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A football icon depicting sports marketing

Sports Marketing

Alyssa Meyers

marketingbrew.com

Fall is right around the corner, which means apple picking, pumpkin spice, and spending every Saturday watching college football.

But that’s not the only college sport with a fandom. Women’s volleyball, for instance, has been 

 ever since the University of Nebraska Cornhuskers filled a stadium with more than 92,000 fans in 2023, setting an 

. And with the World Cup coming to North America in less than a year, US soccer fandom is on the rise, which could translate to the college level.

With more athletes across sports leveraging social media and taking control of their brands through NIL deals, sports marketers seemingly have more sponsorship choices than ever. To help get them started this fall sports season, NIL platform Out2Win 

 50 college athletes from football, volleyball, soccer, and field hockey based on their marketability.

 Football fans have no doubt heard the name Arch Manning, quarterback for the Texas Longhorns and nephew of Peyton and Eli Manning. The heir to the Manning dynasty landed in Out2Win’s top three most marketable college football athletes, with a score of 95 out of 100. Manning has more than 480,000 Instagram followers and an engagement rate of about 16%, according to Out2Win, though his stats on TikTok, where he’s much less active, are lower.

Out2Win scores athletes based on a number of off-field factors, including social performance metrics like followers and engagement rates, “growth trends” that indicate potential up-and-comers, and previous sponsorship performance.

No. 1 on the college football list was Jeremiah Smith, a wide receiver for the Ohio State Buckeyes who was the top recruit of the 2024 class. Off the field, Smith, who scored 98 on Out2Win’s scale, has brand partnership experience, including 

 in Travis Kelce’s recent campaign with American Eagle, and he is 

 earning between $4 million and $5 million in NIL deals this season. He has close to 600,000 Instagram followers and an engagement rate of 28%, per Out2Win. On TikTok, he has more than 61,000 followers and an engagement rate of about 5%.

Ryan Williams, a wide receiver for the Alabama Crimson Tide, scored a 96, landing him in the No. 2 spot on Out2Win’s list. Williams is 

 set to make more than $1.8 million this season from NIL deals, according to college sports platform On3, with more than 750,000 Instagram followers and about 485,000 TikTok followers. His Instagram engagement rate sits at about 4%, and it’s about 2% on TikTok.

 Some of the top volleyball players boast social stats in line with or better than the top football marketing prospects, and the top 8 are all Cornhuskers. Harper Murray, who has an 

 with Adidas, is the most marketable college volleyball player, per Out2Win, with a score of 94. She has close to 550,000 TikTok followers and an engagement rate of about 12%, and more than 235,000 followers on Instagram, where her engagement rate is about 13%.

Teammates Andi Jackson, Laney Choboy, and Maisie Boesiger each scored a 92 rating, and all have over 100,000 Instagram followers, with even larger followings on TikTok. They all had at least 21% engagement on Instagram, with Choboy topping 26%, Out2Win found. Taylor Landfair, No. 6 on the list, sees more than 37% engagement on Instagram, and Ryan Hunter, who ranked No. 8, is close to an engagement rate of 40% on that platform.

 While Out2Win’s soccer list includes both men and women athletes, the top 50 are mostly women, some with more than 1 million TikTok followers. Mississippi State’s Ava Nucci is Out2Win’s most marketable soccer player, with a score of 94, 1.8 million TikTok followers, and about 600,000 Instagram followers. Her TikTok engagement rate is about 10%, and it’s about 7% on Instagram. Last year, when she was 18 years old, Nucci joined the 

Kiana Paloma Dufour of the University of Southern Mississippi followed Nucci on the list with a score of 93. Third on the list is Matty Moore of the Stetson University men’s team, who scored a 92. He has 1.4 million TikTok followers and an engagement rate of about 10%. No. 5 on the list, Mariah Nguyen of the University of Minnesota, also boasts more than 1 million TikTok followers.

 In field hockey, the scores and follower counts tend to be lower, but a handful of players have high engagement rates, according to the report, indicating opportunities for brands outside of the biggest sports. The University of Maryland’s Fleur Knopert averages about 44% engagement on Instagram posts with 1,300 followers, and Northwestern’s Maddie Zimmer averages about 33% with 6,700 followers.

