Research/Sponsorship

Sponsorship 2026 Statistics (Updated September)

51 statistics on sponsorship spending, league revenue, fan response, creator deals, podcasts and event sponsors. Seven of them come from SponsorHawk's data on 8,530 event sponsors and 8,917 newsletter placements.

David Richter
Written by
David Richter
Head of Content
Published
September 24, 2026
Last modified
September 24, 2026
Sources verified

Top 10

  1. Brands spent $250 billion in 2024 to reach sports audiences, counting sponsorship and media together, according to Two Circles.
  2. Sponsorship is 19% of what brands spend to reach sports fans, down from 29% ten years ago; the other 81% goes to media.
  3. 50.8% of event sponsors in SponsorHawk's data (4,332 of 8,530) sponsored only one event.
  4. NBA team sponsorship revenue reached a record $1.8 billion in the 2025-26 season, up 11.1% on the year before.
  5. Formula 1 team sponsorship revenue reached $2.54 billion in 2025, up 22%, leaving F1 $120 million behind the NFL.
  6. Women's sports sponsorship grew 17.5% in 2025 (excluding NIL), more than 3.5 times the growth rate of men's leagues.
  7. Google is the most frequent event sponsor in SponsorHawk's data with 131 sponsorships, followed by Amazon (80, with Amazon Web Services listed separately at 42), Microsoft (69) and IBM (45).
  8. 66% of U.S. adults are more likely to buy from companies that sponsor sports they like, up from 59% in 2022.
  9. U.S. advertisers were projected to spend $37 billion on creators in 2025, up 26% on 2024 and nearly four times the growth of the media industry overall.
  10. 56.5% of event sponsors in SponsorHawk's data (4,823 of 8,530) have a sponsorship, partnership or giving page on their own website.

How much do brands spend on sponsorship

  1. 1

    Brands spent $250 billion in 2024 to reach sports audiences, counting sponsorship and media together, according to Two Circles.

    Source: Two Circles, 2025 [1]

  2. 2

    Sponsorship is 19% of what brands spend to reach sports fans, down from 29% ten years ago; the other 81% goes to media.

    Source: Two Circles, 2025 [1]

  3. 3

    Two Circles predicts a $30 billion shift in annual brand spending on sports audiences from media into sponsorship.

    Source: Two Circles, 2025 [1]

  4. 4

    63% of brands say their sponsorship partners do not fully understand their objectives, and 75% of rights holders say the same about their brand partners.

    Source: Two Circles, 2025 [1]

  5. 5

    Sports rights owners worldwide earned a record $170 billion in revenue in 2024, and the top 20 took 44% of it, according to Two Circles.

    Source: Two Circles, 2025 [2]

  6. 6

    The 13 North American cities hosting 2026 World Cup matches account for $4.5 billion in sports sponsorship spend, nearly half the North American total, according to SponsorUnited.

    Source: SponsorUnited, 2025 [3]

How much sponsorship revenue sports leagues earn

  1. 7

    NBA team sponsorship revenue reached a record $1.8 billion in the 2025-26 season, up 11.1% on the year before.

    Source: SponsorUnited, 2026 [4]

  2. 8

    Finance companies were the NBA's largest sponsor category in 2025-26 at $318 million, nearly double the next category.

    Source: SponsorUnited, 2026 [4]

  3. 9

    29 of the 30 NBA teams now sell a jersey patch sponsorship.

    Source: SponsorUnited, 2026 [4]

  4. 10

    NBA team sponsorship revenue rose 91% in five years, from $850 million to $1.62 billion in 2024-25, according to SponsorUnited data reported by NBC News.

    Source: NBC News, 2025 [5]

  5. 11

    NFL teams took in nearly $2.5 billion in sponsorship revenue in 2024-25, up 6%, the most of any U.S. league.

    Source: NBC News, 2025 [5]

  6. 12

    Formula 1 team sponsorship revenue reached $2.54 billion in 2025, up 22%, leaving F1 $120 million behind the NFL.

    Source: SponsorUnited, 2026 [6]

  7. 13

    F1 teams added $460 million in sponsorship in one season, from 382 deals with 358 brands.

    Source: SponsorUnited, 2026 [6]

  8. 14

    SponsorUnited tracked more than 5,300 sponsorship deals across the WNBA, NWSL, WTA, LPGA and NIL in 2025.

    Source: SponsorUnited, 2026 [7]

  9. 15

    Women's sports sponsorship grew 17.5% in 2025 (excluding NIL), more than 3.5 times the growth rate of men's leagues.

    Source: SponsorUnited, 2026 [7]

How many companies sponsor events

  1. 16

    SponsorHawk's event sponsor data lists 8,530 companies with 18,270 event sponsorships between them, each with at least one sponsored event dated 2025 or later.

