Six Trends That Defined Sports Sponcon In 2025

👋 Welcome back to Sponcon Sports, a weekly newsletter dedicated to sponsored content strategy in the sports industry!

Three Instagram ads jumped out at me last month—smart, clean, high-intent executions I’m adding straight to my sponcon playbook.

Mystery Game At The Mecca: The New York Knicks were pushing ticket sales for the one game every NBA team enters without knowing its opponent. Matchups get finalized after the NBA Cup’s group stage, which sets up a built-in tension point most teams don’t tap into.

There’s serious revenue potential here. You could build:

• a “guess the opponent” sweepstakes for lead gen

• a pregame digital or in-venue scavenger hunt with merch or concession rewards

• a thematic sponsorship tie-in with IP (movie, tv show, game) built around mystery, suspense, or reveals.

Teams and leagues are always looking for ways to eventize regular-season moments. This is a turnkey opportunity hiding in plain sight.

Magic ULTRA Drops: Every Monday, the Orlando Magic and Michelob ULTRA release app-exclusive giveaways: jerseys, tickets, the works. I love this for a few reasons.

Hosting drops inside the team app gives fans a reason to open it beyond gameday, which directly boosts retention, data capture, and sponsor value. And the Magic supporting it with paid promotion is exactly the right call—paid is what scales audience and reinforces the app habit loop (in this case, checking back on Mondays).

More teams should run in-app drops paired with paid. It’s a clean, repeatable model that compounds over time (relying less on paid spend).

Eat, Click, Win: This Vienna Beef sweepstakes ad stopped me immediately. The creative looks like it’s actually displayed on Wrigley Field signage, which makes the sweepstakes feel native to Chicago Cubs fans who see it on Instagram.

Paid social is essential for sweepstakes because the goal is simple: get fans off-platform to enter. Strong creative matters, especially with more impact on targeting. While paid creative in sports is often an afterthought, good design increases attention, link clicks, and leads.

Paid social isn’t just a tool to boost posts—it’s one of the most efficient ways to drive revenue, build habit-forming behaviors, and extend sponsor value when the creative and mechanics are purpose-built. These three examples are great reminders that small executional choices can make a big commercial impact.

In Today’s Edition:

• 2025 Sponcon Trends 📈 

• Yung [Zamboni] Gravy Boat 🐧

• Chipotle Meets Heated Rivalry ❌ 

🏊️ DEEP DIVE
The Content Trends Reshaping Sponsorship Value

What defined this year wasn’t the amount of sponsored content — it was how strategically it was made. Teams, brands, creators, and athletes found new ways to squeeze more value out of every moment, every shoot day, and every in-venue activation.

Across the industry, six trends defined that evolution. Let’s get into them.

Trend #1 — Celebrations As A Sponsorship Canvas

The pattern: In 2025, the best sponsored content didn’t happen before the moment — it happened inside it. Championship celebrations became built-in brand stages.

Across sports, three formats defined the year:

1) Product integration inside the celebration

• PSG × Qatar Airways turned a Champions League trophy lift into a fully branded flight home—CGI skies, a buckled-in trophy, players posing with the jet.

• Liverpool × Google Pixel Mo Salah celebrated LFC’s Premier League win with a branded on-field selfie (Before, After).

• Wrexham × Ray-Ban Meta AI Glasses captured promotion from the players’ POV.

• FC Bayern × Paulaner scaled the classic Bierdusche into a sponsor-led content engine.

• Cash App × Athlos NYC introduced “instant payout celebrations,” letting winners receive prize money on the spot—and showing it in real time on social.

Why it matters: Embedding product into the emotional core makes the brand feel earned, not pasted on.

2) Branded goggles became table stakes

• Philadelphia Eagles × Bud Light for the Super Bowl parade

• Oklahoma City Thunder × Michelob ULTRA during the NBA Finals

• U.S. Open Tennis × Moët & Chandon locker room celebration

Why it matters: The goggles’ lens is literally the camera’s POV in many celebration shots — branded goggles guarantee visibility in the most-shared frames.

3) Trophies as premium real estate

• Louis Vuitton produced trophy cases for the Australian Open and F1.

