I’ve noticed something shift over the past 18 months. Brands aren’t buying logo placements and calling it a job done anymore. They’re asking a different question: “What can our audience actually do with this partnership?”
That’s not a subtle change. That’s the entire sponsorship model being rewritten.
The CPM trap nobody wants to admit
For years, sports sponsorship activation ran on a simple premise: stick a logo somewhere visible, count the impressions, convert to CPMs, and invoice accordingly. Perimeter boards, shirt sponsors, broadcast graphics, all valued the same way. Viewers in, money out.
The problem is, impressions don’t convert like they used to. Sponsors can get cheaper CPMs running performance campaigns on Meta or Google. So why pay premium rates for a logo on a football pitch when the ROI calculation doesn’t stack up against digital channels?
Rights holders kept selling the same way because it was easy to measure and the budgets were already there. But sponsors started asking harder questions. And “brand awareness” stopped being a good enough answer.
What participation actually looks like
Sports sponsorship activation now means giving fans something to do, not just something to see.
Look at what some brands are figuring out. Instead of static logos, they’re building interactive moments during live events. Halftime challenges where fans vote in real-time. Instant rewards triggered by game events; a goal scored, a specific player subbed on, whatever creates the impulse moment. Exclusive access to behind-the-scenes content if you engage during the match.
The commercial logic is completely different. A fan who participates (votes, redeems, competes etc) isn’t just aware of your brand. They’ve taken action. They’ve connected their behaviour to your product. That’s not a CPM calculation, that’s a conversion funnel.
But most rights holders won’t admit that they can’t build a conversion funnel if they don’t know who you’re converting. And, as we’ve recently discovered in our Anonymous Fan Index, 76% of sports fans remain anonymous to the organisations they support.
Think about what that means for a sponsor. They’re paying for participatory infrastructure, expecting first-party data and conversion metrics, but the rights holder can’t offer them names, contact details, or ability to retarget. Just anonymous engagement that disappears the moment the match ends.
Awareness isn’t enough anymore, we’ve established that. But you can’t move beyond awareness if you’re selling access to an audience you don’t actually know. That’s the gap brands are starting to call out. And if rights holders can’t provide that data, sponsors will start building their own audience relationships directly, cutting the middleman out entirely.
What this means commercially
Firstly, this shift changes what you’re selling. You’re not pushing media inventory anymore. You’re selling participatory infrastructure. The ability for a brand to activate something during your event that fans can actually engage with. A different product, priced differently, delivered differently.
Secondly, it changes who you’re selling to. Performance marketers are now at the table alongside brand teams. They want to see conversion data, engagement metrics, return on ad spend. They’re asking for first-party data capture, attribution models, proof that participation drove behaviour.
That might feel uncomfortable for rights holders used to brand budgets and awareness metrics, but it’s where the money’s moving. Brands that can’t justify sponsorship spend against performance channels are cutting budgets or walking away entirely.
The real opportunity is that participation creates commercial value traditional sports sponsorship activation never could. A fan database. Behavioural data. Proof that your event drives action, not just attention. That’s worth more than CPMs ever were, but only if you can actually deliver it.
Where this goes next
The rights holders winning sponsorship deals now aren’t the ones with the biggest audiences. They’re the ones who’ve built the infrastructure for brands to do something with that audience.
Because sponsors don’t want to rent your attention anymore. They want to participate in the moment. And if you can’t offer that, they’ll find someone who can.
Check out our ultimate guide to turning your fans from anonymous to known for 100 tactics to convert your audience from anonymous to known.