    Source: SponsorHawk · sponsorships dated 2025-01-22 to 2028-06-14 · 8,530 companies · method

  2. 17

    50.8% of event sponsors in SponsorHawk's data (4,332 of 8,530) sponsored only one event.

    Source: SponsorHawk · sponsorships dated 2025-01-22 to 2028-06-14 · 8,530 companies · method

  3. 18

    6.3% of event sponsors in SponsorHawk's data (539 companies) sponsored five or more events, and they account for 27.0% of all 18,270 event sponsorships.

    Source: SponsorHawk · sponsorships dated 2025-01-22 to 2028-06-14 · 18,270 sponsorships · method

  4. 19

    Google is the most frequent event sponsor in SponsorHawk's data with 131 sponsorships, followed by Amazon (80, with Amazon Web Services listed separately at 42), Microsoft (69) and IBM (45).

    Source: SponsorHawk · sponsorships dated 2025-01-22 to 2028-06-14 · 8,530 companies · method

  5. 20

    56.5% of event sponsors in SponsorHawk's data (4,823 of 8,530) have a sponsorship, partnership or giving page on their own website.

    Source: SponsorHawk · sponsorships dated 2025-01-22 to 2028-06-14 · 8,530 companies · method

  6. 21

    49.1% of event sponsors in SponsorHawk's data sponsored at least one technology event, and 51.8% sponsored at least one event in the United States.

    Source: SponsorHawk · sponsorships dated 2025-01-22 to 2028-06-14 · 8,530 companies · method

  7. 22

    51% of marketers planned more sponsored events in 2025 and 57% planned more partner events, according to Splash's Events Outlook Report.

    Source: Cvent, 2026 [8]

  8. 23

    35% of meeting professionals say finding funding, such as from sponsors, is one of their main ways of handling economic uncertainty in 2026, according to Amex GBT.

    Source: Cvent, 2026 [8]

  9. 24

    35% of event teams use AI for sponsor and attendee matchmaking.

    Source: Cvent, 2026 [8]

How fans respond to sponsors

  1. 25

    66% of U.S. adults are more likely to buy from companies that sponsor sports they like, up from 59% in 2022.

    Source: Sports Business Journal, 2025 [9]

  2. 26

    20% of U.S. adults say they have chosen a company specifically because it sponsors a sport they like.

    Source: Sports Business Journal, 2025 [9]

  3. 27

    15% of U.S. adults say they stopped doing business with a brand because it sponsored a sport or organization they disliked, and 16% more have considered it.

    Source: Sports Business Journal, 2025 [9]

  4. 28

    69% of U.S. adults call themselves NFL fans, but only 27% say they are strongly open to engaging with sponsors.

    Source: Sports Business Journal, 2025 [9]

  5. 29

    Only 7% of U.S. adults are fans of women's professional hockey, but 53% of them are strongly open to sponsor engagement.

    Source: Sports Business Journal, 2025 [9]

  6. 30

    88% of women's professional hockey fans say they often or sometimes buy from sponsors, against 75% of NFL fans.

    Source: Sports Business Journal, 2025 [9]

  7. 31

    59% of women's professional hockey fans have recommended a sponsor, compared with 34% of NFL fans.

    Source: Sports Business Journal, 2025 [9]

  8. 32

    71% of sports fans believe governing bodies and sponsors put making money ahead of athletes and fans, in an Edelman survey of 1,000 fans.

    Source: SportsPro, 2025 [10]

  9. 33

    91% of sports fans in the same Edelman study said sponsors should lead efforts against online abuse of athletes.

    Source: SportsPro, 2025 [10]

How much brands spend on creator sponsorships

  1. 34

    SponsorHawk's newsletter data holds 8,917 sponsor placements by 2,294 companies across 390 newsletters, dated December 2023 to August 2025.

    Source: SponsorHawk · 2023-12-17 to 2025-08-10 · 8,917 placements

  2. 35

    Goldman Sachs Research predicts the creator economy could grow from $250 billion in 2023 to $480 billion by 2027.

    Source: Goldman Sachs, 2023 [11]

  3. 36

    Goldman Sachs counts 50 million creators worldwide, and only about 4% earn more than $100,000 a year.

    Source: Goldman Sachs, 2023 [11]

  4. 37

    U.S. advertisers were projected to spend $37 billion on creators in 2025, up 26% on 2024 and nearly four times the growth of the media industry overall.

    Source: IAB, 2025 [12]

  5. 38

    IAB expects U.S. creator ad spend to reach $44 billion in 2026 (a prediction), up from $13.9 billion in 2021.

