a two part series on sports sponsorships. Look for the follow up article on how to pick an athlete for your brand, later this October.