IN SIGNO VERITAS #03

Will fans actually remember your brand?

X
Football fans in Japan and Netherlands shirts celebrating in the stands

In Signo Veritas #03

The subject

A bigger sponsorship deal doesn’t guarantee fans will remember you.

Brands spend a fortune to be seen at sporting events. But ask fans who the sponsors were, and paying the most is no guarantee they’ll name you.

The signal

Fans’ memory of sponsors doesn’t simply follow the money.

  • Among UK adults interested in the 2026 World Cup, Walkers made the biggest gain in advertising impact of any sponsor brand, ahead of adidas and Budweiser (YouGov BrandIndex)
  • Shown a list of brands, fans at a baseball stadium correctly picked 57% of the team’s sponsors. They also picked 40% of brands that weren’t sponsors at all (Columbia University and Baylor University, Journal of Advertising Research)

The truth

Fans remember sponsors that earn their place in the game.

Sponsorship is mostly sold on visibility: bigger boards, better spots, a higher tier on the partner page. It’s easy to price and easy to report back on.

But what most fans remember is something else. In a 2026 study, researchers asked fans at a minor league baseball stadium in the US to pick out the home team’s sponsors. Spending more helped, but how well a brand seemed to fit the team predicted recognition better. One of the best-recognised sponsors was not among the highest spenders. It was a local ceiling fan maker that presented a “Hunter Fan of the Game” with a ceiling fan(!) at every game.

Last summer, Walkers built its World Cup sponsorship around fans. It ran a Fan of the Match competition with tickets to England and Scotland games, and invited fans into a WhatsApp group where Beckham, Messi and other football stars planned a World Cup watch party.

None of that comes with the sponsorship package. The rights buy you a place in the stadium. But earning a place in audience minds takes more than just money.

Worth asking

How much of your sponsorship budget buys visibility, and how much earns a place in fans’ minds?

What’s the “Fan of the Game” in your sponsorship? The small thing your brand does every match that fans actually remember.

Want to know what your customers really think? Ready for the unfiltered truth? Get in touch.