The most marketable college athletes in fall sports: report

While college football players may be natural choices for NIL deals, a few college soccer stars are topping 1 million TikTok followers, and some volleyball and field hockey players are scoring high engagement, according to NIL platform Out2Win.

Athletes are prone to injury, and women’s soccer players are 

. So it only makes sense that, in addition to having official hydration and retail sponsors, the NWSL has an official pain reliever, too.

This spring, Tylenol inked a multi-year partnership with the league, followed by a deal with its New York and New Jersey team, Gotham FC, that was announced this summer. Both sponsorships are part of a relatively new effort from Tylenol to get more involved in the sports space, and the push so far has hinged almost entirely on the women’s game.

“As we were trying to figure out what we wanted to do to connect with our consumers and support women’s sports, it just was really clear for us [that] sports and pain relief go very well together,” Jen Gow, US head of pain at Tylenol’s parent company, Kenvue, told Marketing Brew. “Greatness hurts, and we want to support great athletes.”

While the brand is still in the midst of its first season with the NWSL, Gow said the league is already exposing Tylenol to new audiences, indicating early success and making the brand’s marketers consider the potential for a long-term investment in women’s soccer.

Gow said the Tylenol team first got interested in sports sponsorships around the time of the Olympics, even though the brand has not yet been involved in any partnerships at the Olympic level.

“We celebrate gold, and we also celebrate bronze and silver, but there’s such a huge opportunity to celebrate just the effort and the grind that athletes go through throughout their careers,” she said. “We started looking at, ‘How can we support athletes who have been sidelined?’”

To start testing the waters, Tylenol partnered with the Women’s Sports Foundation in 2023, setting up a grant to help injured athletes with burdens like medical bills while they recover. When it came time to engage with sports more deeply, the 

 around women’s soccer and the roster of national and international superstars in the game made the NWSL seem like a “super obvious choice,” Gow said. The multi-year partnership was officially announced in May, but Tylenol really kicked off the partnership in earnest around the time of the league’s Rivalry Weekend last month.

The week prior to Rivalry Weekend, Tylenol debuted as the official pain reliever of Gotham FC, and Gow said the team-level partnership allowed the brand to engage with NWSL fans in person for the first time.

“We were able to truly be there, versus it just being a media activation the consumers see,” she said. “Fans see so many media activations; we wanted to make sure that we took it one step further.”

During Gotham’s Rivalry Weekend game against the 

, Tylenol passed out product samples and branded merch like foam fingers, and at the team’s pregame Fan Fest, the brand set up a ball pit that attendees could jump into as they headed a soccer ball into a net.

The broader partnership includes in-venue branding and content assets, including the presenting sponsorship of Gotham’s starting 11 social 

 for each match. Tylenol is also set to serve as the presenting partner of one of Gotham’s theme night matches and a “flagship community program” starting next season, according to the brand.

For Gotham, that kind of community involvement is integral to a sponsorship, Laura Petro, the team’s VP of fan and brand experience, told us. Petro and her team also look for brands that are interested in “elevating our players,” she said. Tylenol hasn’t announced any player deals so far.

In a sign both of healthy brand interest in women’s soccer and Gotham’s growing sponsorship roster, Petro said her team is in a position to turn down potential partners if their interests don’t necessarily align with that of the team’s.

“There’s been a real narrative shift and a material change, even in the last few years, about how brands are really looking at these sponsorships, ultimately, in the same way they’re looking at sponsorships of men’s sports,” Petro said. “Brands are seeing the impact. They wouldn’t be investing the money that they’re investing if they weren’t getting that ROI.”

As is the case with many major sports sponsorships, Gow said she’s primarily looking for broad reach and engagement, as well as increasing equity among women’s soccer fans. Tylenol has already done some media buys in men’s sports, according to Gow, but she’s getting the necessary reach she’s looking for solely through the women’s soccer sponsorships, especially among younger consumers who may not have been previously exposed to the brand’s marketing, she said.

“It’s unduplicated reach,” she said. “We could have an ad during an NFL playoff game, [but] they’re very different consumers, and it’s awesome to be able to support both, but the NWSL provides a really rich reach. It’s a meaningful reach to a new consumer, which is exactly what we’re looking for.”

