The question you should ask before saying “I do” to your next sponsorship partnership

The question you should ask before saying “I do” to your next sponsorship partnership:

Can we afford to activate it?

Brands spend hundreds of thousands, sometimes millions, acquiring sponsorship rights.

They negotiate the assets.

They negotiate the term.

They negotiate the fee.

Then the deal gets signed and everyone celebrates.

But how much money is left to actually do something with it?

A long-standing industry benchmark has been roughly $1 in activation for every $1 spent on rights. The right ratio varies by partnership and objective, but the principle matters:

The rights fee is only part of the investment.

And there’s another problem.

Teams and properties are built to deliver what they promised you. They service the partnership, fulfill the assets and represent your brand inside their organization.

They’re not necessarily built to wake up every morning thinking about how your brand can maximize every dollar of that investment.

There’s a missing layer between buying a sponsorship and maximizing a sponsorship.

For those of you working in sponsorship: how much should a brand budget for activation compared to what it spends on the rights?