Why Sports Sponsors Misjudge Partnership Effectiveness: Findings from the 2026 IPA Study

Sports sponsorship has become a major commercial investment, yet many businesses still struggle to establish whether their partnerships actually improve financial performance. A new study published on 7 October 2026 by the Institute of Practitioners in Advertising (IPA) and the Sponsorship Effectiveness Forum (SEF) reveals a striking disconnect between sponsorship ambitions and the methods used to evaluate results. Based on research involving 143 respondents from brands, agencies and sports rights holders, the report, All to Play For, finds that only four in ten practitioners are confident sponsorship delivers meaningful business outcomes. The problem is not necessarily that partnerships fail, but that sponsors often lack the objectives, evidence and evaluation processes needed to understand their contribution.

What the 2026 IPA Research Reveals About Sports Sponsorship

The IPA and SEF study arrives at a time when sports sponsorship attracts substantial investment from companies seeking greater visibility, stronger customer relationships and commercial growth. The global sponsorship market is forecast to reach $181.38 billion by 2034, while sponsorship revenue associated with the 2026 FIFA World Cup is projected to exceed the 2022 tournament’s total by 56%. These forecasts illustrate the scale of commercial interest in sport. However, increasing expenditure does not automatically produce measurable business benefits. Companies purchasing sponsorship rights must still demonstrate that the investment contributes to outcomes beyond publicity and audience exposure.

The researchers found that just 40% of practitioners expressed confidence that sports sponsorship generates business results, including sales, profit, market share and pricing power. Confidence varied across the groups surveyed: 45% among brands, 41% among rights holders and 35% among agencies. A further 29% described themselves as somewhat confident. These figures represent professional assessments rather than independently verified financial returns. Nevertheless, they identify a significant weakness in an industry where long-term contracts can involve substantial financial commitments. Even organisations directly responsible for planning and managing sponsorships frequently lack sufficient evidence to judge their commercial contribution.

One of the study’s most revealing findings concerns the difference between declaring business objectives and assessing whether they have been achieved. Although 82% of respondents reported setting commercial objectives, only 47% used measurement methods capable of determining whether those objectives were met. This gap matters because a partnership can appear successful through television exposure, media coverage or social engagement without demonstrating any corresponding improvement in customer acquisition or profitability. The IPA research therefore challenges a familiar assumption: that successful promotional activity necessarily indicates a successful commercial investment. Reliable evaluation requires businesses to distinguish what a sponsorship generates in publicity from what it contributes to business performance.

Why Visibility and Brand Recognition Can Create a Misleading Impression

Sports sponsorship has traditionally been evaluated through indicators such as broadcast exposure, logo visibility, estimated media value and brand recognition. These measures remain useful for understanding whether audiences encountered a sponsor. Their limitation is that they describe exposure rather than its commercial consequences. A company appearing repeatedly during a televised football match might reach millions of viewers, but the audience size alone cannot establish whether those viewers became customers, developed stronger preferences or purchased additional products. Similarly, an estimated advertising equivalent does not represent revenue earned by the sponsor or prove that the exposure would have produced the same results as conventional advertising.

Brand awareness presents another measurement challenge. A consumer might correctly identify the sponsor of a major sporting competition without understanding its products, considering a purchase or changing an existing preference. Conversely, sponsorship may influence purchasing decisions gradually, particularly when customers encounter the brand through several channels over an extended period. A financial services company sponsoring a football club, for example, may benefit from improved familiarity and credibility long before customers apply for its products. An assessment based exclusively on immediate sales could undervalue these effects, while an assessment based solely on recognition could overstate them. Both approaches overlook part of the commercial picture.

The practical distinction is between measuring activity, consumer response and business outcomes. Exposure figures establish how many opportunities people had to encounter a brand. Surveys can examine changes in awareness, consideration and preference. Sales information, customer acquisition data and profitability analysis help assess commercial results. These measures should be considered together rather than treated as interchangeable. A sponsorship that increases brand recognition but produces no measurable commercial improvement may still support a longer-term objective, although that objective must be established in advance. The central lesson from the IPA findings is that sponsors need evidence matching the purpose of their investment, not simply impressive statistics that are convenient to report.

Three Weaknesses That Prevent Sponsors from Demonstrating Commercial Value

The IPA and SEF identified three practices associated with greater confidence in sponsorship effectiveness: establishing clear commercial objectives, measuring business impact and using the findings in renewal decisions, and integrating sponsorship with wider brand communications. Respondents confident in sponsorship’s commercial contribution were substantially more likely to follow these practices. For example, 61% of confident practitioners reported having clear commercial objectives, compared with 24% among their less confident counterparts. This difference suggests that precise goals help organisations evaluate sponsorship more consistently, although the survey does not establish that setting objectives alone causes stronger financial performance.

Measurement capability produces an equally important distinction. Among confident respondents, 48% rated their measurement capability as strong, compared with just 12% of those expressing lower confidence. The confident group was also more likely to use econometrics or marketing mix modelling, at 37% compared with 13%. Such analysis examines how different marketing activities relate to business results while accounting for factors such as pricing, promotions and wider advertising. It is particularly useful when a company needs to estimate sponsorship’s contribution alongside other investments. However, sophisticated analytical methods are not essential for every partnership. Smaller sponsors can begin with consistent sales records, relevant customer research and comparisons against clearly defined starting conditions.

