Happy Wednesday, and welcome back to the 45th weekly edition of Broken Marketing by Anvara, where we discuss marketing that breaks.

For those of you who are new here, we’re Nick and Andrei, the co-founders of Anvara. We’ve included you here because one way or another, we’re connected. We’re happy to have you as a part of the Anvara family.

For most of its existence, MLS didn’t actually own its business.

Teams owned the players. They owned the brand. They owned the fans. But they didn’t own the building.

Which meant they didn’t own the most valuable part of modern sports: the sponsorship real estate wrapped around it.

BUT that’s finally changing.

Over the next few years, MLS teams like LAFC, NYCFC, Inter Miami, and the Chicago Fire are moving into brand-new, privately controlled stadiums - and what looks like a construction boom is actually a sponsorship land grab.

When LAFC opened BMO Stadium in 2018, it gained a sponsorship machine.

The naming rights deal alone was reportedly worth over $100 million across ten years, and the club quickly built one of the deepest commercial portfolios in MLS, signing more than 30 corporate partners across categories ranging from banking to technology. Control of the venue created entirely new surfaces to sell.

Other teams followed the same playbook. Inter Miami CF saw sponsorship demand explode after signing Lionel Messi, but the real long-term upside sits in its upcoming Miami Freedom Park, a $1 billion privately controlled stadium district designed to multiply partnership inventory year-round. 

New York City FC expects its Etihad Park project to increase major sponsors from roughly four to more than twenty simply because it will finally control the building. Meanwhile, Chicago Fire FC is pursuing a new stadium projected to generate two to three times more sponsorship revenue than its current shared venue model.

Across the league, sponsorship revenue has grown from roughly $250 million in 2015 to more than $600 million annually today. And the biggest shift is coming from ownership of physical infrastructure.

Because once teams control the building, they stop selling placements, and they start selling the environment itself.

Every two years, the Olympics perform their favorite MAGIC trick: convincing the world it’s about sports, while quietly functioning as the most expensive sponsorship mall ever built.

Because the Olympic Games isn’t just a competition. It’s a two-week window where billions of people are watching the same thing at the same time - something modern media almost never delivers anymore.

The Paris 2024 Olympic Games reached over 3.1 billion global viewers, with 9.5 million fans attending in person. That kind of concentrated attention doesn’t just attract sponsors - it gives them pricing power instead.

Top-tier Olympic partners like Samsung, Visa, and Coca-Cola each pay between $100 million and $300 million per four-year Olympic cycle for exclusive global category rights. Not shared. Not rotated. Exclusive.

And they don’t spend that much just to slap logos on banners.

Visa becomes the only payment system allowed inside Olympic venues. Samsung equips athletes with official devices and appears directly in athlete-generated content. Coca-Cola builds on-site hospitality compounds designed specifically for client entertainment, executive access, and relationship building.

And these partnerships operate less like sponsorships and more like temporary business infrastructure layered on top of the Games.

Collectively, Olympic sponsors now generate nearly 30% of the International Olympic Committee’s total revenue, making sponsorship its single largest and most predictable income stream.

That’s why this moment matters.

In an era where media is fragmented, attention is unreliable, and digital ads are increasingly ignored, the Olympics remain one of the last environments where sponsors don’t have to chase attention.

They can buy guaranteed relevance.

For sponsors, now, the Olympics is more about owning a piece of the only event the entire world still watches together.

🚗 Interstate Batteries x High Limit Racing - The legacy auto brand replaces Kubota as title sponsor of the fast-growing dirt racing series, securing naming rights across 66 races at 33 U.S. tracks and aligning with its nationwide distributor network through grassroots activations and broadcast exposure on FloRacing and FS1.

🟣 Louisiana State University x Woodside Energy - LSU signed a first-of-its-kind multiyear jersey patch deal, placing Woodside’s logo across all 21 varsity sports, unlocking a new NCAA-approved sponsorship category that delivers year-round brand visibility across competition, practice gear, and athletic venues.

⛳ Genesis x Genesis Invitational - Genesis extended its title sponsorship through 2030, reinforcing its decade-long investment in the PGA Tour’s premium event ecosystem as top tournaments now command up to $25-30M annually from brands seeking long-term global visibility and luxury positioning.

Quote of the Week

"I've failed over and over and over again in my life. And that is why I succeed." - Michael Jordan