The biggest sporting occasions are some of the best times for Australian businesses to advertise themselves.
One of the main questions a business should ask itself when advertising is what the event's main audience will be.
According to some of the advertisers this year, the main audience is an older viewer with some money. Here are three shares that could benefit from The Ashes:
Magellan Financial Group Ltd (ASX: MFG)
Magellan is the main sponsor of The Ashes this year. Investors may question why a fund manager is the main sponsor, but I think it's a clever strategy.
It's leading with the tagline 'Invest with the best, we did'. There's a lot of merit to the argument that many baby boomer portfolios need to shift from being completely domestic-focused and get some exposure to overseas investments through a Magellan product.
I expect Magellan will report more good growth of funds under management (FUM) in its next update thanks to The Ashes exposure.
Magellan is currently trading at 23x FY18's estimated earnings with a grossed-up dividend yield of 4.75%.
Aveo Group (ASX: AOG)
Another company wanting to appeal to the older-viewer demographic of The Ashes is Aveo.
It's one of the largest retirement village operators in Australia and they're obviously hoping that elderly viewers will want to switch from watching The Ashes from their home to watching it in a retirement village.
The business could experience strong growth over the coming years as many boomers will downsize and want to live with people in a similar situation.
Aveo is currently trading at 13x FY18's estimated earnings with a grossed-up dividend yield of 6.49%.
Catapult Group International Ltd (ASX: CAT)
Catapult may not be directly advertising to an audience, but it is making money nonetheless from the cricket.
The business has signed up many teams to its products and Cricket Australia is one of them.
Catapult's technology allows the coaching staff to monitor many different statistics of the team members. It allows them to analyse their performance and hopefully improve on that in some way.
Catapult has had a turbulent time over the past year or two, but I think the worst of the share price fall is over.
Foolish takeaway
I'm wary of both Aveo and Catapult because of how negative the market has treated the share prices over the last year. However, I think Magellan is well worth a buy because of how much more potential funds it can still attract from wealthy clients.
