I should probably start with a small confession: I am not a sports marketer.
I have never had to negotiate a jersey patch deal, design a stadium activation, or convince a room full of executives that putting two professional athletes inside a car for a marketing stunt is a perfectly normal brand strategy. That is simply not my journey.
I do, however, spend a lot of time talking to gaming operators, suppliers, and industry leaders about what actually works when it comes to marketing and partnerships. That means listening carefully when the people who do live in that world start explaining how the mechanics behind those deals really function.
At NEXT.io in New York, a panel titled “After the Big Game: Building Partnerships That Last Beyond the Season” offered exactly that kind of perspective. The session, moderated by Mark Phillip, founder of Are You Watching This?!, brought together professionals from sports media, professional teams, and partnership strategy to talk about a reality most marketers understand very well.
The big event is one thing. The day after it is where things get interesting.
Anyone working in sports or gaming understands what happens during major sporting moments, like the Super Bowl, March Madness, and the World Cup. Engagement spikes, marketing budgets expand, and fans show up in huge numbers.
But as Dean Akinjobi, CEO of Football Media, explained during the discussion, the real strategy begins once the event is over.
“You have to think about the day after the event the same way you think about the event itself,” Akinjobi said.
That approach highlights an important reality about event-driven marketing. Large sporting moments generate enormous attention, but they also generate something else that can be just as valuable: data.
“You’re going to collect a lot of data and engagement during a big event,” Akinjobi said. “The key is how you leverage that afterward.”
In other words, the event itself is only the beginning of the relationship with the audience.
That perspective becomes even more relevant when considering how sports fans engage with teams today. Watching a game is only one part of the experience. Fans interact through digital platforms, live events, social media, and community initiatives. Partnerships that work well tend to appear across those environments, rather than existing in a single place.
Alexa Doughty, director of corporate partnerships for the Dallas Stars, described how teams think about that broader fan journey when evaluating potential partnerships.
“We need to meet the fans where they are on the fan journey,” she said. “That could be attending a game, engaging digitally on our media platform, or in the community. The more consistently fans see a partnership across those touchpoints, the more authentic it feels.”
That consistency matters, because audiences can quickly recognize when a partnership feels disconnected from the experience they care about. The brands that perform best in sports environments often show up in ways that feel integrated into the fan experience, rather than simply placed alongside it.
Even when the concept of a partnership makes sense, however, execution can still become complicated.
According to Fiona Power, former senior director of strategic partnerships at FanDuel, the biggest challenge often happens internally.
“Partnerships often stall because there’s misalignment,” Power said. “The commercial team might sign a deal, but if product, marketing, and finance aren’t on the same page about what the partnership is supposed to accomplish, everything slows down very quickly.”
Anyone who has worked inside a marketing organization will recognize that dynamic. A deal gets signed, there are a few congratulatory high-fives, someone posts the announcement in the company Slack channel, many emojis are added in celebratory response, then the rest of the organization starts figuring out what the partnership is actually supposed to do.
That internal coordination can determine whether a partnership succeeds or struggles. Marketing teams may be focused on brand visibility, product teams on user experience, and finance teams on measurable returns. When those groups are not aligned around a shared objective, even strong partnership ideas can lose momentum.
The panel also highlighted how brands are increasingly thinking about the long-term value of the content and experiences they build through partnerships.
Mike Salvaris, co-founder of Pro League Network, described how brands are approaching that opportunity.
“Brands are trying to figure out what content they can own,” Salvaris said. “Sports IP gives brands the ability to create something that keeps delivering value over time.”
That shift reflects a broader trend in marketing strategy. Instead of focusing solely on short-term campaigns, brands are looking for ways to create content or intellectual property that continues generating engagement long after the initial activation.
By the end of the session, a common theme emerged: Partnerships that work tend to think beyond the event itself. The Super Bowl, the playoffs, and the World Cup create powerful moments of attention, but the brands that benefit most are the ones already thinking about what comes next. Because while the event may create the spike, the long-term relationship with the fan is what ultimately creates value.
