Sport affords brands unique opportunities for promotional initiatives and workers a pleasant way to spend their free time whilst also building team spirit. This concept gains broad attention within Generali, like in all of Italy, in the interwar period.

In 1925, the Opera Nazionale Dopolavoro (National Recreational Organization) is established to promote the “moral and physical well-being of the people through sport, excursions, tourism, art education, popular culture, health and welfare advice and professional development”.

Numerous photos from the 1930s preserved in the Historical Archive show members of the Company’s recreational club participating in sporting competitions — athletics, football, cycling and skiing, bowls tournaments and various other sporting and cultural events.

It is in exactly this period, in 1933, that the recreational club in the Company’s historic headquarters in Trieste’s Palazzo Stratti is founded. It is officially launched in 1934 and later modernised in the 1950s (although there are also mentions of a prior “Generali Social Club” dating back to 1889). The first chairman is Angelo Ara, director of the Company from 1926-1937.

The athletes of the Generali recreational club excel in sporting disciplines including basketball, tennis, sailing, athletics, skiing and bowls, participating in intra-group and regional competitions such as the City of Trieste Athletics Tournament, all the way up to international tournaments.

At around the same time, the Company also makes its first foray into sporting sponsorship. For the 1932/33 football season, the Novarese surveyor, Rinaldo Barlassina, an international referee and Generali agent, creates the “football pocketbook”: the first genuine annual report of football. The Historical Archive contains copies of the 1936/37 and 1941/42 season editions, containing results of the championships dating back to 1898, winning squads, the history of the national team and information on every team in that year’s championship. It also dedicates space to the other Italian and international tournaments of the time. Generali and other Italian companies in the Group sponsor its publication up to the 1941-42 season, when it is inevitably interrupted by the events of the war.

Even with Italy already involved in the Second World War, sporting events seek to continue and to inject a sense of hope for the future.

In 1940 and 1941, the Company sponsors the Campionato del Mare, a famous rowing competition that takes place in Venice. The events and Generali’s support are publicised in posters produced by Giuseppe Rosa Salva. In addition to supporting the athletes, Generali offers to house the competing boats at the shipyard of its own sailing club.

In the post-war period, sport takes on an increasingly prominent role in daily life, including in the media, and corporate sponsorship takes off. For Generali, this is not restricted only to Italy, but also extends to the various international companies under the umbrella of the Group. In France, for example, La Concorde starts sponsoring skippers in various regattas as far back as the 1970s, registering notable achievements, such as Yann Eliès’ victories in the Generali Solo Méditerranée in 2001 and 2004.

Even the Parent Company makes its presence felt in the world of sailing, especially in the 1990s with its sponsorship of the Gen-Mar boat (which takes its name from the Company’s recreational boat insurance policy), which wins the 1993 Quarter Ton Cup, awarded to the winners of the world championship in its class. Trieste Generali also win sailing’s Giro d’Italia on four separate occasions. The Company also supports the Autumn Cup, better known as the “Barcolana” (recognised by Guinness World Records in 2018 as the largest sailing regatta in the world) from the very beginning. In 2021, the Company launches the Women in Sailing project, raising the profile of sailors, scientists and women who live and breathe the sea.

Ever since its 1994 launch, Generali has supported the famed road race known to fans of the sport as the Bavisela, now called the Trieste Spring Run.

Other important moments over the years testify to the connection between the Generali Group and the sporting landscape in a whole range of disciplines: cycling with the team sponsored by Banco Vitalicio topping the team rankings at the Giro d’Italia in 1999 and taking Oscar Freire to his first individual world championship; tennis through the Generali Open Kitzbühel, supported for many years by the Group’s Austrian holdings; and horse riding through the prestigious international competition in Aachen.

2006 is the year of two standout victories for Italian sports and for Generali at world championships: the Company is the official partner of the national football team which wins the FIFA World Cup in Berlin, and also supports the fencing team at the world championships in Turin, where the foils women dominate the podium.

And so we reach the present day, with Generali’s focus in terms of sponsorship placed within a broader context that seeks to bring sporting and cultural excellence to the wider public and to motivate people to make healthy lifestyle choices. In doing so, the Company seeks to engage the public in its philosophy of improving health and wellbeing not only of individuals but also of communities as a whole. To this end, Generali supports numerous events in countries where the Group has a presence, such as the Geneva, Berlin and Malaga marathons, the Beijing half-marathon and the Malaysia marathon, as well as non-competitive and family events.

Generali is also passionate about winter sports, in particular alpine skiing, with a focus on the most important events at Kitzbühel and Garmisch-Partenkirchen. The Company also sponsors the skiing world championships and supports the Slovenian and Croatian federations. This commitment is reinforced by partnerships with individual athletes, prominent among which is the decade-long relationship between Banca Generali and world champion Federica Brignone.

The Company has always stood behind remarkable champions across sporting disciplines. The first noteworthy news appears in the 1950s, in the “Gallery of Illustrious Policyholders” feature in the Company’s storied in-house magazine, Il Bollettino. The first “illustrious policyholder” mentioned is skier Zeno Colò, world and Olympic champion in 1950 in downhill skiing.

Generali also sponsors various teams around the world: the Austrian football team, the Spanish rugby team, the Slovenian volleyball team, as well as one of the biggest events in the tennis clay court season, the Rolex Monte-Carlo Masters.

The various archival sources preserved, including photos, posters, circular letters and technical documentation of sectors and services testify to the important role attributed to sport within the Company, a century-long passion project that was ahead of its time in promoting individual wellbeing through sporting activity.