Top 10 Sports Sponcon Of 2025 (Part 1)

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

Fan data is getting harder to earn, and this month, teams are raising the stakes.

Instead of asking fans to opt in for nothing, teams are pairing creative mechanics and backing it up with high-value incentives that feel worth the trade.

The Nashville Predators are running a 12 Days of Hockey Holidays promotion in their mobile app. When fans open the app, a full-screen scratch-off appears immediately, revealing that day’s prize. To enter, users submit their personal information for a chance to win. Each day unlocks a new reward, with prizes from partners like Omni Hotels, Delta Air Lines, Jack Daniel’s, and more.

Unrivaled Basketball launched a Free Throw Challenge sweepstakes with Xfinity ahead of its second season. Fans pick the player they think will post the highest free throw percentage over their first five games, submit their information, and enter for a chance to win two courtside tickets plus travel cash to Philly Is Unrivaled, presented by Xfinity, on January 30. The winning player also takes home $50,000—aligning incentives on both sides.

Mastercard is kicking off its new era as McLaren’s title sponsor with Team Priceless, a fan-first collective built around exclusive access, trackside moments, and city-specific “Priceless” experiences. Fans can join by submitting their information and sharing a fan video on a public social account using #MastercardContest.

Staying in Formula 1, Williams is letting fans help choose the team’s 2026 test livery. Fans can vote on one of six designs, each in the team’s signature blue. The catch? You must be signed up for their loyalty program to participate.

Collecting fan data works best when the value exchange is obvious. Big prizes, simple mechanics, and creative concepts that grab attention make fans far more willing to opt in, and give teams data that’s actually worth something.

In Today’s Edition:

• 2025’s Top Sponcon 🏆️

• Sephora Is For The Boys 🦬 

• Spurs’ Secret Santa Surprise 🎅 

🏊️ DEEP DIVE
The Best Sponsored Content Of The Year (10-6)

2025 was another defining year for sponsored content in sports—but not because brands got louder.

The best work got smarter.

From real-time data integrations to culturally resonant storytelling, this year’s strongest activations didn’t just appear alongside the action—they enhanced it. They added meaning, utility, or emotion in ways fans actually noticed.

This is Part 1 of my Top 10 Sports Sponsored Content of 2025, covering No. 10 through No. 6. We’ll wrap it up next week with No. 5 through No. 1.

One quick note before we dive in: you won’t see LEGO’s Formula 1 partnership on this list. That wasn’t an oversight—I covered it in depth last week as 2025’s Digital Partnership of the Year, and it deserved its own spotlight.

Here are five campaigns that stood out in 2025, showing how brands turned creativity and insight into meaningful fan experiences.

10. The 2025 Ryder Cup, Measure By WHOOP

In 2025, WHOOP activated its new Ryder Cup partnership with WHOOP Live on NBC, showing real-time heart rate data from U.S. and European players during competition. The result: fans didn’t just watch the pressure—they saw it.

The concept built on a familiar foundation. After NBC’s Olympic “Heart of the Moment” experiment with family members in 2024, WHOOP took the next logical step by putting live biometric data on the athletes themselves, and distributing it across broadcast and social.

The format fit golf perfectly. The sport’s natural pacing made heart rate swings dramatic and digestible, especially in moments like must-make putts where players rarely show emotion. Seeing how the world’s best manage stress made them both relatable and superhuman.

WHOOP extended the idea beyond live moments by using data to tell a full event story, previewing team readiness, recapping daily strain and recovery, and closing the loop after the final round. They didn’t just show numbers; they gave them context.

The exclamation point came after Europe’s win. WHOOP shared an image of Rory McIlroy holding the trophy alongside a red, 1% recovery score, captioned: “Greatness isn’t always green.” A perfect line—and a reminder that elite performance isn’t about perfect metrics, but pushing through when they say you shouldn’t.

WHOOP didn’t just sponsor the Ryder Cup—they made it more meaningful. By turning data into emotion, they proved that when a product enhances the viewing experience, the content never feels like advertising.

9. Athlos Athletes Cash In

Athlos athletes got paid fast—really fast.

