Sports sponsorship has never been short on audience attention. The harder problem for marketers is turning that attention into measurable customer interactions and revenue. New research commissioned by Infobip suggests that brands are putting more money into sports activations while struggling to connect those investments to business outcomes. The study found that brands allocate an average of 13% of annual marketing budgets to sports-related activations, while 57% say proving ROI remains difficult.

Sports marketing is becoming increasingly digital, but many brands are still measuring it like a traditional sponsorship business.

That disconnect is becoming more significant as advertisers invest more heavily in fan engagement around live events. A new global study commissioned by Infobip, based on responses from 500 marketing and digital leaders across 11 markets, found that nearly 73% expect their sports-related investment to increase over the next 12 months.

The challenge is measurement.

Although live sporting events generate some of the strongest opportunities for real-time fan engagement, 47% of organizations surveyed said they struggle to engage audiences in real time during live events. More than half, 57%, said proving the return on investment from sports marketing is difficult.

That creates a familiar problem for advertising and marketing teams: large audiences are relatively easy to demonstrate, but connecting a sponsorship, campaign or live-event interaction to an identifiable customer journey is much harder.

Infobip argues that the technology infrastructure underneath fan engagement is partly responsible.

Traditional sports sponsorships often generate value through brand visibility, television exposure, social reach and event association. Increasingly, however, marketers want those impressions to become measurable digital interactions. Messaging platforms, customer data, conversational AI and real-time orchestration can potentially create that bridge.

The research found that 87% of respondents consider AI critical to the future of sports fan engagement. AI-driven content and automated customer journeys were among the improvements respondents considered most likely to make an impact.

For advertisers, the significance goes beyond chatbots.

A fan receiving a live score, athlete alert or interactive quiz through a messaging channel creates a first-party interaction that can potentially be tied to subsequent engagement. If that interaction is connected to customer data and marketing automation, the brand can move from simply sponsoring a sporting moment to building an addressable relationship around it.

That is where conversational channels such as WhatsApp and Rich Communication Services, or RCS, become relevant to the advertising ecosystem.

Instead of sending consumers from a television commercial or social post to a generic website, brands can use messaging as an interactive layer. A fan could receive a match update, answer a poll, enter a promotion, request product information or receive a personalized offer without leaving the conversation.

The approach also fits a broader shift toward always-on digital fandom.

PwC’s 2026 sports industry research describes digital fan engagement as increasingly extending beyond individual game days, with teams and leagues building connected ecosystems around streaming, commerce, membership and personalized experiences. AI is increasingly being used to help organizations tailor content and interactions to individual fan behavior.

Infobip’s own research reinforces that direction. Its 2026 report says only 22% of surveyed organizations currently have journey orchestration in place, while 47% identify data integration as an obstacle to personalization. That suggests the industry’s AI ambitions are running ahead of the underlying marketing infrastructure required to execute them effectively.

Infobip is positioning its own platform around that gap.

The company recently introduced PitchMate, an AI-powered conversational fan engagement solution for global football audiences built on its AgentOS platform. The system is designed to turn real-time interactions into trackable touchpoints across the fan journey. Earlier, Infobip introduced RaceMate for the TGR Haas F1 Team, using conversational AI across WhatsApp and Apple Messages for Business to provide race information, personalized content, team-radio highlights and trivia.

The company has also worked with Claro Sports in Latin America on an AI assistant built around Infobip’s platform and Google’s RCS technology. The experience provides Mexican sports fans with real-time scores, athlete alerts and interactive content through messaging. Infobip says the broader implementation reached more than 11 million people and generated more than 35,000 fan interactions.

For advertising and marketing teams, these systems potentially change the economics of sports activation.

Instead of evaluating a sponsorship primarily through reach, impressions and brand lift, marketers can begin measuring interactions, subscriber growth, engagement rates, conversions and downstream customer behavior.

That is increasingly important as sponsorship budgets grow. Deloitte estimates the global sports-sponsorship market reached approximately $97 billion in 2025 and argues that the industry needs to move from reach and impressions toward more evidence-based, audience-specific measurement.

But technology alone will not solve the ROI problem.

Brands still need reliable identity resolution, consent management, customer data integration, attribution and clear definitions of what constitutes a conversion. An AI assistant that produces millions of interactions is not automatically a successful marketing channel if those interactions cannot be connected to business outcomes.

There is also a strategic distinction between fan engagement and advertising. Not every interaction should become a sales opportunity. Over-commercializing live sports conversations could undermine the very loyalty that makes sports audiences valuable in the first place.

The more sustainable model is likely to be one where AI handles personalization and orchestration while marketers determine the commercial boundaries.

That makes the emerging sports-tech stack look increasingly similar to the broader marketing technology stack: customer data at the center, AI handling decisions and content, conversational channels providing access, and measurement systems connecting interactions to outcomes.

For AdTech and MarTech teams, that convergence is worth watching. Sports sponsorship is moving beyond buying visibility around a game. The next competitive advantage may come from owning what happens after a fan notices the brand.

Market Landscape

The sports advertising market is shifting from broadcast exposure toward measurable digital engagement. Deloitte’s research estimates a $97 billion global sports-sponsorship market in 2025 and points toward greater use of fan data and secure data collaboration to demonstrate partnership value.

At the same time, PwC identifies AI, personalized experiences and connected digital ecosystems as major forces reshaping sports businesses in 2026.

The competitive landscape therefore extends beyond communications platforms. It includes CRM and marketing automation providers such as Salesforce and Adobe, messaging ecosystems such as Google RCS and WhatsApp, customer data infrastructure, analytics platforms and AI-agent technologies.

For enterprise marketers, the key differentiator will increasingly be whether these technologies can work together rather than whether any single platform can generate more engagement.

Top Insights

• Sports marketing budgets are rising, but 57% of brands still struggle to prove ROI, increasing demand for measurable digital fan engagement infrastructure.
• Infobip’s research shows 87% of marketers view AI as critical to sports engagement, accelerating conversational and automated customer journeys around live events.
• Real-time messaging can turn sports sponsorship from passive brand exposure into trackable interactions spanning content, engagement, lead generation and conversion.
• PwC identifies connected digital ecosystems and AI-powered personalization as key forces reshaping sports fan experiences beyond traditional game-day engagement.
• Deloitte estimates the global sports-sponsorship market at $97 billion, strengthening pressure on brands to demonstrate measurable value from fan investments.

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