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 Northern Europe, the same investment is increasingly 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, Business Development Director 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.

"Sponsorship is evolving along a maturity curve, from awareness-based activation to business-driven integration. Seems that in Northern Europe, sponsorship is used more as a tool to drive business. Elsewhere, sponsorship is still treated more as awareness and branding," he says. "You can see the difference in the volume of business these countries are able to produce, especially compared with GDP." The issue stems from how brands use sponsorships. The same pattern consistently emerges across agencies and markets, and the 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 a pro athlete,' instead of, 'I'm using their image to promote my brand.' The mentality becomes one of support, paying someone to play a sport, rather than leveraging an asset. 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: "In some organizations, sponsorship can represent only a small fraction of a marketing manager’s overall responsibilities. Obviously, this is a generalization, but they have not yet had enough time to develop 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 placement," 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 and the ratio with GDP. "While this may be interpreted as a strong statement, a relatively low ratio between sponsorship volume and GDP in a given country can also suggest that there is still room to further develop the culture and maturity of sponsorship within that market." Closing that gap requires a shift in how brands think about partnership.

"They are beginning to evolve their mindset and increasingly view sponsorship as an integral part of the marketing mix rather than a standalone add-on. Instead of being treated separately, it is becoming more consistently included within broader marketing budgets. The more advanced marketers are already embracing this approach, recognizing its role in turning prospects into customers," Raggi adds. This shift is particularly relevant in markets where sponsorship is still often seen primarily as logo placement, and where there is growing momentum toward more structured activation planning, dedicated expertise, and a clearer focus on return from the outset.

• Blank space brilliance: A UK 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," 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: The approach is to define clear objectives from the outset, aligned with the CMO on what success needs to deliver in terms of results and return. From there, performance is tracked throughout the project against those agreed metrics, allowing for continuous optimization and, ultimately, stronger outcomes. This is, in practice, what effective sponsorship management looks like. "Not something launched and then assessed only after six or twelve months," he emphasizes. Whether driven by creativity or analytics, the brands that succeed are the ones that no longer treat sponsorship as a passive investment.

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.