Is Europe's Sports Sponsorship Divide Leaving Money on the Table?

The sports sponsorship playbook used to mean slapping a logo on a jersey, writing a check, and calling it a day. In parts of Southern Europe, that's still the case. However, in the UK and Germany, the same investment is treated like a strategic business tool that is activated, measured, and tied directly to revenue. The gap between those two approaches is showing up big in the numbers.

Championing sports sponsorships as a revenue driver is Marco Raggi, President of Business Development at 42 Racing SA, a motorsport marketing agency. With a background in auto sales and corporate sponsorships, Raggi knows that partnerships must deliver measurable business outcomes, not just brand visibility.

"In Northern Europe, sponsorship is used as a tool to drive business. In Southern Europe, especially Italy and France, they still see sponsorship more as awareness and branding, and don't use it properly to generate business," he says. The root cause is a cultural and education problem inside brand organizations. The same pattern consistently emerges across agencies and markets. "If you compare the UK and Germany with France, Italy and Spain, you can see the difference in the volume of business these countries are able to produce." That disconnect becomes most visible in how brands approach sports deals.

• Serving up charity: When companies approach sponsorship for the first time, they often misunderstand what they're actually buying. "The problem is that companies think, 'I'm sponsoring Jannik Sinner,' instead of, 'I'm using his image to promote my brand.' The mentality becomes one of support, paying him to play tennis, rather than leveraging an asset. That thinking doesn't change, even with an unknown player," Raggi explains. And that mindset shapes how the work gets resourced. When sponsorship is treated as charity rather than a strategic function, it rarely gets the ownership or expertise it needs.

• Part-time playbook: "The marketing manager is handling exhibitions, advertising, publications, and sponsorship is maybe five percent of their time. So they lack the knowledge and expertise to manage it properly. Sponsorship is a vertical area of the industry, you need to understand the tools and how to use them. It's not just paying for a logo," he says. The impact is clear at the market level, where the divide between Northern and Southern Europe shows up in the business volume each region generates. "The issue isn't agency quality, it's the lack of understanding how to use it properly across Southern Europe. Educating the customer is the real challenge." Closing that gap requires a shift in how brands think about partnership.

"They need to change their mentality and stop treating sponsorship as an add-on. Instead, make it part of the marketing budget. The smarter marketers are starting to see it, and that's what converts prospects into customers," Raggi adds. This is especially true in markets where it is still treated as logo placement, rather than managed with clear activation plans, dedicated expertise, and measurable return from the outset.

• Blank space brilliance: A UK betting company sponsored a football club but left the jersey blank, positioning it as protecting the players' image. "At the end, people began to associate every logo-free team with them. It went far beyond the original deal and won the Game Changer award," says Raggi. Strategy means setting targets upfront and managing performance throughout, not reviewing sentiment after the campaign ends. That’s what turns sponsorship into a real business lever.

• Math over mood: Raggi applied this approach in his work with a Canadian company entering European operations. "Before launching the project, we worked with the CMO to define what results needed to be achieved. They set the targets; they said, 'We want to reach this; we want this return.' We set the numbers, monitored performance during the project, and at the end achieved three times the targets. This is the only way to manage sponsorship; it’s not about launching something and seeing what happens after six months or a year," he emphasizes. Whether the lever is creative or analytical, the brands that win are the ones that stopped treating it as passive.

The difference ultimately comes down to how sponsorship is used. Some brands treat it as a managed, accountable part of their marketing, while others leave it underdeveloped and underutilized. To stay competitive, brands have to rely on metrics. "We have to use numbers; ROI is mandatory. Sponsorship must be measured properly to connect it to the business and prove its value beyond advertising," Raggi concludes.