The third weakness concerns how sponsorship operates within a company’s broader marketing activity. The research found that 55% of confident practitioners reported their sponsorships were mostly or fully integrated with wider brand communications, compared with 30% of less confident respondents. An isolated sponsorship may provide exposure without giving consumers a clear reason to engage with the business. A coordinated arrangement can connect sporting events with advertising, retail activity, customer communications and promotional campaigns. The combined effect is easier to understand when departments agree on the same commercial objectives. Significantly, only 17% of respondents said their organisations consistently applied all three fundamental practices, although those doing so were almost six times more likely to express confidence in business results.

Why Sponsorship Data Often Arrives Too Late to Influence Decisions

The timing of evaluation represents a further problem identified by the researchers. Some 70% of respondents used effectiveness data for reporting after sponsorship activity had concluded, but only 39% used it when setting objectives and just 22% used it to optimise programmes while they were running. This means businesses frequently examine the evidence after the most valuable opportunities to act have passed. A company might discover that its sponsorship attracted considerable attention but failed to engage its priority customer group. If that information only emerges during the final review, the sponsor has little opportunity to adjust promotional messages, improve audience targeting or change how its rights are activated.

A more useful approach starts before the agreement is signed. A sponsor should establish the business problem the partnership is intended to address, identify the customers it needs to reach and determine how progress will be measured. During the partnership, regular reviews can examine whether awareness, customer interest and sales are moving towards agreed targets. For example, a retailer sponsoring a regional sports team could compare changes in customer visits and purchases across relevant locations while considering seasonal demand and concurrent promotions. This would not provide perfect proof of causation, but it would offer stronger evidence than counting matchday impressions or calculating the estimated value of television exposure alone.

Measurement also becomes essential when contracts approach renewal. Extending a sponsorship simply because it has generated positive publicity risks committing further funds without understanding the return. A proper review should consider total investment, including rights fees, campaign production, hospitality and activation expenditure, alongside the commercial contribution supported by available evidence. Rights holders have an interest in supplying reliable audience and engagement information, while sponsors must assess what that information means for their own businesses. The IPA study also found that 43% of respondents believed common industry measurement standards would make the biggest positive difference to sponsorship effectiveness. Such standards could improve consistency and transparency, although companies would still need measures tailored to their commercial objectives.

How the IPA Sponsorship Effectiveness Model Can Improve Partnerships

Alongside its survey findings, the 2026 report introduces the Sponsorship Effectiveness Model, a six-stage framework intended to help organisations assess the development of their sponsorship activities. The stages are Inventory Buy, Rights Activation, Creative Platform, Distinctive Asset, Category Advantage and Brand Narrative. They describe a progression from purchasing sponsorship inventory towards creating an enduring relationship between the partnership and the sponsoring brand’s identity. The framework is not a financial return calculator or a guarantee of commercial success. Instead, it offers a practical way to identify whether a partnership is limited to visibility and contractual benefits or contributes to a broader, more coherent brand strategy.

At the Inventory Buy stage, a business primarily purchases access to sponsorship assets such as branding positions, event associations or advertising opportunities. Rights Activation involves making practical use of those assets through campaigns, experiences or other promotional activity. The Creative Platform stage goes further by introducing a consistent creative idea that connects the sporting relationship with the sponsor’s communications. According to the IPA research, this third stage marks a notable difference in reported outcomes. Confidence in business results rises from 28% to 47%, while the proportion reporting clear commercial objectives increases from 21% to 55%. Reported integration with wider communications also rises from 19% to 58%. These differences describe associations between stages rather than guaranteed improvements achieved by moving from one stage to another.

The remaining stages describe increasingly developed forms of sponsorship integration. A Distinctive Asset emerges when the partnership contributes recognisable associations that audiences can connect with the sponsor. Category Advantage concerns using those associations to strengthen the brand’s position relative to competitors, while Brand Narrative places sponsorship within the company’s broader identity and communications over time. Consider a sportswear business supporting a running event. Simply displaying its logo would represent a limited use of the relationship. Building recurring training initiatives, athlete-led content and relevant product experiences around a recognisable idea could create stronger connections between the event and the brand. Whether those activities generate additional business would still require independent measurement.

Practical Steps for Making Sponsorship Decisions More Reliable

The first priority for businesses reviewing existing partnerships is to define success in commercial terms. A sponsorship designed to increase sales should have a sales-related objective, supported by appropriate customer and market information. A partnership focused on entering a new geographical market may instead prioritise awareness and customer consideration among a clearly identified audience, with commercial development monitored over a longer period. Companies should record starting conditions before activity begins, establish realistic review dates and agree which information their partners will provide. Separating immediate campaign indicators from longer-term business measures prevents organisations from claiming success simply because individual promotional targets were achieved.

The second priority is to make evaluation part of ordinary sponsorship management rather than an exercise conducted shortly before renewal. Sponsors can review campaign performance at agreed intervals, compare relevant customer groups or locations where feasible, and consider alternative explanations for changes in sales. They should also calculate the full cost of maintaining and activating a partnership. An agreement with relatively modest rights fees may become expensive when supporting marketing activity is included. Conversely, a higher-cost sponsorship may provide substantial value if it contributes to several objectives over multiple years. The purpose of evaluation is not to reduce every benefit to a single figure, but to establish which benefits are credible, commercially relevant and worth paying for.

Finally, sponsors and rights holders should treat the renewal discussion as an opportunity to improve the partnership rather than simply repeat the previous agreement. Evidence can reveal which activities attract valuable customers, which rights remain underused and where additional support could produce better results. If the commercial contribution cannot be established, the appropriate response may be to revise the objectives, strengthen measurement or reconsider the investment. The IPA and SEF research provides an important warning for 2026: sponsorship effectiveness cannot be judged reliably from exposure figures or positive associations alone. The strongest decisions depend on clear business goals, timely evidence and a partnership that supports the wider commercial strategy.