Even with the men’s World Cup in North America fast approaching, Gow said Tylenol is staying focused on the women’s game for the foreseeable future.

“I can’t say for certain that it’s a forever thing and we’re going to end up sponsoring every single team forever, but based on the success that we have, I can’t see us wanting to step back,” she said.

Trainers carrying Tylenol branded bags at a 2025 NWSL game

Why Tylenol is heading into women’s soccer

The brand has two pro sports sponsorships as of this year—one with the NWSL team Gotham FC, and the other with the league itself.

Abercrombie & Fitch is one of the newest official partners of the NFL. There’s a sentence that, in 2010, you probably never thought you’d read.

 in the past 15 years, including a push into NFL merch that started in 2022 and has now led to Abercrombie being named as an official fashion partner of the league ahead of the start of the current season. According to CMO Carey Collins Krug, Abercrombie’s relationship with the NFL has progressed fairly naturally from the start, with fans, players, and the significant others of NFL players all showing interest in the brand over the years.

As an official partner, Collins Krug said she plans to leverage the sponsorship to promote the overarching brand and its products beyond the team merch to the league’s broad audience, focusing especially on meeting the needs of women football fans.

“It’s a little bit less about slapping a logo on a T-shirt, and it’s more about, ‘How do you get the full look?’” Collins Krug told Marketing Brew. “Particularly from a female perspective, so much of what is out there is with sparkles and pink, but we are actually treating females like the fans that they are. They want gear that is designed specifically for them.”

Abercrombie didn’t run straight into the end zone with its NFL merch. Three years ago, the company started selling products for just a few teams through a merchandising agreement with the league, according to Collins Krug, and after “incredible reception” from athletes and fans alike, Abercrombie eventually increased its NFL products to encompass all 32 teams while also leaning further into football in its marketing.

By 2024, Abercrombie was full-on rushing. The brand 

 with Christen Harper Goff, an actress and model who’s married to Detroit Lions quarterback Jared Goff, for a pregame styling event that was featured in the Netflix docuseries 

. On the heels of that activation, the league invited Abercrombie to host a pop-up shop at the 2025 Super Bowl, which was a resounding success, Collins Krug said.

“It was the No. 1 store for the day for us in the world,” she said.

After that, the NFL asked Abercrombie to be its first official fashion partner, and Collins Krug and her team said “of course,” she told us. For the retailer, the partnership with the league represents a new way to reach Gen Z and millennials.

“The NFL very much owns that weekend in terms of culture and sports,” Collins Krug said.

She also hopes the sponsorship will boost Abercrombie’s NFL merch business, as well as serve “as a halo for the entire brand.”. For the league, the partnership falls in line with a 

 to connect with that same demographic Abercrombie is aiming to reach, and especially women.

Part of Abercrombie’s work with the NFL is focused on partnering with athletes in the league for initiatives like the Abercrombie Style Concierge, a program that gives certain players access to the brand’s in-house stylists. San Francisco 49ers linebacker Fred Warner, New England Patriots quarterback Drake Maye, Philadelphia Eagles cornerback Cooper DeJean, and Dallas Cowboys tight end Jake Ferguson are among the athletes already participating in the program.

Those athletes, along with several other players known for their fashion choices, were featured in a national campaign tied to the start of the sponsorship, which the company described as the “largest advertising investment the brand has made in the sports space.”

Collins Krug said her team hardly had to tackle athletes to get them to participate. “Since our launch, we have had multiple inbound requests for other players to be a part of this,” she said of the Style Concierge, adding that there have also been requests for significant others to get involved.

While Abercrombie’s business skews toward women, according to Collins Krug, the campaign is meant to appeal to “certainly the athletes and the players and their sphere of wives and girlfriends, but then also fans in general,” she said.

As the season progresses, “there are a number of beats that we’re very excited about,” Collins Krug said, including the brand’s partnership with the Cowboys, which she plans to tie in more significantly with the Style Concierge moving forward. And while the specifics are still in the works, she said Abercrombie will definitely have a presence at the Super Bowl again in 2026.

“We want to continue to build on this program and really the deep relationship that we have with the NFL,” Collins Krug said. “This is truly only the beginning.”

