In a slight twist to the 2016 sports sponsorship landscape, Apple has only partly rekindled its sponsorship of the Super Bowl by signing on to become sponsor of the Super Bowl’s Host Committee, instead of the actual event itself.

Joining other Silicon Valley-based tech companies such as Intel, Uber, Google and HP, Apple will partly sponsor the Super Bowl 50 Host Committee which manages everything from the public transport focused around the event to logistics for the game and financing it.

The timing of the deal is interesting considering that not only does the company traditionally stay away from sponsoring sports events but also because Apple has been in talks with the NFL to live-stream the competition’s London games later this year.

The committee is traditionally funded by the State Government, however, this year, the host committee has used its own resources to support the event with a figure totaling approximately US$50 million being raised, 25% of which will be donated to charity.

While Apple will be seen as an official sponsor of the host committee, it won’t receive the same perks of its competitors like its branding used on billboards and signage around the stadium.

Super Bowl Host Committee CEO Keith Bruce said that the partnership was important to Apple because of the event’s proximity to its headquarters in Cupertino, California.

“They have no interest in the marketing rights, they have no interest in using our logo. But they’re promoting the partnership a lot internally to their employees,” he said

“Apple was the very first company of all our sponsors to step up. And the reason they did that is because they realized that it was important to Silicon Valley”.

Talk has also emerged about Apple potentially airing an advertisement during this year’s Super Bowl which would be a particularly interesting development. Many who were around in 1984 will remember Apple’s last Super Bowl ad, the famous Macintosh advertisement seen during the 84′ Super Bowl (see below).