CANNES — In a lively roundtable discussion held during Cannes Lions, a group of communications leaders from the world of sports gathered to dissect how brands can better connect with passionate fans through sports sponsorships.

The insights came after new research conducted by MikeWorldWide, which revealed that many brands – across automotive, fast food, consumer packaged goods, financial services and footwear – have failed to tap into the true emotional potential of their sports sponsorships. Instead, these relationships often remain superficial, driven more by marketing necessity than by a genuine understanding of the fan’s deep connection with the sport.

As the report says: “Sports fans represent one of the most emotionally engaged and culturally expressive audiences in marketing. They're loyal, vocal, and build identity around the teams, players, and rituals they love. This should be the ideal environment for brands to thrive. Yet in many cases, they don’t. The disconnect is striking. Brands pour billions into sports marketing, securing naming rights, sponsorships, and prime advertising spots. They're everywhere fans look. But visibility alone doesn't guarantee connection.”

The report asked sports fans questions around cultural relevance, distinctiveness, emotional connection, innovating with purpose, societal commitment and employer brand. The findings reveal a fundamental gap between brand investment and brand resonance. Most brands are showing up in sports, but they're showing up in ways that fail to connect with what fans actually value, focusing on visibility when the real opportunity lies in building genuine cultural relevance.

According to Bret Werner, president of MikeWorldWide, “We found that brands weren’t tapping into the passion of the sports they were sponsoring. They weren’t connecting with fans, or the employees of those brands either. Outside of apparel, brands were treating sports involvement like a branding exercise, but none of them actually have awareness issues. It’s an ongoing problem in an area where you can really connect, and there is more passion than ever.”

So why, in an era of increasingly sophisticated marketing, are brands still missing the mark when it comes to leveraging their sports sponsorships and partnerships?

The Changing Landscape of Sports Sponsorship

The roundtable participants agreed that sports sponsorships have evolved significantly over the years. What once was a simple, often personal decision based on a chairman’s hobby has become a complex strategic initiative for brands across the globe. Still, some felt that brands often take the easy way out.

Dan Porter, CEO of Overtime, a sports media company targeting Gen Z, offered his take: “Pro sport often just sells a ‘plug and play’ for brands – no one gets fired for buying sports.” He highlighted how the traditional model still reigns and how many brands rely on a “safe” option when it comes to sport sponsorship.

For Ashish Babu, chief marketing and communications officer at Tata Consultancy Services, finding the right connection with fans often comes down to personal relevance. “We’ve tried everything and found marathon is the one sport our audience watches – it taps into their own personal ambition and goals,” he said.

Toby Craig, CCO of Manchester United, talked about how far the sports sponsorship landscape has evolved. “We’ve moved a long way from a logo on a shirt – for most premium partnerships brands want storytelling and integration, they are writing large cheques and want to engage with a global fan base, and want it to be a global showcase. Whether they are a tech or construction brand – they want a globally recognised asset. We’re beyond the crude metric of just trying to monetise fans – brands want to work with us to tell fans’ stories,” Craig said, referencing Manchester United’s partnerships with Adidas and Qualcomm.

He added, “Every match day is the equivalent of a Superbowl ad – constant presences where brands get to tell stories and see it as investment in an audience of millions every week.”

In this new era of sponsorship, there’s an increasing demand for partnerships that go beyond mere visibility and instead create deep, authentic connections with fans. Craig noted the example of partnerships with global brands like Adidas and Qualcomm, which have been able to weave storytelling into their sponsorships to build long-term relationships with fans. “Every match day is the equivalent of a Super Bowl ad – constant presences where brands get to tell stories and see it as investment in an audience of millions every week,” he said.

Breaking the Traditional Mould

However, the move away from simply slapping a logo onto an event and treating it like an ad buy has brought with it challenges. As Werner said, “Partnerships allow you to tell a story on multiple channels on a year-long basis – but how do you activate on emerging channels, too?” It’s a question brands are struggling to answer, especially as the viewing experience of sports fans becomes increasingly fragmented.

Chris Dougan, CCO of sports data and technology firm Genius Sports Group, sees the solution in real-time engagement through data. "We work with 400 leagues around the world, audience data and live game data is a commodity that can be packaged and activated by a brand in real time to engage an audience that is increasingly in deficit, as the linear experience of watching a game has been fragmented.

"The disruptors are the tech companies – Netflix and Apple – who are moving into this space where they can capture attention and they need data that underpins it and they need to wrap that data – we turn it into graphics and gamification so it pulls people in. You have to get people’s attention in two seconds."

Creative and Authentic Uses of Sports Sponsorship

As one creative example of sports sponsorship, Werner offered Superbowl ad ‘The Kick of Destiny’. “Three years, with increased betting year on year – it’s still one of my favourite campaigns.”

Craig agreed that creativity is key, but emphasized that for Manchester United, it's not just about flashy gimmicks. “It’s not as much about coming up with ideas for gimmicks, it’s how we think about what fans want and how we serve it to them where they are, all the time. We have to stand back and think: millions of fans are on this or that platform, how do we take the same piece of content and deliver it in unique ways to serve all their needs? What do we do for the other six days of the week after game day? It’s about personalisation, understanding the athlete journey, humanising who we are and what we do, getting to know players better.”