• LEGO engineered a Silverstone Grand Prix trophy that became its own viral asset.

• Michelob ULTRA found its Superior Man of the Match trophy alongside Chelsea’s FIFA Club World Cup Trophy.

• Tiffany & Co. delivered the Lombardi to the Eagles in a cinematic handoff and crafted crowns for Athlos NYC winners.

Why it matters: Trophy lifts, handoffs, and unboxings are the single most replayed assets teams own — brands that attach here get a durable association with excellence.

→ Full breakdown linked here

Trend #2 — Period-Positive Marketing Hit the Mainstream

The pattern: Partnerships used sport’s visibility to normalize menstrual health with creative, athlete-led work that pushed conversation — not just PR.

Key examples:

• Chelsea × Here We Flo: season-opener launch with purpose-built stained shorts and a GLAMOUR feature with Niamh Charles — a high-attention, visual-first debut.

• Arsenal × Persil x Dirt Is Good: WSL derby takeover, LED boards, halftime coverage, an OOH and print push, and a multi-part video series (Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3) that reached ~85M IG views across organic + paid.

• U by Kotex × WNBA players: player-first activations including period red dyed-hair and a @stud.budz Twitch stream that intentionally normalized tampon talk and sparked open conversations.

• Indiana Fever × Sequel: product in locker rooms, a 360 Plays series, and Lexie Hull’s organic-to-sponsored content arc that led to TikTok Shop conversions.

Common themes:

• Athlete-first storytelling.

• Launches pegged to high-attention moments.

• Visual work built to provoke conversation.

• Social sequencing that respected creator formats.

Why it matters: Stigma won’t shift through messaging alone—it shifts through work people want to watch and share. These campaigns didn’t lean on sentiment; they won on execution, proving the category belongs squarely in the sports conversation.

→ Full breakdown linked here

Trend #3 — Sports Became a Go-To Engine for Tune-In

The pattern: From Star Wars to Squid Games, sports didn’t just host entertainment promos — they became distribution partners. When content is built to be shareable, a stadium stunt or creator clip doubles as trailer with built-in fan distribution

Key examples:

• MLB x Apple TV+: Jack Goldburg’s (@JacksDiningRoom) stadium food reviews for Friday Night Baseball delivered 6.7M views and a 6.2% ER — not because they felt like ads, but because they lived inside a format fans were already watching. The tune-in CTA wasn’t a disruption; it was the payoff.

• Fox Sports → Indy 500: planted Indy-branded fans at three MLB games; milk-pour stunts totaled ~2.4M views across FOX channels, each with a direct tune-in CTA for race day. Stadiums acted like living previews.

• Damson Idris × Tommy Hilfiger → F1 movie: Met Gala arrival produced a single cultural moment that amplified franchise awareness beyond traditional motorsport audiences and seriously delivered.

Common themes:

• Build for social first.

• Keep it native to creator or event formats.

• Attach seamless tune-in CTAs.

Why it matters: Sports gives studios reach and cultural urgency — if the content is shareable, tune-in follows.

→ Full breakdown linked here

Trend #4 — More Value Squeezed Out of Player Shoot Days

The pattern: Player time is expensive. The smartest productions treated each shoot as a content factory: high-production hero assets plus phone-shot social content, creator collabs, and cutdowns.

Key examples:

• EA Sports x Saquon Barkley: EA’s reveal of Saquon Barkley as the Madden NFL 26 cover star showed how far a single shoot day can stretch. The 99 Club rollout hit every format — graphics, unboxings, product spotlights, polished BTS, and phone-shot social clips, including the reverse-leap recreation that hit 45M views on IG. Even the creator collabs came in multiple styles (trivia, Immaculate Grid), each testing a different audience trigger.

• WNBA × CarMax x Paige Bueckers: When Paige Bueckers filmed her WNBA–CarMax commercial, the league grabbed a few extra minutes to shoot social-native clips: behind-the-scenes moments, a rookie-year recap, and reactions to her most viral memes. None of it was part of the commercial — but together the posts cleared 750K views. Proof that micro-windows with star players can still deliver macro attention.

