Measuring Sponsorship ROI for a Large US Retailer
How we brought $3.7M in annual sponsorship spend inside the ROI framework and revealed that the smallest activation delivered the highest return.
The Story
Sponsorship TV represented less than 5% of this retailer’s total sponsorship budget. It also delivered nearly three times the ROI of in-stadium spend. That kind of finding only becomes visible when sponsorships are held to the same standard as every other line in the media plan.
This is the story of how we brought $3.7M in annual sponsorship investment inside the ROI framework, separating in-stadium exposure from TV activation, modeling both as explicit channels in a weekly MMM, and giving a major US retailer a clear, defensible answer to a question their industry rarely asks: what is our sponsorship actually worth?
Our Impact
$1.4M incremental revenue
For Sports Sponsorship with $3.6M spend
$124K incremental revenue
For Sponsorship TV with $108K spend
3× higher ROI
Sponsorship TV delivered ~3× higher ROI while representing less than 5% of total
How We Solved This Large Retailer’s Problem
Problem
Sponsorships were treated as fixed, brand-only costs (in-stadium spend $3.6M; sponsorship TV $108K; 800M+ impressions measured by visibility, not incremental revenue.), so a material share of media spend sat outside ROI accountability.
Solution
We modelled sponsorships as standalone variables in a weekly MMM (Jan 2023 – Jun 2025), separating Sports Sponsorship (in-stadium & activations) from Sponsorship TV. The model included full controls (price, promotions, holidays, seasonality, base demand, standard TV) and Metro vs non-Metro granularity, so sponsorships could be tied to incremental revenue and ROI like any other channel.
Core approach: explicit sponsorship variables + weekly pooled MMM with geographic granularity and full controls.
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