And sport sponsorship isn’t just for consumer brands. Babu talked ab out how TCS uses sports to connect with its audience in meaningful ways. “As a partner to properties, as a B2B brand, we’re competing hard – the audience is involved, they’re buying cloud computing with their head, but how do we win their heart? B2B brands use sports to make stories look smarter and cooler.

“The other piece is – if you’re going to run the London marathon – you run in a pack, but you’re alone – you need consistent information, you need to be there at the start line, and you want someone waiting for you at the finish line; our app brings families together at the end. We’re using our tech to get people connected, and that’s a powerful thing. We constantly have to evolve our strategy as the audience changes.”

The Future of Sponsorship ROI

Werner emphasized the progress being made on measuring the ROI of sports partnerships for brands. “In terms of ROI, there has been good advancement and better data. In B2B we see sales data, but it’s still a bit too focused on impressions. There are more opportunities to get into brand lift and the correlation with sponsorship.”

Babu added: “A big part of our metrics is that each marathon we sponsor is in the biggest capital cities in the world, creating massive economic impact. We get to speak to policymakers and our customers, we have a huge brand presence. Our content strategy is about making the customer the hero. If they share they are running on LinkedIn, the whole office loves them, and on Facebook their whole family loves them.”

The Trophy: Engaging Young Audiences

The importance of understanding the fan’s journey – and the shift in how fans engage with sports – was a recurring theme, especially around the challenges of reaching Gen Z and Gen Alpha audiences. As Babu said, younger consumers engage with sport in different ways, and so expect a new kind of engagement from brands. “My son wants snackable content, not to watch F1 for four hours,” Babu said.

Dan Porter also highlighted how his company connects with younger consumers through their own sports platform, which has over 110 million followers. “We started our own leagues. We do a ton of work with brands but we got tired of waiting for them, so we launched our own brands and products. Things happen on the internet that come out of culture. We put most of the games on YouTube, where the average watch time 30 minutes. The best players are the future of the NBA – we wrap all this stuff around them.”

On how even more conservative brands can reach younger audiences via sport, Porter said: “My audience are getting their first car, their first credit card, so brands want to be front of them. Most brands understand over time their consumer will age up or age out and if you don’t get mindshare now it’s too late. Brands come to me with no name recognition with young people and ask for us to help them out and become integrated.

Porter pointed out the generational divide in media consumption. "If you go to a concert or sporting event you hold your phone one way if you’re under 25 and another way if you’re over 25. 80% of people are filming themselves – it’s about talking to people and listening to them – we go into inner-city schools and sit down and listen to them argue about sports on our popular sports show."

AJ Jones, the former Starbucks comms chief who is now chief strategic and communications officer at Monumental Sports & Entertainment, shared his thoughts on the unique dynamic of sport as a cultural asset. “The arenas that sport takes place in are the ‘town hall’ – they are the purveyors of connectivity that cuts across generations,” Jones said. “Kids still grow up being fans of the same team as their parents. There’s a stickiness to sport fandom – it’s not like switching to a newer, better, sleeker phone. There’s only a certain number of teams, and that’s still where the future of the sport is.”

Craig added a similar perspective on fan acquisition, noting that “we know 97% of Manchester United fans worldwide will never step foot in our stadium. Maybe 10 years ago, a third to half of kids were first introduced to sport through video games – that’s why many teams have partnerships with games. You have to go where your audience is, you can’t expect them to come to you and to be culturally resonant to the audience you’re targeting.”

Sports and Brand Safety

In an environment where ‘brand purpose’ has become fraught with difficulty on multiple levels, is sports sponsorship still seen as a relatively safe space for engaging consumers. “It depends on the brand and the objective of the brand,” said Jones. “At Monumental we were able to convince American fans and the world that the best player in the world at hockey is a Russian. From that standpoint, sport has a way of reaching people so you can have conversations around sport that you might not have elsewhere because of geopolitics."

Porter said: “Being disruptive can be fun and joyful and embrace all the hopes and dreams of young people, and can still be brand safe. But using influencers can be risky – they can do just one thing and become brand unsafe, and they usually have unsophisticated teams around them.”

Babu added that sustainability is another area where brands are stepping up their efforts in sports, such as their initiative to make marathons more sustainable. “We spoke to a few organizers and got them to compete – London and New York now compete on which marathon is more sustainable,” he said.

Rethinking Sports for Modern Fans

The discussion turned to the need for sports organisations to evolve with the changing consumption habits of today’s audiences. “There is a dynamic around fandom – people want to be a part of winning,” said Jones. “It’s also important for those of us in sport to rethink how we are positioned, marketed and structured, and how we ensure fans can engage. Cricket, for example, had to change – going through multiple practice rounds isn’t good television, and the same is happening in golf. All these elements require a different set of eyes to make the product more consumable."

As Werner concludes in MWW’s research, “The question isn't whether sports fans represent a valuable audience. They do. The question is whether brands are willing to do the work required to earn their loyalty. The new sports marketing frontier isn't about media spend or visibility. It's about emotional equity, cultural relevance, and meaningful differentiation on the field, online, and in fans' identities. Brands that understand this will win. Those that don't will remain what they are today: seen but not felt, present but not powerful, visible but not valuable.

“The sports marketing landscape is at a crossroads. Success requires more than presence. It requires understanding fan culture, participating authentically in it, and building relationships that extend beyond transactions. The brands that recognize this shift will have a significant advantage over those that continue to prioritize reach over resonance.”