June 11, 2026 · Opinion
Why sponsorship is not a media budget
Three departments serving the same goal and still working past each other — that is still the norm.
In most companies, communications, marketing and sponsorship sit in three different calendars. Sponsorship reports into marketing, communications handles the press, and the content team produces something neither of them asked for. Everyone does their best, and the result is that you pay three times for half the effect.
What goes wrong
The problem is rarely money or talent. It is that nobody owns the whole story. Sponsorship agreements get signed without anyone having thought about what you can do with them communicatively. Then the content team has to invent something after the fact around a logo on a board.
What does work
Start with the season of the sport, not the quarter of the business. Find the real moments — a test, a selection, a setback — and build one plan around them that serves press, social and internal communications at the same time.
That costs no extra budget. It costs one conversation with all three parties at the table before the signature goes down.