As part of a new sponsorship, Cash App handled immediate prize payments at this year’s Athlos NYC track meet. Winners and top finishers received payouts within minutes of results being confirmed, a sharp upgrade from the multi-day delays athletes are used to. Athlos smartly showcased the moment on social, turning a backend operational win into front-facing content.

It’s a strong example of product integration that actually benefits the athletes—and their genuine excitement on camera made that clear.

The timing didn’t hurt either. With competitor Grand Slam Track struggling to pay athletes and filing for bankruptcy, this moment helped position Athlos as a more credible, athlete-first league in the eyes of both competitors and fans.

8. Samsung’s Unrivaled Product Integration

This is what product integration looks like when it’s designed into the game—not layered on after the fact.

Samsung’s partnership with Unrivaled Basketball earns the No. 8 spot for going well beyond social posts. During Unrivaled’s inaugural season, Samsung devices powered content across social and the broadcast, embedding the Galaxy S25 Ultra directly into how fans experienced the league.

Two recurring series stood out:

• Galaxy Game Winners: Samsung’s slow-motion feature captured every game-winning shot. Unlike traditional basketball, Unrivaled games always end with a game-winner, making this series reliably repeatable rather than dependent on chance.

• Galaxy Huddle Cam: Using the phone’s Audio Eraser feature, Samsung removed background noise so fans could clearly hear what teams discussed during timeouts, turning a technical capability into genuine access. Bonus points for the strategic use of carousels on Instagram to show the impact of the Audio Eraser.

That alignment was intentional. As Olga Suvorova, CMO of Mobile Experience at Samsung Electronics America, noted at an Adweek panel, the partnership worked because both brands see themselves as “non-conformist, innovators.”

When a product’s features are baked into the rules and rhythms of a league, integration stops feeling like advertising and starts feeling like part of the sport.

7. Arsenal And Persil Tackle Period Stigma

Six in ten girls fear playing sports because of period leaks.

That insight powered Persil’s Every Stain Should Be Part of the Game campaign with Arsenal—and helped set the tone for one of 2025’s biggest sponsored-content trends: the rise of period-positive sports marketing.

Launching in Q1, Persil introduced the idea during the Women’s North London Derby at Emirates Stadium. LED boards, a halftime interview, and even a full program takeover made the message unavoidable for one of the WSL’s biggest crowds: blood, grass, and mud stains all belong in the game.

Off the pitch, the campaign extended into a video series (Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3) featuring Beth Mead, Leah Williamson, Katie McCabe, and Kim Little, offering practical guidance for coaches, parents, and teachers to help break the stigma. The second content wave dropped on International Women’s Day (Part 1 | Part 2), scaling nationally with placements near WSL stadiums and schools ahead of Arsenal vs. Liverpool Women at the Emirates.

Persil didn’t just “take a stand”, it paired cultural relevance with credible voices, elite moments, and a message that felt useful rather than preachy. The brand met its audience where the anxiety actually lives: at school, at practice, and on game day.

The impact followed. Nearly 85 million Instagram views across organic and paid, with strong performance not just on Arsenal’s channels but across Persil and Dirt Is Good’s own feeds.

If you want to go deeper, I broke down the full rise of period-positive sports marketing, here.

6. Wrexham’s Transfer Window Got A Buzz

Wrexham AFC turned player signings into must-watch content—again.

Last summer, they dropped 2024’s best sponsored content series: the HP Contract Printer.

Fans tuned into a livestream to watch an HP Smart Tank printer spit out new player contracts—followed by a headshot for extra clarity. The campaign racked up over 2.4M views on X alone.

Tough act to follow.

But in 2025, Wrexham brewed up something just as bold—this time with stadium naming rights partner STōK Cold Brew Coffee.

As presenting sponsor of the 2025 Transfer Window, STōK was embedded into every signing announcement—not with a logo slap, but with thoughtful product integration. Each post showed the new player seated at a table, contract signed, with a co-branded STōK bottle and glass of cold brew front and center. The step-and-repeat backdrop behind them? Also STōK, thanks to its stadium naming rights.

