Two out of three sports sponsorships are not renewed after the initial term.  Not because the sport stopped working. Not because fans stopped caring. But because the brand could not prove that the sponsorship was positively impacting their business. I have been in this industry for 30 years. I have sat alongside and across from some of the most sophisticated marketing leaders in the world. And that conversation (the one where a once “powerful” partnership gets cut because of a lack of business impact is the one I find most frustrating.

Because in almost every case, it did not have to end that way.

Many agencies and executives engaged in sports marketing are selling access, impressions, exposure and inventory.  Too few agencies and executives are sitting on the brand’s side of the table asking the one question that matters: How can this partnership deliver measurable results for my business?

That is the gap rEvolution was built to fill when John Rowady founded the company in 2001: helping brands find the right sports partnerships, and activating that partnership to deliver business performance.

Sports creates something rare. Deep, emotional, consistent attention from fans who care. That is the raw material. Most brands are only using a fraction of it. The difference between a logo slap and a growth engine is not budget or the size of the property. It is whether the partnership was built around a specific business objective and designed from the start to change customer behavior.

Our clients have learned this. When our client Coca-Cola activates in sports, the goal is not awareness. Coca-Cola already has that. The goal is to connect with a specific fan community in a way that changes how they see the brand and how they behave as consumers.

The partnerships that survive are the ones where a brand can walk into a renewal conversation and say: here is what this investment did for our business. Not: here is how many people saw our logo.

The first question I ask every brand we work with is simple: What does success from this partnership look like for your business? It sounds obvious, but it does not get asked and answered as often as it should.

Most sponsorship conversations start with the property. Which team? Which league? Which event? Then, maybe, activation and measurement of what the property said it would deliver. By that point, the most important decision has already been made. Which is the wrong order. The property should be the answer to a business question, not the starting assumption.

We start in a different place. We start with the business. What are you trying to achieve? Who are the customers you need to reach? What do you need them to think, feel, or do differently? Then we ask whether sports is the right vehicle to get there, and if so, how to build around the objective rather than the asset.

The best time to bring us in is before that choice has been made. That is when strategy compounds. Once the property is signed, we are optimizing within a decision someone else made.

This is not a theory. When NBC brought the NBA back to its family of networks after two decades off the air, we built “30 Rocks at 30 Rock” at Rockefeller Plaza. The 30-team art installation and immersive court experience at the iconic 30 Rockefeller Plaza, the heart of NBC, became a hugely successful brand activation. The activation attracted 535,000 live visitors, generated 17.2 million social views, drove a 315% lift in video views over previous NBCUniversal activations, and contributed to an 87% increase in the audience for NBA Tip-Off.

The brands that will win the next decade of sports sponsorship are the ones that will ask and answer the question: how can this partnership deliver measurable results for my business?

Brand leaders deserve an advocate focused exclusively on their outcomes. That is what will separate the winners from the brands who keep renewing on faith and hoping for the best, or the ones that don’t renew at all.

The question is not whether sports can drive business performance. It can.

The question is whether your investment was built to do that from the start, and whether you have the right partner in your corner thinking entirely about your business. If the answer is not a clear yes, that is worth a conversation.