• MrBeast x Aaron Judge x George Russell: Few people maximize a shoot like MrBeast. His Pros vs. Joes-style video he wove T-Mobile directly into the home run derby segment with Aaron Judge, driving over $14M in social value. Then he sliced off a baseball tic-tac-toe short, again with Judge and T-Mobile, a clean, social-first clip that added another $10M on its own. And he ran it back. In his Athletes vs. Robots video, a racing sequence with George Russell spun out multiple short-form challenges — one of which led to Russell wearing the MrBeast logo on his F1 helmet in a real race.

Why it matters: One phone-shot clip can outperform a commercial. Capture for all formats or leave money on the table.

Trend #5 — Creator Golf Exploded

The pattern: Golf didn’t just embrace creators this year — it reorganized itself around them. Leagues, brands, and players leaned into creator-native formats to drive discovery, test new sponsor mechanics, and build content engines that travel far beyond the course.

Key examples:

• TGL × Jersey Jerry: The Hole-In-One Challenge livestream lit up SoFi Center’s massive screen for 10+ hours and delivered 450K+ views — plus in-stream sponsor moments from BODYARMOR and ONE Protein Bars. A perfect proof point that a single creator with a sticky format can lift a league launch.

• LIV Golf’s creator ecosystem: LIV signed Rick Shiels as an official ambassador, launched No Bad Lies with Andrew Santino, and doubled down on The Duels — a pro/creator showdown Jordan Rogers argued was far more creator-native than the PGA Tour’s Creator Cup. LIV didn’t try to fit creators into a tour format; it built formats around creator behavior.

• Bryson DeChambeau × Underdog (sponcon of the year contender): Bryson built off his proven daily shot-challenge format and leveled it up with Underdog — adding a luxury car prize and $100 credits for near-misses in the comments. The activation is a clinic in “built to sell” vs. “built if sold”: the content, the mechanics, and the reward system were all designed for engagement and conversion from the start.

• Good Good → PGA TOUR: Good Good leveling up to sponsor a PGA TOUR event in 2026 shows where this is all heading: creator-led brands investing directly into tour infrastructure because they now own real audience demand.

• The Internet Invitational: The year’s tentpole moment. Barstool Sports and Bob Does Sports teamed up for a creator-first golf tournament that felt part action, part reality TV — 48 creators, 16+ hours of footage, $1 million on the line. The result: nearly 25 million views on YouTube alone (not including Shorts). It’s the clearest signal yet that creator golf isn’t a niche; it’s an entertainment product with real scale.

Why it matters: Creator golf opens up formats traditional broadcasts rarely touch — personality-first episodes, challenges, and social-native storylines. It removes legacy friction, gives brands flexible ways to plug in, and creates a repeatable pipeline instead of one-off stunts.

Trend #6 — In-Venue Activations Became Social-First

The pattern: In-venue activations were redesigned to serve two audiences at once: the fans in the building and the millions watching online.

Teams have engineered moments with social in mind from the jump — entertaining enough to stand alone online, organic enough to avoid feeling like forced partner inventory, and structured so one moment creates two outcomes: an unforgettable IRL experience and a high-performing digital asset.

Key Examples:

• F1 x LEGO – Life-Sized Cars: Ten full-scale LEGO builds headlined the Miami driver parade, then popped again with the LEGO Cadillac cool-down car in Las Vegas — a partnership in the running for deal of the year.

• Cleveland Cavaliers x Wendy’s – “Cavalanche”: A Frosty-triggered fake-snow blizzard blasting across a packed arena is objectively absurd — which is why it works online. It’s visual, immediate, and perfectly self-explanatory in a quick clip.

• Sacramento Kings x ARCO – Perfect Pump Challenge: fan trying to stop a “gas pump” at the exact price has the tension of a game show but the chaos of a live sports crowd. ARCO’s role is clear, visible, and unobtrusive.

• LAFC × DoorDash × Carlos Vela – Celebrity Cam Takeover: A brilliant twist on a Jumbotron classic: Vela showing off new items each time he appears, all pulled straight from DoorDash. Instead of one static sponsor moment, you get a running gag that becomes a content thread.

