Sponsorship outlook 2026: The trends and market forces shaping the year ahead

Regulation, shifting fan behaviour, challenger formats and new market entrants. 2026 is shaping up to be a year of opportunity for brands and rights holders that understand how the marketplace is changing, where budgets are moving and how value is created.

The result is a more active but competitive environment. One defined not by fewer deals, but by savvier buyers, greater scrutiny and lower average yields across many traditional assets.

More deals, smarter buyers

At a high level, we expect sponsorship activity to remain strong in 2026. Brands continue to see sponsorship as a powerful way to build awareness, credibility and engagement. However, that activity will increasingly be driven by buyers who are more informed, more selective and less willing to overpay.

The defining characteristic of the year ahead is likely to be volume without inflation. More deals, but fewer outsized ones.

Gambling regulation: winners and losers

According to analysis carried out by The Sponsor in June last year, the Premier League’s ban on front-of-shirt gambling sponsorship, which comes into effect at the end of this season, could reduce the fair market value of those assets by as much as 38%.

The most obvious consequence is a reduction in the investment required to secure Premier League front-of-shirt exposure, creating an opportunity for non-gambling brands to access premium visibility at lower rates.

However, regulation rarely removes money from the market entirely. Gambling brands have not disappeared, nor have their ambitions to remain visible to their audiences. That budget is likely to be redeployed elsewhere, which could push up the price for other premium assets, including the sleeve and the stadium. The Sponsor recently published the European Stadium Naming Rights Fair Market Values Report; the values included could increase significantly if gambling brands enter the stadium market in greater numbers.

We expect increased pressure on pricing across:

• sleeve sponsorships

• other football assets

• sports with similar audience profiles where gambling brands already operate

Horse racing, combat sports, darts and snooker are all likely to benefit from this redistribution of spend.

The biggest challenge for Premier League clubs remains securing non-gambling sponsors for their most premium asset. Few have managed to do so to date, and time is running out.

Traditional broadcast under pressure

Broadcast television has long been the engine of sponsorship value, delivering large, predictable audiences at scale. That model is now under strain.

While major events still attract significant viewing figures, the fees broadcasters are willing to pay for rights are coming under pressure in many markets. This reflects a broader shift in audience behaviour, particularly among younger viewers, away from appointment-to-view television towards streaming, social and on-demand content.

For sponsors, this matters. These younger audiences represent future growth, and brands are increasingly prioritising where audiences are moving rather than where they have historically been found.

Challenger formats and parallel media

Perhaps the clearest signal of this shift is the rise of alternative formats and celebrity-led content.

The biggest boxing match of 2025 was Canelo Álvarez vs Terence Crawford, which drew an estimated 40+ million viewers globally on Netflix. Not far behind was Jake Paul’s bout with Anthony Joshua, which attracted around 33 million viewers, far exceeding the audiences for many traditional professional fights.

Baller League, while operating at a smaller scale, offers another illustration. It does not compete directly with elite football, but it does divert attention from lower-tier matches, highlights programmes, and studio analysis. Attention increasingly follows personalities, not competitions.

Across sports, even categories that once enjoyed uninterrupted broadcast dominance are facing pressure. Golf, cricket, and rugby are all experimenting with new formats, while fan-led media runs in parallel with the live events. The growing popularity of YouTube creators such as Mark Goldbridge, whose audience often rivals traditional coverage, should concern rights holders.

Formula 1 remains the most powerful sponsorship platform in global sport, but even here, challenger properties such as SailGP are beginning to capture a share of attention.

Why does this matter? Because sponsors care less about sponsoring sport for its own sake, and more about engaging audiences where they are culturally present.

As Coca-Cola’s Elodie Peribere recently explained to The Sponsor, the sport itself is often just the vehicle. If that vehicle changes, so too does the sponsorship investment.

Cultural relevance is king

At the heart of all these shifts is the race for cultural relevance. Brands want to be where culture is being created, ideally early.

Increasingly, agencies such as Fuse and M&C Saatchi Sport & Entertainment are repositioning themselves around cultural insight, community engagement and sub-cultures rather than traditional sponsorship alone.

This is already driving investment into emerging sports and activities such as climbing and padel. Traditional sports still have powerful cultures of their own, but within them we are seeing growing volumes of fan-led activity that attract attention and brand interest.

The lesson for rights holders is not to resist this shift, but to participate in it, creating environments where communities can thrive and taking ownership of those spaces.

Opportunity for arts and culture

This focus on culture is positive news for the arts. Music and live cultural events offer brands a credible way to engage authentically with audiences.

After a period of high-profile protests, attitudes towards corporate sponsorship in the arts are beginning to soften. Cases involving Baillie Gifford helped sharpen the debate, but they also highlighted a reality many are now willing to accept: without sponsorship, much of the arts sector would struggle to survive.

The buyer landscape

We expect more activity in 2026, but fewer large buyers. Economic pressure, combined with the rise of lower-cost, high-engagement alternatives, will lead sponsors to spread budgets more thinly and demand clearer returns.

Crypto will not save the market

When crypto and digital asset brands re-entered the sponsorship market, many rights holders hoped the category would replicate its previous spend. That has not happened.

Around £830m in unpaid sponsorship commitments remains a cautionary legacy, and the category has not returned with the scale of investment many anticipated. Lessons have been learned on both sides.

Big spenders: tech and SaaS

New money is emerging among fast-growing SaaS and technology firms.

Atlassian’s title partnership with Williams F1 is a clear example of a SaaS brand entering the market with a big investment, with F1 title partnerships starting from £30m+. Brands such as Perk and TeamViewer have also shown how previously unknown tech companies can quickly deploy large sponsorship budgets to secure top-tier assets.

For rights holders, the challenge is identifying where the next wave of these brands will emerge from. As more of these firms make the leap, their competitors will inevitably take notice and begin to consider their own options.

A challenging economic backdrop

Forecasts from the IMF and OECD point to slow-to-moderate global growth, with particularly sluggish conditions in the UK and Europe, where growth is expected to hover around 1.3%.

Sponsorship will remain an active part of marketing plans, but scrutiny will increase. Sponsors will focus more tightly on defined audiences, sharper creative execution and demonstrable return on investment.

Rights holders that fail to support sponsors in proving value will feel the pressure most acutely.

In summary

2026 will be a buyer’s market. Sponsorship remains active and relevant, but rights holders must be more accountable for delivering and demonstrating returns.

Deals will continue, but average yields are likely to moderate. The winners will be those who understand where audiences are going, how culture is shifting, and how to help sponsors achieve meaningful outcomes in a more demanding environment.