Sports Sponsorships Surge Despite Fuzzy ROI

Following its most-watched season in 2024, the WNBA entered the 2025 season final month with a record-setting roster of 45 sponsors. 5 manufacturers, together with Ally, Reserving.com, and Coach are newcomers to the WNBA.

Thanks partially to emergent leagues just like the WNBA, sports activities sponsorships are extra standard than ever. In keeping with Forrester’s This fall B2C Advertising and marketing CMO Pulse Survey, 2024, 39% of respondents plan to extend their funding in large-scale sports activities sponsorships this yr, whereas one other 28% plan to enter the area for the very first time.

However simply over three-quarters (76%) of US B2C advertising and marketing executives who invested in sports activities sponsorships in 2024 agree or strongly agree that they wrestle to calculate the ROI of their sports activities sponsorships.

Maximizing The Worth Of Sports activities Sponsorships Is Useful resource-Intensive

CMOs that profit from their big-ticket sports activities sponsorships begin first with a powerful model, viewers, and market alignment. Subsequent, they construct a versatile and collaborative partnership with the sports activities property from the get go. Then, all of it comes right down to the standard and amplification potential of the sponsorship’s activation(s).

For instance, take what occurred finally month’s Components 1 drivers’ parade: F1 drivers acquired behind the wheel of life-sized, drivable LEGO automobiles — every constructed from practically 400,000 LEGO bricks to advertise LEGO’s Components 1 product line. This activation on the Miami Grand Prix kicked off a worldwide tour throughout F1 races.

Introducing Forrester’s Sports activities Sponsorships Analysis Assortment

We simply revealed three interconnected sports activities sponsorship studies chock-full of greatest practices, information, examples, and frameworks/templates:

1. 1. Maximize The Worth Of Your Sports activities Sponsorships. This report lays out 12 greatest practices to assist profit from your sports activities sponsorships — from choosing them to renewing them and all the pieces in between. [READ REPORT]
   2. Case Examine: AARP Builds Model Relevance By Sponsoring The APP Tour. This case research describes how AARP’s sports activities sponsorship helped shift the group’s model notion with a restricted finances. [READ CASE STUDY]
   3. The Sports activities Sponsorship Activation Framework. This downloadable template helps establish ways to activate earlier than, throughout, and after a sponsored sports activities occasion to increase its attain utilizing expanded storytelling. [DOWNLOAD TEMPLATE]

Be taught Extra About AARP’s Sports activities Sponsorship

Attending CX Summit North America? Be a part of my sports activities sponsorship panel, that includes AARP and the Affiliation of Pickleball Gamers (APP) on Wednesday, June 25 at 2:25 p.m. CDT (within the Market). We’ll go behind the scenes of that individual sports activities sponsorship, diving deeper into the case research report.

Talking of pickleball … You’ll want to stick round proper after the panel, as we’ll head a couple of steps over to the onsite pickleball courtroom to show you how you can play!

Forrester purchasers: Let’s chat extra about your sports activities sponsorship technique through a Forrester steering session or on the pickleball courtroom at CX Summit North America.