Media value vs market value: How to correctly price sponsorship

For decades, media value has been the go-to measurement for the sponsorship industry. The rise of AI-driven logo capture technology has only reinforced this reliance, delivering increasingly precise counts of how long and how often a brand is visible. Within its own boundaries, media value remains an excellent tool for benchmarking one sponsorship against another and for tracking changes in exposure over time. But is its dominance over sponsorship pricing misplaced and is there a more credible way to measure what a partnership is truly worth?

The problem arises when media value, designed for benchmarking, is misused as a proxy for valuation. Additionally, many rights holders routinely present it as proof of returns, arguing that media value less the total cost of sponsorship is equal to return on investment.