    Source: IAB, 2025 [12]

  6. 39

    48% of creator ad buyers now consider creators a must-buy channel, ranking them just behind paid search and social media.

    Source: IAB, 2025 [12]

  7. 40

    62% of marketers are increasing influencer budgets in 2026, and 33% plan to spend more than $5 million.

    Source: Linqia, 2026 [13]

  8. 41

    79% of marketers struggle to measure the ROI of influencer programs, and 48% name attribution as the biggest gap.

    Source: Linqia, 2026 [13]

  9. 42

    49% of marketers work with specialist influencer agencies in 2026, up from 28% in 2025, while in-house management fell to 23%.

    Source: Linqia, 2026 [14]

  10. 43

    81% of marketers in Linqia's 2026 survey say creator content outperforms brand-created assets, and all of the marketers surveyed reuse creator content beyond the creator's own channels.

    Source: Linqia, 2026 [13]

  11. 44

    Across more than 4,000 sponsored deliverables Creators Agency negotiated, the median YouTube mid-roll price was about $100 per 1,000 views, and about 90% of finance and business mid-rolls fell between $50 and $200 CPM.

    Source: Creators Agency, 2026 [15]

  12. 45

    YouTube has paid more than $100 billion to creators, artists and media companies since 2021.

    Source: CNBC, 2025 [16]

  13. 46

    A study of beauty and style YouTubers found that posting a sponsored video instead of an equivalent organic one cost the creator 0.19% of their subscribers, with a stronger effect for larger channels.

    Source: Management Science, 2024 [17]

How big is podcast sponsorship

  1. 47

    IAB projected U.S. podcast ad revenue to grow 12% to over $2 billion in 2024 and to reach nearly $2.6 billion by 2026 (a prediction).

    Source: IAB, 2024 [18]

  2. 48

    IAB expected U.S. podcast advertising revenue to pass $3 billion for the first time in 2025.

    Source: Adweek, 2025 [19]

  3. 49

    55% of Americans aged 12 and over consume podcasts monthly, a record high in Edison Research's Infinite Dial 2025.

    Source: Edison Research, 2025 [20]

  4. 50

    73% of Americans aged 12 and over have listened to or watched a podcast, about 210 million people.

    Source: Edison Research, 2025 [20]

  5. 51

    YouTube is the service U.S. weekly podcast listeners use most often, at 33%, according to Edison Podcast Metrics.

    Source: Edison Research, 2025 [20]

Frequently asked questions

How much do brands spend on sponsorship?

Two Circles estimates brands spent $250 billion in 2024 to reach sports audiences, of which 19% went to sponsorship and 81% to media. Ten years earlier sponsorship's share was 29%. In the U.S., IAB projected $37 billion in creator ad spend for 2025.

Which sports league earns the most sponsorship revenue?

The NFL, with nearly $2.5 billion in team sponsorship revenue in 2024-25 according to SponsorUnited. Formula 1 teams reached $2.54 billion in 2025, $120 million behind the NFL, and NBA teams reached $1.8 billion in 2025-26.

Is women's sports sponsorship growing?

Yes. SponsorUnited tracked more than 5,300 deals across the WNBA, NWSL, WTA, LPGA and NIL in 2025 and found women's sports sponsorship grew 17.5% (excluding NIL), more than 3.5 times the rate of men's leagues.

Do sponsorships change what consumers buy?

In a Sports Business Journal survey of more than 5,000 U.S. adults, 66% said they are more likely to buy from companies that sponsor sports they like, and 20% had chosen a company for that reason. 15% had stopped buying from a brand over a sponsorship they disliked.

How many companies sponsor more than one event?

In SponsorHawk's data on 8,530 event sponsors, 50.8% sponsored a single event. The 6.3% that sponsored five or more account for 27.0% of all 18,270 sponsorships. Google had the most, with 131.

How much do YouTube creators charge for a sponsorship?

Creators Agency's data on more than 4,000 sponsored deliverables puts the median YouTube mid-roll at about $100 per 1,000 views, with most finance and business mid-rolls between $50 and $200 CPM.