The result was full share of voice during some of the highest-engagement posts of the season, without distracting from the moment fans actually care about.

The final touch made it sing. Every caption leaned into coffee-themed wordplay, reinforcing the partnership in a way that felt on-brand and on-tone for transfer news.

From the foreground to the background—and even in the captions—STōK’s presence was impossible to miss. Wrexham even branded the paper players signed, a detail we saw firsthand from Ryan Hardie’s POV as he wore Ray-Ban Meta glasses during his first day at the STōK Cae Ras.

Despite the heavy integration, performance surged. On X, impressions jumped 84% year-over-year—from 2.4M with HP to 4.5M with STōK—using fewer than half the posts.

Wrexham continues to prove that the best sponsorships don’t interrupt fan moments—they own them. By aligning STōK with anticipation-driven content fans already crave, the club turned routine transactions into premium brand inventory without sacrificing authenticity.

Others Receiving Votes - Honorable Mentions: LAFC x DoorDash - Live Celebrity Cam Takeover, Liverpool x Google Pixel - Club Rumor Turned Product Launch, New York Liberty x Pinterest- Ellie The Elephant Halloween Costume Tutorial, iShowSpeed x Dick’s Sporting Goods - Speed Goes Pro, Formula 1 x Amelia Dimoldenberg - Passenger Princess.

🔍️ SPONCONSPIRATION
Steal These Ideas

Sephora is for the boys. At least, that’s the message behind their Buffalo Bills partnership, testing whether players can correctly identify beauty products.

The Portland Timbers and Brisbane Broncos have both rolled out strong partnership announcement content recently using simple creative paired with clever copy. For the Timbers, Tillamook Creamery’s logo quite literally sailed from the front of the jersey to the sleeve, making room for Bank of America as the new front-of-shirt sponsor. The Broncos also celebrated the past while making space for the future in their jersey partnership renewal with National Storage.

I also liked this twist on the “admin surprise and delight” format from Tottenham Hotspur and Cadbury, using a Secret Santa theme. I’d build on the concept by rolling it out in a few short “episodes” that starts by showing a player writing the card or packing the merch to place who’s on the other side of the gift. McLaren does this often and provides a good example of what that could look like.

Coming off the success of Underdog Fantasy’s Shot Cup Challenge with Bryson DeChambeau, they’re running the concept back with Good Good Golf’s Tom “Bubbie” Broders (@bubbiegolf). No Bentley on the line this time, but there’s still real incentive: once the shot drops, five winners will take home $1,000 in Underdog credits, plus a site-wide 40% off sale from Good Good.

Another format that keeps popping up: leaning into the sheer size of basketball players’ hands. In Reserve the Win, presented by La Crema Wines, Golden State Valkyries players were challenged to grab as many wine glasses as possible with one hand. Meanwhile, the Cleveland Cavaliers challenged players to grab as many Jolly Ranchers as possible (unsponsored). It’s a fun, repeatable format that fits the sport and feels tailor-made for product placement.

🚨 ICYMI
What To Watch For

Link In Shorts: YouTube is rolling out the ability for creators to add direct links to a brand’s website on sponsored Shorts. This is worth testing as soon as you have access, then measuring to see if it effectively drives traffic. I’d also experiment with boosting the post to a targeted audience to see if paid support adds incremental lift.

Podium Worthy Engagement: Dr. Georgie Carroll released this year’s edition of the Formula 1 Fan Engagement Awards, spotlighting standout activations across drivers, teams, and sponsors.

Partnership Power Rankings: Speaking of year-end roundups, Gary Linke published the sixth edition of his Top 10 Partnership Deals of 2025 [via Unofficial Partner].

Glam In The Game: Elizabeth Walsh shared three smart ways beauty brands can win in sports [via The Drum].

Watch Of The Week: If you haven’t seen it yet, Maddy Brown’s WNBA Food Conspiracies series via @wnbadata is worth your time. Maddy digs into the league’s most suspicious food promos using data—so far covering the Las Vegas Aces and Slice Vegas, the New York Liberty and Shake Shack, as well as the Indiana Fever and Culver’s.