U.S. sports leagues and teams have recently embraced new sponsorship categories, like cryptocurrency, and auctioned off the real estate on their jerseys, where the highest bidder can plant company logos. In both cases, the NFL said, not so fast.
It’s easy to move judiciously when you are the richest sports league in the world and most teams turn a nine-figure profit.
NFL sponsorship revenue rose 4% during the 2022 season to a record $1.88 billion, according to a new report from consultancy IEG and its Sponsorship Intelligence Database, 15% ahead of the NBA.
“They stayed squeaky clean during the whole thing,” Peter Laatz, IEG’s global managing director, said in a video interview regarding the crypto sponsorship mess. “They were, as they often are in the best of ways, extremely late to the marketplace. But they were late for a reason.”
The NFL did not allow deals with crypto exchanges FTX, Coinbase and Crypto.com, and only approved blockchain companies like Socios, which signed 13 NFL teams to deals for 2022. So, while cryptocurrency was the second biggest sponsorship category for the NBA during the 2021-22 season, it was not on the NFL’s radar.
Technology is the most lucrative industry for football, with nearly $400 million in sponsorship revenue, per IEG. Sports betting ($260 million), beer ($211 million), telecom ($163 million) and insurance ($133 million) also cracked the top five. Four of the top 10 spending brands were tech companies, including Microsoft, Amazon, Cisco Systems and Apple. In addition, technology brands Acronis, Amazon Web Services, HCL Technologies and Shift4 added deals with multiple teams.
IEG’s research has the NFL ahead of the NBA ($1.64 billion) on sponsorships, as well as MLB ($1.19 billion), NHL ($753 million) and MLS ($677 million).
The 4% increase in sponsorship revenue is slower than the previous year’s 12%, when a flood of sports gambling partnerships drove significant gains. Rights fees in that category jumped 140% year-over-year and went from being the eighth biggest brand category to second largest behind technology.
IEG’s figures factor in team- and league-level deals but are estimated sponsorship rights fees and do not include media advertising or player endorsement income.
In May, Pepsi announced it would not return as the Super Bowl halftime show sponsor after a decade in the role—Bridgestone was the prior halftime sponsor. Apple Music replaced the soft drink giant under a $50 million-a-year pact. “The endemic kind of underwriting by a strong music platform was smart,” Laatz said. “I think it's going to help them on the backside with artist acquisition and all kinds of extensions they can do.”
Pepsi walked away from the Super Bowl halftime sponsorship, but it did not leave the NFL. In fact, it spent more on football sponsorship rights during the 2022 season than any other brand, with Anheuser-Busch InBev and Verizon up next. PepsiCo shifted its budget to other NFL assets, such as the NFL Draft. It also has individual team deals with more than a dozen clubs. In addition to being a league partner, Anheuser-Busch has deals with 26 teams.
IEG tracked 53 active league-level partnerships. Barclays, Bose, Bridgestone, Ford Trucks, Pizza Hut and PointsBet exited the league after the 2021 season, but new sponsors, including Apple Music, Bread Financial, E & J Gallo Winery, Little Caesars and NoBull, came aboard.
“When you do a league-level deal, you are essentially buying the right to spend more money,” Laatz said. “You generally get access to ancillary events, but in terms of getting access to the actual game day action, you have to go to the clubs.”
The Cincinnati Bengals missed a chance to make Super Bowl LVII with their last-second loss to the Kansas City Chiefs in the AFC Championship game but had a 50% increase in sponsorship revenue, according to IEG. The Bengals have traditionally ranked among the lowest grossing teams on sponsor revenue, but the club benefited from its surprise run to last year’s Super Bowl, as well as its first stadium naming rights partner. In August, software company Paycor signed a 16-year deal to rename Paul Brown Stadium.
The Pittsburgh Steelers also got a new naming rights partner when financial tech firm Acrisure replaced Heinz in a deal worth roughly $10 million per year, more than triple the previous annual rate.
The breakdown of sponsorship revenue in the NFL is split roughly 50-50 between the league and its teams. It differs from the other U.S. sports leagues, where teams typically generate upwards of 70% of the dollars. Laatz says NFL teams are still restricted in their deals by the radius of marketing outside their home territories and the lack of TV-visible signage.