WhatsApp Broke Brand Rules

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

The future of creator partnerships won’t only stay on your phone.

The smartest ones will live in content and become fan experiences.

Major League Pickleball’s new partnership with Dude Perfect is a good example.

This summer, MLP is bringing Dude Perfect’s Impossible Wall to events across the league.

For anyone unfamiliar, The Impossible Wall is one of the best examples of creator-led sports IP built for the mobile era:

It’s a gamified trick-shot format designed for short-form content, repeat viewing, and social sharing, featuring progressively harder targets—split into Easy, Hard, and Impossible modes—across sports like football, baseball, golf, cricket, and other creative challenges.

According to their shortlisted Hashtag Sports Award nomination, it generated 1.13B+ views and $208M in estimated media value in a single year, while turning misses, tension, and payoff into a repeatable content flywheel.

And now, the pickleball version of The Impossible Wall (36.3M+ views across YouTube Shorts and Instagram), is moving from feeds to fan experience.

That’s what makes this partnership interesting. Fans will get to try it themselves at live events.

For MLP, this is a smart way to borrow equity from one of the safest, most family-friendly creator brands in sports while introducing a younger audience to pickleball through something they already recognize and want to participate in.

For Dude Perfect, this unlocks an entirely new revenue stream.

The Impossible Wall already drives platform revenue through views and sponsorship integrations (Samsung’s basketball edition and Playstation’s Champions League edition come to mind). The NHL version alone generated 280M+ YouTube Shorts views.

Now they’re proving the format can extend beyond content into physical activations.

And the earned media upside is obvious.

Fans are going to film themselves attempting the challenge (MLP is already sharing UGC to their Instagram Stories). If they hit an “Impossible” shot? That becomes social content tied back to the event.

I kept thinking about Brian Gainor’s recent post on the “Barbell Effect” in sports, Gary Vaynerchuk’s idea that the organizations winning tomorrow will be both highly digital and highly analog.

This feels like exactly that.

Teams, leagues, and brands need to start thinking differently about creator partnerships.

What formats, shows, or content franchises have creators already popularized that fans would actually want to experience in person? How can partnerships bring those experiences to life in ways that expand beyond content?

The next great creator partnerships won’t start and end with a post. Rather, they’ll use it as the on-ramp.

In Today’s Edition:

• Champion Partner Playbook 🏆️

• Pick The 26 🗣️

• Signed And Shared 🍺

🏊️ DEEP DIVE
Champions Don’t Wing It

Last week, Arsenal finally did it.

After 22 years of waiting, the club lifted its first Premier League title since the 2003–04 season, the legendary Invincibles era.

For fans, it was history.

For sponsors, it was a test.

Because while every brand wants to be associated with winning, very few are actually prepared for the exact moment it happens.

What stood out to me about Arsenal’s championship celebration was how the club’s partners showed up.

And among the bunch, WhatsApp was the star.

WhatsApp Broke Brand Rules

Minutes after Arsenal clinched the title, WhatsApp made a move you almost never see from a global platform.

The brand swapped its iconic bright green logo on social media for Arsenal red.

On paper, that sounds small.

In reality, it’s a huge signal.

WhatsApp is one of the most recognizable brands in the world. Companies at that scale don’t alter iconic brand assets lightly, especially not for a sponsorship.

You save moves like that for championship moments.

The result?

Earned media.

Major outlets like ESPN UK and SportBible amplified the logo change, helping extend the activation far beyond Arsenal fans.

Even after WhatsApp reverted back to green, the Arsenal-red logo remained as the cover image for the brand’s Arsenal Instagram Highlight, a subtle signal that this wasn’t a throwaway social moment.

But the logo switch was only the start.

Then Extended The Moment

The same day Arsenal clinched the title, WhatsApp launched a 25/26 Champions sticker pack fans could download and use inside the platform.

Smart move.

The celebration went beyond social media and became product behavior.

Then came the emotional layer.

One day later, WhatsApp released a hero video featuring Arsenal winger Bukayo Saka built around the theme: “It took my village.”

The creative focused on the people behind the process: loved ones, supporters, and the community that helped shape a champion.

My favorite touch came at the end.

Saka’s No. 7 transformed into WhatsApp’s signature message checkmarks, a subtle but clever brand integration.

But WhatsApp didn’t stop there.

The brand extended the campaign into the real world with an anamorphic LED ad in London’s Piccadilly Circus featuring the Saka creative.

Even better, Saka was on hand to capture the moment himself, sharing the activation across his social channels and giving the campaign another layer of distribution.

While the Saka campaign played out, the brand also shifted the spotlight from the players to the fans.

WhatsApp published a piece of content breaking down how the Arsenal group chat works, bringing Gooners directly into the celebration.

That progression mattered.

Instead of dropping one congratulatory post and moving on, WhatsApp turned Arsenal’s title into a multi-day content platform.

That’s what preparation looks like.

No rightsholder is guaranteed to win. But brands should absolutely be prepared for what happens if they do.

The teams and sponsors that move fastest in championship moments often win disproportionately on engagement because they’re publishing while excitement is peaking.

And WhatsApp wasn’t the only Arsenal partner ready to capitalize.

Arsenal Partners Came Prepared

Three Arsenal partners published custom championship creative that was distributed to Arsenal’s audience through Instagram’s collaboration tool.

More importantly, the work actually felt native to Arsenal’s feed.

adidas Football leaned into manager Mikel Arteta’s long-term vision with the line: “Process This”, a clever nod to the years spent trusting the process after his arrival in 2019.