Christian McCaffrey, Tee Higgins, Amon-Ra St. Brown, and CeeDee Lamb star in Abercrombie's new NFL campaign. Credit: Abercrombie & Fitch Management Co.

How Abercrombie became the official fashion partner of the NFL 

The deal represents the brand’s first official sponsorship at the league level, and it’s “only the beginning” for the retailer’s ambitions in football, an exec said. 

 behind the players’ boxes at the US Open. Sitting courtside next to A-list celebrities at NBA games. Strolling the paddocks of Formula 1.

Some sports fans are willing to pay steep prices for experiences like these—provided sports orgs know how to speak their language, according to an August 

The consultancy surveyed 1,000 sports fans from the US who earn more than $200,000 annually on their own or who have household incomes of more than $300,000 and found it takes more than good stadium food to please the high-earning crowd.

 About one-third (34%) of high-income sports fans attend live sports events at least monthly, and they “demonstrate a strong willingness to invest in premium experiences,” PwC found.

The majority (60%) of affluent fans said they’d be willing to spend more than $250 for a special event like a playoff game.

1 in 5 high-income fans, or 20%, said they’d spend more than $1,000.

For events that offer “premium hospitality” like player meet and greets, 42% of high-income fans said they’d spend more than $250 to gain access, per the report, while 1 in 4 said they’d spend more than $500.

Young, affluent fans are particularly drawn to exclusive experiences, said Mike Keenan, head of PwC’s sports practice, who previously worked for the Cleveland Browns and for the NFL at the league level.

“They want to be able to do something that others are not able to do,” Keenan told Marketing Brew. “Think about it in terms of the social media world, just kind of documenting your life, like…‘I’m down on the field for a game,’ or ‘I’m meeting a player.’ It’s digital-first, unique content that they’re looking at, and they’re more likely to share all those experiences on social media.”

 Older affluent fans, aka those 45 and up, “prioritize comfort, reliability, and business networking” at games over extra likes on their next post, Keenan said, and the 25–44 demographic also sees the business case for premium sports experiences, according to the report.

Almost all (90%) of that age group said that “hospitality preferences are important when attending events with clients or business partners.”

Closer to three-quarters (70%) of the 55-and-up group said the same.

Those stats were somewhat surprising to Keenan at first, but considering younger generations’ desire to network or find something of a “social scene” at work, he said, the findings ultimately made sense to him. Almost one-third (31%) of men ages 25–34 and 23% of men ages 35–44 said networking and entertaining clients is a “key factor” in their decision to go to games, according to PwC.

Many high-income fans who are shelling out for tickets don’t stop there; they also want the merch to go along with the experience, and more than half of them purchase it at least a few times annually, PwC found. Hats are most popular among this group, followed by jerseys and other apparel.

Again, “exclusivity is a key motivator” for these purchases, according to the report, with 21% of high-earning fans ages 25–34 saying it’s “the most important factor” behind their decision. That lines up with a growing trend of limited-edition merch drops and collabs in the sports space, per PwC. Demand is especially growing for women’s sports merch, which has traditionally been 

 Though affluent fans are willing to spend on tickets, they’re also watching sports from home. Almost two-thirds (61%) of the high-income demo spend at least three hours a week watching sports on TV, with the NFL and college football topping the viewing list, according to the report.

But viewership drops off among younger men. The lion’s share (90%) of men ages 55 and up will watch at least half of a game, the survey found, a number that drops to 63% among men ages 18–24. And 70% of high-earning fans ages 25-34 reported checking social media while they watch.

Teams and leagues seem well aware of this behavior across fan demos, with many building out robust 

 in addition to their broadcast, streaming, and in-person experiences.

“Teams are going anywhere their fans are,” Keenan said, later adding that from social to venues, sports orgs “have to tailor offerings to make sure that there’s a baseline for all fans, but then give the ability for those that want to to pay to amplify their experience.”

Here’s what high-income sports fans look for on game days

PwC surveyed affluent sports fans about their sports habits, like spending on tickets and merch and scrolling social while streaming games. 