Sources

  1. [1]Two Circles. “250B reasons why brands are backing sports”. 2025.↑1 ↑2 ↑3 ↑4
  2. [2]Two Circles. “Sports Revenue League 2025”. 2025.↑5
  3. [3]SponsorUnited. “2025 Markets Report”. 2025.↑6
  4. [4]SponsorUnited. “NBA Sponsorship Intelligence Report 2025-26”. 2026.↑7 ↑8 ↑9
  5. [5]NBC News. 2025.↑10 ↑11
  6. [6]SponsorUnited. “Formula 1 Sponsorship Intelligence Report 2025-26”. 2026.↑12 ↑13
  7. [7]SponsorUnited. “Women's Sports Sponsorship Report 2025”. 2026.↑14 ↑15
  8. [8]Cvent. 2026.↑22 ↑23 ↑24
  9. [9]Sports Business Journal. 2025.↑25 ↑26 ↑27 ↑28 ↑29 ↑30 ↑31
  10. [10]SportsPro. 2025.↑32 ↑33
  11. [11]Goldman Sachs. 2023.↑35 ↑36
  12. [12]IAB. “2025 Creator Economy Ad Spend & Strategy Report”. 2025.↑37 ↑38 ↑39
  13. [13]Linqia. 2026.↑40 ↑41 ↑43
  14. [14]Linqia. “The next era of influencer marketing”. 2026.↑42
  15. [15]Creators Agency. 2026.↑44
  16. [16]CNBC. 2025.↑45
  17. [17]Management Science. 2024.↑46
  18. [18]IAB. “U.S. Podcast Advertising Revenue Study 2024”. 2024.↑47
  19. [19]Adweek. 2025.↑48
  20. [20]Edison Research. 2025.↑49 ↑50 ↑51

Method

We searched Google for sponsorship statistics, sponsorship marketing statistics and creator sponsorship statistics, read the pages that ranked, and counted how many of them repeat each number. Many of those pages quote figures without naming a source we could open, so we left those out and went to the firms that measured something: SponsorUnited, Two Circles, IAB, Goldman Sachs, Linqia, Edison Research and others. Each number was checked against the producer's page on September 24, 2026. Where we could not open the producer's own page, we cite the page that reported the number. Forecasts are marked as predictions. The survey behind the Sports Business Journal numbers covered more than 5,000 U.S. adults. SponsorHawk's event numbers come from ConferenceDatabase sponsor records in the product's dataset: 8,530 companies after merging rows that share a company name; one row that is not a company was left out of the top-sponsor ranking. We found one peer-reviewed paper with a usable number (Management Science, 2024); most academic work on sponsorship studies disclosure labels, not spending.

SponsorHawk numbers new on this page:

  • SponsorHawk's event sponsor data lists 8,530 companies with 18,270 event sponsorships between them, each with at least one sponsored event dated 2025 or later. ConferenceDatabase event sponsor records in SponsorHawk's dataset; rows merged by company name (2,673 names appear on more than one row); every company has at least one sponsorship dated 2025 or later.
  • 50.8% of event sponsors in SponsorHawk's data (4,332 of 8,530) sponsored only one event. ConferenceDatabase event sponsor records in SponsorHawk's dataset; rows merged by company name (2,673 names appear on more than one row); every company has at least one sponsorship dated 2025 or later.
  • 6.3% of event sponsors in SponsorHawk's data (539 companies) sponsored five or more events, and they account for 27.0% of all 18,270 event sponsorships. ConferenceDatabase event sponsor records in SponsorHawk's dataset; rows merged by company name (2,673 names appear on more than one row); every company has at least one sponsorship dated 2025 or later.
  • Google is the most frequent event sponsor in SponsorHawk's data with 131 sponsorships, followed by Amazon (80, with Amazon Web Services listed separately at 42), Microsoft (69) and IBM (45). ConferenceDatabase event sponsor records in SponsorHawk's dataset; rows merged by company name (2,673 names appear on more than one row); every company has at least one sponsorship dated 2025 or later. One row named 'Professional Sports and Lifeguard' (47) was left out of the ranking.
  • 56.5% of event sponsors in SponsorHawk's data (4,823 of 8,530) have a sponsorship, partnership or giving page on their own website. ConferenceDatabase event sponsor records in SponsorHawk's dataset; rows merged by company name (2,673 names appear on more than one row); every company has at least one sponsorship dated 2025 or later. A company counts when its record carries at least one URL to such a page.
  • 49.1% of event sponsors in SponsorHawk's data sponsored at least one technology event, and 51.8% sponsored at least one event in the United States. ConferenceDatabase event sponsor records in SponsorHawk's dataset; rows merged by company name (2,673 names appear on more than one row); every company has at least one sponsorship dated 2025 or later. Event categories and countries as listed in the source records.

All 51 statistics as a CSV: sponsorship-statistics.csv.

Cite this page

SponsorHawk, “Sponsorship 2026 Statistics (Updated September)”, updated September 2026, https://sponsorhawk.com/research/sponsorship-statistics

To cite one number, link its anchor: each statistic has one, for example https://sponsorhawk.com/research/sponsorship-statistics#stat-1.

David Richter
About the author

David Richter, Head of Content. David works as a head of content in Graz, focused on content marketing.

SponsorHawk: AI agents that research your newsletter, podcast, or audience, identify companies with active sponsorship budgets, and pitch decision-makers on autopilot.

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