Guinness may have had my favorite creative of the bunch.

The caption: “Good Things Come to Those Who Wait.”

The video paired a classic Guinness pint with a Gunners glass using matching typography. A simple visual connection that felt unmistakably on-brand for both sides.

Emirates came with championship-ready graphic featuring players beneath an Emirates plane alongside the line: “Champions Fly Higher.”

The lesson here is creativity and curation.

Arsenal clearly wasn’t accepting random sponsor posts into the feed.

The content matched the tone, quality, and visual language of the club’s channels.

My guess: much of this was likely approved in advance so Arsenal could accept collaborations instantly and maximize partner reach while the moment was hottest.

That level of preparation is key to success.

But my favorite part of the strategy went even deeper.

Everyone Celebrated Together

Like most championship wins, Arsenal’s main hero asset remained sponsor-free.

And that was the right call.

The moment belonged to the club and the fans.

But Arsenal still found a smart way to bring partners into the celebration.

The club created custom co-branded versions of the same championship asset, replacing the standard Arsenal crest with lockups featuring each partner logo.

You can check them all out, here (h/t Rich Johnson),

In other words, partners didn’t have to scramble to build something from scratch.

Arsenal handed them a ready-to-post championship creative system.

That shouldn’t be overlooked.

In title moments, speed wins.

The faster a brand can publish, the more likely it is to ride the emotional wave while fan attention is at its highest.

The numbers show just how coordinated the effort was:

• 12 Arsenal partners posted the co-branded hero graphic

• 2 partners (Athletic Brewing and Betway) used slight variations of the asset

• 5 partners rolled out additional custom creative later in the week, including Google Pixel, MG Motors, Chivas Regal, Hotels.com, and Persil

And Arsenal didn’t leave all the work to sponsors.

The club also produced celebratory content in partnership with six different brands, publishing assets natively across its own channels.

• eFootball: Post 1

• Hotels.com: Post 1

• Google Pixel: Post 1 | Post 2

• Meta: Post 1 | Post 2 | Post 3

• Emirates: Post 1

• Persil: Post 1

That created something every sponsorship team should be chasing: A surround-sound championship moment. A few days later, when Arsenal officially lifted the Premier League trophy, three partners were once again integrated into the festivities:

• Meta: Post 1 | Post 2 | Post 3 | Post 4

• Google Pixel: Post 1 | Post 2 | Post 3

• adidas UK: Post 1

Everywhere fans looked, Arsenal and its partners were celebrating together.

Same moment. Shared story. Multiple touchpoints.

The Takeaway

Championship moments are unpredictable.

Preparation shouldn’t be.

The best sponsorship activations don’t happen because a team suddenly wins and everyone starts brainstorming in Slack.

They happen because brands, teams, and partnership teams plan for the possibility months in advance.

• Creative gets pre-approved.

• Assets are templated.

• Messaging is ready.

• Roles are clear.

Arsenal’s title celebration is a reminder that the strongest partnerships don’t just show up when the trophy is lifted. They’re prepared for the exact second it happens.

And when everyone is ready, the result is bigger than a single post.

It becomes the ultimate showcase of what partnership is supposed to look like.

🔍️ SPONCONSPIRATION
Steal These Ideas

The Football Association teamed up with Zac Djellab to promote its app-exclusive squad selector sweepstakes with a video featuring 20 England fans picking their 26-man World Cup roster. A natural fit for the creator’s YouTube channel, where football debates are core to the content.

John Lewis, the upmarket retail chain, found a perfect match with its new partnership featuring Boston United’s Lenell John-Lewis. After years of fans serenading him with chants of “his name is a shop!”, he’s now a key face of the brand’s Summer of Sport campaign.

FC Barcelona and Spotify launched Pre-Game Mixtape, an original video and audio series pairing Barça players with their favorite musicians. Full episodes and curated playlists from each duo are available on Spotify.

After winning another Bundesliga title, every FC Bayern player signed a Paulaner cockatoo glass from the club’s Bierdusche tradition, giving fans a chance to win one by making their case in the comments. Love this as an engagement extension. It reminds me of how Inter Miami has players sign its Icon of the Match trophy for an end-of-season giveaway in partnership with Royal Caribbean.

Most teams with win-triggered promotions post a generic “we win, you win” graphic. The San Antonio Spurs took a different approach, using video to spotlight fan celebration while letting fans know they could score Taco Palenque the next day.

🚨 ICYMI
Sports Industry Insights

Sponsorship Scorecard: Ricardo Fort published an interactive model for scoring sponsorships across 17 different business objectives.

Live On The Links: On June 23, the PGA Tour will host the Travelers Championship 15 ½ Challenge live across YouTube, X, and FAST channels. Julian Edelman, Roger Steele, Tisha Alyn, and Josh Kelley will compete in a closest-to-the-pin contest, with the winning team donating to a charity of its choice.

Racin’ With The Boys: Bussin’ With The Boys is bringing its football energy to the racetrack, teaming up with NASCAR for a new weekly YouTube show focused on the sport. It premieres today for a 14-episode run.

YouTube Lessons Learned: Justin Leusner shared 15 YouTube insights from his “30 NBA Games in 30 Days” challenge, that generated 1M+ views and raised $100K for Make-A-Wish America.

Storytelling That Sticks: Matthew Stasoff explains why marketers should build chronology-proof campaigns, like Malbon Home’s Masters takeover, that allow fans to jump into the content ecosystem at any point and still feel pulled deeper into the story [via Link In Bio].