• Brisbane Broncos × Jim Beam – Partnership Announcement: 45,000 fans belting Sweet Caroline — paired with a sponsor takeover of the digital ribbon boards — turns a routine singalong into a branded cultural moment.

• Thunder x MidFirst Bank – Peer-Pressure Shirt Cam: Calling out fans not wearing their giveaway T-shirts is delightfully petty — and brilliantly effective. The moment forces fans to engage in-venue and generates highly shareable clips online. For sponsors like MidFirst Bank, it guarantees the T-shirt logo is part of the story.

• American Century Championship × TravisMathew – Steph Curry Hoops: Curry casually dropping seven threes on a branded hoop (and more) delivered 10M+ views in earned posts alone. More importantly, the activation matched the vibe of the event — light, fun, social-driven.

• Indiana Fever x Cheez-It – Loudest Section Reward: Rewarding the loudest section with boxes of Cheez-Its is exactly the kind of low-lift, high-joy moment that sells the arena atmosphere to people watching at home.

Why it matters: An in-person activation can be enhanced based on the content it produces. When content teams are involved early — not bolted on at the end — the activation becomes entertainment first, messaging second. That’s the unlock.

The Takeaway

The teams and brands winning right now aren’t throwing more content into the world; they’re building moments designed to travel. Whether it’s a single shoot, an in-venue stunt, or a clever creator tie-in, the real unlock is simple: make the content worth sharing before you ever hit record.

🔍️ SPONCONSPIRATION
Steal These Ideas

Zamboni gravy boats aren’t new anymore in the NHL. So if you’re going to promote one on social, you need something that actually stops the scroll. The Pittsburgh Penguins nailed it by bringing in Yung Gravy to deliver the news—an instant win for fans and for sponsor, Giant Eagle.

Creator collabs have become as standard of the media carwash alongside traditional morning and late-night TV shows. Steph Curry popping into a Jordan Howlett video to push the NBA champion’s new film, GOAT Movie, is the latest proof.

The Tampa Bay Buccaneers turned a timeless “then vs. now” concept into a strong sponsored play for Invisalign, building an Instagram-native carousel around players’ confident smiles from past to present.

Chipotle jumped into ❌ichigan Week with Ohio State safety Caleb Downs, crossing out the M’s in the store—a campus tradition. When they took that Buckeye support to their own X feed? The brand drew some heat.

Both the Los Angeles Lakers and Brooklyn Nets rolled out NBA Cup Challenge videos for the league’s in-season tournament. Brooklyn stood out by adding a speed component that cleverly tied Tissot into the concept.

And F1 is still drafting off its viral LEGO collab at the Las Vegas Grand Prix. Following a post-race DQ that put Mercedes’ Kimi Antonelli on the podium, he finally got to wear the infamous LEGO sunglasses—sadly, still no Cadillac cool-down car was included.

🚨 ICYMI
What To Watch For

2025 Social Media Habits: Pew Research Center dropped its latest social media usage report—and there’s one standout: Reddit has officially passed both Snapchat and X.

Winning Partnerships Framework: Nirupam Singh outlined six pillars that determine commercial success for sports properties [The Commercial Table Newsletter].

Youth Sports’ Future: BASE Sports Group released 10 sponsorship trends that will define youth sports in 2026.

Fan Journey Map: Oliver Wolfs broke down how fans actually move from seeing a brand to becoming customers—mapping the full journey from exposure to loyalty. He also visualized the types of activations that plug into each stage.

Data-Driven Retention: Paul Dioh explained why every sports organization needs a structured marketing lifecycle built around personalized, data-driven messaging—especially SMS and push to retain and re-activate fans in a crowded entertainment landscape [Sports and the Wisdom Newsletter].

Heisman Goes LinkedIn: Indiana QB Fernando Mendoza launched a dedicated LinkedIn page for his Heisman campaign, “HeisMendoza.” Brennan Getchell highlighted why LinkedIn is becoming a real opportunity for athletes to earn off-field, revenue-generating wins—especially as NIL matures.