Invest in the best: what high-income sports fans look for on game days

When the US women’s national soccer team got its start in 1985, the players didn’t even have their own jerseys, as Michelle Akers, a member of the team and a FIFA Women’s Player of the Century, remembers it.

“We just came in with these men’s jerseys that we had to sew patches on, [that] didn’t have our names on [them],” she told Marketing Brew. “Our sweats were pink and white and blue.”

Ever since then, Akers said, it’s been a dream of hers to see the team in jerseys of their own. Now, the 17 players who made up the ’85 team have founded an LLC and partnered with sports memorabilia company The Realest to correct that, creating and selling the merch that didn’t exist when they first represented the US on the international pitch.

With demand for women’s sports merch growing and 

 to keep up, the ’85ers jerseys sold out in less than two weeks, according to The Realest Founder and CEO Scott Keeney, and he, Akers, and the rest of the team are now planning to do even more to help fill the market.

Keeney told Marketing Brew that he first met the team through Jaymee Messler, a sports exec who co-founded the Players’ Tribune as well as Storied Sports, the content studio that helped set up The 85ers LLC. Keeney said he “instantly clicked” with Akers, who told him the story of her team’s jerseys—or lack thereof. Keeney had the jerseys ready to go in a week, Akers said.

In addition to the jerseys, the merch collection also includes T-shirts, hats, and trading cards. The collection went up for sale online on Aug. 18, the same day the ’85ers were honored at a Seattle Reign NWSL game, and exactly 40 years after the first-ever USWNT game. The only other time the squad received recognition like that was at a Kansas City Current game two years before, Akers said, so the team was “very emotional.”

On game day, though, the team didn’t even have any merch to sell or give out in person; the prior weekend, they brought some to a panel event at Rough & Tumble, a women’s sports bar in Seattle, and it was all spoken for within five minutes, according to Akers.

“We were like, ‘Oh my gosh, we should have brought more,’” she said. “The demand, just in those few minutes, was incredible.”

Online, the jerseys and one of the T-shirt designs sold out in less than 10 days, according to Keeney. The online reactions, like DMs, comments, and press coverage, have also been encouraging, he added. While Keeney said he’s been interested in the women’s sports memorabilia market since he started The Realest, the reception to the ’85ers collection has been further proof of concept.

“The sales numbers speak for themselves,” he said, later adding that the first drop was something of a test to gauge the level of interest in the products. “We knew there would be, but it’s always great getting validation, because it enables us to just do more.”

Keeney is looking into making more of the jerseys and is planning to do more work with the ’85ers, he said. The team, which has already worked with Adidas on a podcast, intends to partner with more pioneering women athletes for similar lines, according to Akers.

The demand for the ’85ers collection not only speaks to the state of the women’s sports merch market, but also a more broad cultural embrace of all things 

 that’s been at play for the past few years. The power of nostalgia is especially strong in sports, Akers said, perhaps because fans like feeling connected to athletes—even those who aren’t competing anymore.

There’s also a certain level of exclusivity that comes with wearing a nostalgic jersey, especially one from a team that’s not as well known as it should be, Keeney said. “It’s kind of like you’re in a club,” if you own the ’85ers merch, he said.

Beyond sales, Kenney said the ’85ers merch has already led to some additional interest from athletes and brands in similar initiatives of their own.

“Sometimes other people need to see somebody else do it and have that success to then be like, ‘Oh, wow, we should do something with them, too,’” he said. “So hopefully we’re breaking more floodgates open.”

A photo composite of 85ers team merch: a black baseball cap, a jersey and a signed card. Credit: Illustration: Brittany Holloway-Brown, Photos: The Realest

The first USWNT didn’t have original kits. 40 years later, they changed that

The 17 members of the first US women’s national soccer team partnered with a sports memorabilia brand to create jerseys that sold out in days.

The NFL is back, and so are its many, many sponsors.

 the official bar and grill of the league ahead of the 2024 season, is looking to start football season strong. To do it, the restaurant chain is relying on key lessons—and coaches—from its rookie year and aiming to use the power of NFL fandom to drive restaurant traffic, according to John Peyton, Applebee’s president and CEO of its parent company, Dine Brands.

