2025 Markets Report
The FIFA World Cup is one of the world’s most watched sporting events—a global cultural phenomenon that brings unparalleled attention to its host cities. As North America prepares for 2026, the tournament shines a spotlight on major markets that already rank among the most dynamic in the sports sponsorship landscape.
Methodology:
This report offers an in-depth analysis of brand sponsorship activity across 13 World Cup 2026 host markets: Atlanta, Boston, Dallas, Houston, Kansas City, Los Angeles, Miami, New York/New Jersey, Philadelphia, San Francisco/Bay Area, Seattle, Toronto, and Vancouver. These markets were selected based on the availability and completeness of sponsorship data within SponsorUnited’s database. Due to limited dataset coverage, Mexico’s three host cities are not included in this analysis. The dataset reflects sponsorship activity across the 2024–25 seasons for teams within eight leagues: the NFL, NBA, MLB, NHL, MLS, WNBA, NWSL, and the Power 4 college conferences.
When a parent company’s deal includes exposure for multiple sub-brands, each sub-brand’s activation is counted as a separate sponsorship. All sponsorship spend and valuation data were sourced from SponsorUnited’s SPND product, which estimates sponsorship deal pricing through a proprietary AI-driven algorithm. This model integrates tracked marketing assets, rights holder characteristics, and market/category trends, continually refined by new data inputs. Figures represent the most recently completed season for each league.
This report was jointly authored by SponsorUnited’s Marketing, Business Intelligence, and Analytics teams using data collected between September 2022 and October 2025 from the SponsorUnited SaaS platform, which tracks and analyzes sponsorship activity across the aforementioned leagues and markets.
About SponsorUnited:
Launched in 2018, SponsorUnited is the leading global sports and entertainment intelligence platform, delivering actionable data and insights to build stronger marketing partnerships. We provide unrivaled knowledge across the sponsorship and media landscape so our clients can make impactful decisions that drive business.
With over 403,000 brands, 2.2 million deals, and 21.1 million data points across sports, entertainment, media, and talent, our SaaS platform enables brands, rights holders, and agencies to partner more effectively. By delivering real-time trends, on-demand research, and the most comprehensive data available, we connect the entire sponsorship ecosystem and are rewriting the partnership playbook.
