Most Brands Still Don't Trust Sports Sponsorship to Pay Off
Updated: 1 day ago
The IPA and Sponsorship Effectiveness Forum's 'All to play for' report, covered 8 October 2026 and based on 143 brands, agencies and rights holders, found only 45% of brands confident sponsorship drives business results, with those applying three fundamentals around six times more likely to be confident.
The Confidence Gap
The IPA and Sponsorship Effectiveness Forum's 'All to play for' report, covered on 8 October 2026 and drawing on 143 brands, agencies and rights holders, exposes a trust problem at the heart of sponsorship.
The headline number is sobering. Only 45% of brands are confident that sponsorship actually drives business results, which means more than half are spending without conviction that it works.
That matters because sponsorship is a huge and growing line of marketing investment. A confidence gap this wide suggests a lot of money changing hands on hope rather than evidence, and a lot of deals that will struggle to survive the next budget review.
The Three Fundamentals
The report's most useful finding is that the gap is closable. Brands that apply the fundamentals are around six times more likely to be confident that sponsorship delivers, which turns a vague worry into a solvable process problem.
Those fundamentals are refreshingly plain: setting clear commercial objectives, measuring commercial impact, and integrating the sponsorship across the rest of the brand's marketing rather than leaving it to stand alone.
None of this is exotic, which is rather the point. The confidence problem is not that sponsorship cannot work, it is that too many deals skip the basics that would prove it does, then wonder why the board is sceptical at renewal.
The Marketing Minute Read
We would turn the findings into a simple test. Before signing, ask three questions: what commercial result is this for, how will we measure it, and how does it connect to everything else we do? If you cannot answer all three, you are buying a logo, not an outcome.
The six-times figure reframes sponsorship entirely. It implies that confidence is not a function of which property you buy, but of the discipline you bring to activating and measuring it, which is both humbling and liberating for marketers.
The integration point is the one most often ignored. A sponsorship that lives in its own silo, disconnected from the brand's wider campaigns, is the single most common reason the investment underwhelms, because the badge alone rarely moves anyone.
What Businesses Should Do
Set a commercial objective before you fall in love with a property. The asset should serve the goal, not the other way round, and the glamour of a big rights holder should never set the strategy.
Build measurement in from the start, not as an afterthought. If you cannot define how you will judge the deal, you have no basis to renew or walk away, and no answer when finance asks what it bought.
Integrate relentlessly. The brands six times more confident are the ones that weave the sponsorship through their whole marketing, not those that bolt it on and hope the association does the work by itself.
And treat the fundamentals as a pre-flight checklist, not a post-mortem. The reason only 45% of brands trust sponsorship to pay off is rarely the properties themselves, which can be hugely effective; it is that objectives, measurement and integration get bolted on after the ink has dried, when the deal is already fixed. Run the three questions before you sign, write the answers into the contract, and you convert sponsorship from an act of faith into an accountable line of the marketing plan. Do that consistently and sponsorship stops being the first thing cut when budgets tighten, because for once you will be able to show exactly what it earned.
Quick FAQ
What did the IPA 'All to play for' report find?
Based on 143 brands, agencies and rights holders, it found only 45% of brands confident that sponsorship drives business results, while those applying three fundamentals were around six times more likely to be confident.
What are the three sponsorship fundamentals?
Setting clear commercial objectives, measuring commercial impact, and integrating the sponsorship across the brand's wider marketing rather than treating it as a standalone activity.
The six-times figure is the whole story. Confidence in sponsorship has almost nothing to do with which badge you buy and almost everything to do with the discipline you bring to it. If you can't name the commercial goal, say how you'll measure it, and show how it joins your wider marketing, you're buying a logo, not an outcome. — Daniel Nikolla, Founder of Merx Marketing
Sponsorship confidence comes from discipline, not from the property you pick.
Can you name the commercial objective behind your last sponsorship, or did it start with the property?
If you would like to know more about this topic, please contact us on danieln@merxmarketing.co.uk
Sources: IPA, Marketing Week, Campaign
Related reading
Written by Daniel Nikolla, Founder of Merx Marketing Ltd and Marketing Minute