“Everyone loves the NFL,” Peyton told Marketing Brew. “At least in this country, it’s almost universally known and followed, so it’s a common language and a common bond. Despite where you live or how you live, everyone talks about the NFL. That’s been a great community-builder for us, both with our guests and our team members.”

We spoke with Peyton about what’s in store for the brand’s latest football campaign and how he and his marketing team plan to advance the work they did last season.

For its first campaign as an official NFL sponsor last year, Applebee’s ran a 

 of spots starring San Francisco 49ers quarterback Brock Purdy, Philadelphia Eagles running back Saquon Barkley, and Detroit Lions head coach Dan Campbell.

This year, the player roster looks a little different. In an effort to appeal to an even wider range of NFL fans, Peyton’s team picked a rookie, Las Vegas Raiders running back Ashton Jeanty, as well as a veteran, Houston Texans quarterback C.J. Stroud. The hope, Peyton said, is that Stroud is familiar even to casual fans, while Jeanty is well-known for a rookie among more serious fans who might also follow college football and the NFL draft.

While the players in this year’s campaign changed, the coach is staying the same. Campbell is back after starring in last year’s campaign, which was “really well received,” partially thanks to Campbell’s humor, Peyton said.

“We just love the way he leans into it, how much he truly enjoys himself, and that it just comes across in the spot,” Peyton said. “That energy, and that creativity, and his enthusiasm is what [made it] a no-brainer to roll him into Year 2.”

This fall, Applebee’s Ultimate Trio appetizer deal and 2 for $25 menu are front and center in the creative, which marks a bit of a shift from last season, when the campaign was more focused on conveying the “fun vibe at Applebee’s” restaurants, Peyton said. Applebee’s branding and logo will also be more clear in this season’s campaign, he said, a learning from last year that’s meant to help the brand stand out among other restaurant ads.

In another departure from last year’s approach, the campaign will leave behind the brand’s 

 content series, according to Peyton. The ads will also run for longer than they did last season, he added, evolving creatively over time but staying focused on humor and promoting the same offerings.

“Last year, we laid the groundwork for our association with the NFL,” Peyton said. “We introduced the story of a coach training up his team members to serve our guests. This year, with that well established, we’re getting really specific.”

While the campaign will continue to run on TV like it did last season, the platform focus will be “much more 360 than last year,” with more content like behind-the-scenes footage captured during the filming of the ad spots set to run on social and digital channels, Peyton said. There are plans to activate more at Applebee’s locations as well, including with NFL displays and decor, and by encouraging employees to rep their favorite teams.

By broadening the ways in which the brand activates its sponsorship, Peyton said he hopes the promotional effort will catch the eyes—and the stomachs—of as many NFL fans as possible.

“My 84-year-old mother never misses an Eagles game,” he said. “She’s going to experience the Eagles on television, and that’s why we’re there. My 24-year-old son watches the NFL on four different screens…and so we need to be on the apps. We need to be on the dot coms as well. The message is the same, but we’ve got to find our guests where they are because the NFL is consumed through so many different channels in so many different ways.”

Detroit Lions head coach Dan Campbell in Applebee's 2025 NFL ad

What Applebee’s learned after its first year as an official NFL sponsor

The restaurant chain is back for a second season with a campaign starring Lions head coach Dan Campbell, Raiders running back Ashton Jeanty, and Texans quarterback C.J. Stroud.

When the Formula 1 team McLaren won its first Constructors’ Championship in more than 25 years last season, it was the only team on the grid without a 

 sponsor. Halfway through the 2025 season, McLaren is firmly in the lead for the constructors’ again, but its naming rights are now spoken for.

Say hello to the McLaren Mastercard Formula 1 team—as of 2026, that is.

Raja Rajamannar, Mastercard’s chief marketing and communications officer, told Marketing Brew that while McLaren was the only team with naming rights available, he still had talks with a handful of other top teams before deciding on the partnership. The goal for the sponsorship, which is 

 the largest F1 title sponsorship and the biggest commercial deal yet for McLaren, is to drive brand awareness and affinity through unique activations, he said.

“We are now predominantly an experiential marketing organization, not an advertising-led organization,” Rajamannar told Marketing Brew. “Our approach is not just about flashing our brand, but bringing our brand to life through experiences that money cannot buy.”

