It may be the world’s most emotional sport, but cheap? A panel of marketers, operators and media rights holders argue that the beautiful game is also one of the most commercially effective, revealing why it still delivers unbeatable value for brands.
The Drum's Jenni Baker guest moderates a panel on Marketing Goals at Sportradar Connect: Soccer Edition
When a CMO sits on stage and declares soccer sponsorship as “cheap” and “really good value for money,” you can’t help but sit up and pay attention. That’s what happened at Sportradar Connect: Soccer Edition at the London Stadium, home to West Ham United, in a panel moderated by The Drum’s senior editor Jenni Baker.
That line – delivered in such a matter-of-fact way by Utilita Energy’s chief marketing officer, Jem Maidment – set the tone for a conversation about emotion, data and ROI that repeatedly returned to one theme: football remains marketing’s most emotionally charged, commercially efficient and culturally resonant platform.
“It’s cheap,” said Maidment. “When you look at the sheer scale, the reach and the emotion it brings – compared with a billboard on the M4 – it stacks up every time.”
For Maidment, that emotional charge is football’s magic ingredient. “In the 80s and 90s, campaigns were dripping with emotion – they made you laugh, cry or get angry. We don’t really have that now. Football gives you that back. It’s the heartbeat of our culture.”
That cultural weight was echoed by Peer Naubert, CEO of Bundesliga International, who framed football’s appeal in unambiguous terms. “Pretty much 50% of the global population are football fans,” he said. “In almost every market, it’s part of the culture.”
For Naubert, football’s flexibility is just as important as its scale. “You can use football globally to build brand awareness, or locally to activate communities. It always depends on the product, the service and your targets – but you can definitely create a lot of value.”
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Emotion may draw fans in, but marketers still face the CFO question: does it work? Nikolaus Beier, senior vice-president of marketing services at Sportradar, was clear that the industry is maturing fast: “Sponsorships are about much more than a logo on a shirt. You’ve got to activate them properly and connect spend to outcomes” – whether that’s new users, growth or engagement.
The shift, he said, is from “reach to relevance.” And data is what’s making that possible, pointing to Sportradar’s new Fan ID product, which uses privacy-safe clean rooms to help rights holders and sponsors match first-party data and personalize activation.
“That’s going to be the future of marketing activation – finding the right fan, with the right message, at the right time,” he said.
From the betting operator side, Jamie Fox, always-on marketing (AOM) content & operations lead at online gambling company FDJ, laid out the stakes clearly. “Football is really the core part of our sportsbook platform – 60% of our turnover,” he said.
He described how FDJ is using modeling and automation to improve contextual timing. “We’re building models that help us send the right message before, during and after a game – based on what’s actually happening” with a goal to eventually move towards fully contextual automation, where the system reacts in real time to the match.
But Fox stressed that immediacy must be balanced with regulation and responsibility: “Live is super important, but compliance and localization are key. Some markets ban in-play advertising altogether.”
Underscoring the balance of data and emotion, Maidment offered one of the panel’s most honest reflections, recalling a failed early campaign with Glasgow Rangers: “It was a brilliant piece… My God, we got nothing out of it… And the feedback was, ‘We don’t know who the hell you are.’”
The lesson? “Don’t run before you can walk… It’s all about building that trust” before activating with data – a reminder that insight only works when a brand has earned its place in the conversation.
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Looking ahead, the panel agreed that AI and automation will shape the next era of soccer marketing. Maidment called the possibilities “huge,” Fox said “we’re only scratching the surface” and Beier emphasized an industry moving from reactive to predictive models, spotlighting hyper-personalization as one of the key trends.
But Maidment offered a grounding note: “The fan has to stay at the center… Whatever happens, the last thing you want to do is mess around with the core product on the pitch. It’s the greatest game on Earth because it’s the simplest.”
That sentiment neatly bridged the conversation’s core themes: passion, purpose, data, technology and the enduring emotional power of football – giving marketers a whole new set of Ps to think about:
• Passion – the emotion brands can’t manufacture alone
• Purpose – authenticity and values alignment
• Proof – data connecting sponsorship to outcomes
• Precision – technology delivering relevance in real-time
• Progress – the innovation shaping what’s next.
Together, they reveal why football remains such a compelling arena for marketers: a space where emotion meets evidence, culture meets community and technology is rewiring how brands show up before, during and after the match.
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