About a year and a half ago, the Mastercard marketing team ran an analysis of its sponsorships and found a hole the size of F1, Rajamannar said, although it did have some motorsports experience. Mastercard sponsors the Goodwood Festival of Speed, a motorsports festival in England, during which Rajamannar said he noticed “the impact and the passion” of car racing.

That, combined with the growth of F1 following the rise of Netflix’s 

, got him studying the landscape, he said—which included binge-watching the docuseries.

F1 has become increasingly popular in the US in large part thanks to the show, and it’s growing specifically among women, who made up three-quarters of new fans as of a 

 released this summer by F1 and Motorsport Network. Women also account for about 75%–80% of all consumer spending, according to Rajamannar.

Those stats helped inform Rajamannar’s early conversations with F1 teams about sponsorship opportunities, but he told us he wasn’t interested in just any team. While some CMOs are 

 on teams before they have winning records, Rajamannar said he wanted to go with one of the best.

“We wanted to be associated with a better team than just put our brand on some car or the other,” he said.

McLaren stood out for a few other reasons, including the fact that the team seemed fan-focused and marketing-oriented, he said. Rajamannar also said he got along well with McLaren CEO Zak Brown, who has a marketing background, and liked that McLaren’s drivers, 25-year-old Lando Norris and 24-year-old Oscar Piastri, are fairly young and are both “extremely good,” he said—they’re currently battling for the World Drivers’ Championship.

While McLaren hadn’t won the constructors’ when Rajamannar and Brown started talking, the team had enough momentum for Mastercard to get on board, debuting as a principal sponsor during the Las Vegas Grand Prix last year.

“Since then, the experience has been brilliant for our customers,” Rajamannar said. “We said, ‘Wow, this has got actually a lot more potential than we originally even thought.’ We come up with one idea, McLaren comes up with two ideas.”

That potential is what led Rajamannar to ask Brown about the naming rights, he told us, and while McLaren hadn’t previously found a brand it wanted to include in its team name, Brown and the team agreed to bring Mastercard on.

The deal, which was announced in late August, is “very long-term,” Rajamannar said, though he declined to share the exact length of the arrangement. He also declined to comment on value, but said that given the team’s and drivers’ winning records this season, “it is not cheap.” Last week, The Athletic reported that the deal was worth somewhere “in the region of $100 million per season,” and that it would stretch through the 2030s.

In addition to naming rights, experiential opportunities for fans through an initiative called “Team Priceless” are a major part of the partnership, as well as Mastercard’s marketing in general. The majority of Rajamannar’s total marketing budget is allocated toward experiential activations, he said.

Earlier this summer, McLaren and Mastercard announced 15-year-old fan Olivia Lawson as the winner of their first “Junior Race Engineer” competition focused on inspiring next-generation motorsport fans and engineers; she spent a day at the McLaren Technology Centre ahead of the British Grand Prix in July. Mastercard also has plans to offer fans experiences like driver meet and greets, according to the company.

Between the naming rights and the fan experiences, Rajamannar said he’s aiming to achieve three different goals. First, he’s hoping the McLaren partnership will “make [Mastercard] more prominent, more relevant, and more lovable,” he said, which the Mastercard marketing team measures by tracking visibility of the brand on TV and elsewhere and through surveys. He’s also looking to drive revenue for the company, which he’ll measure by tracking card spend in markets where Mastercard activates the partnership, he said.

Lastly, Rajamannar said, the sponsorship is designed to give Mastercard a “sustainable competitive advantage” in the market, meaning “competition will find it very difficult to replicate.”

And while it’s not a key metric that Rajamannar said he plans to track, he is hoping that winning means added screentime for McLaren—and, subsequently, now Mastercard—on the next season of 

“If the team that we have chosen keeps winning more and more, then obviously it will show up more than the other brands in the show,” he said. “The show, it’s fun. It will be great to be more visible and obvious.”

Update 09/05/25: This story has been updated to clarify a stat.

Why Mastercard went after McLaren F1 naming rights

The current constructors’ champions will become the McLaren Mastercard Formula 1 Team in 2026 in an effort to bring the financial services brand “to life through experiences that money cannot buy,” an exec said.