The Death of the One-Off Brand Deal

The dominant model in African sports sponsorship is transactional: a brand pays an athlete for a social media post, a match-day appearance, or a campaign that runs for a few weeks. It generates impressions, the invoice is paid, and both sides move on. This model is failing everyone involved, and the data makes that increasingly hard to ignore.

The sponsorship gap in numbers

African sports sponsorship spending averaged approximately $1.3 billion in 2024, compared to $21 billion in Europe and $19 billion in North America, according to industry estimates cited in PwC's 2025 Africa Sports Outlook. Global sports sponsorship spending reached an estimated $97.35 billion in 2023, projected to grow at 8.68% annually to nearly $190 billion by 2030, per Statista.

Yet Africa, home to 1.4 billion people and over 225 million amateur footballers, captures a disproportionately small share. One reason: the return on investment is hard to prove when campaigns are one-off. Without recurring touchpoints, brand recall decays rapidly. Without format consistency, audiences never form habits around the content. Without structured IP, there is nothing to license, repurpose, or build upon after the campaign ends.

Why recurring formats win

Consider the difference between a one-off branded documentary and a recurring weekly format.

The documentary premieres, generates buzz, and is largely forgotten within weeks. The recurring format -- an athlete-led show that drops a new episode every week for a season -- builds audience habit, creates anticipation, and generates compounding viewership. Each episode reinforces the last. The brand integration deepens over time rather than fading.

Rwanda's sports sponsorship strategy illustrates the power of recurring, long-term partnerships. Through sustained deals with Arsenal, PSG (worth over $11 million for PSG alone), and newly announced partnerships with the LA Clippers and LA Rams, Rwanda has positioned itself as a global brand through sport. The key: these are not one-off placements. They are multi-year commitments with coaching exchanges, youth development programs, and permanent branding exposure at venues drawing 70,000+ fans per game.

SponsorPulse estimates the combined marketing value of Rwanda's LA partnerships could exceed $20 million per season in equivalent exposure. That return only materialises because the relationships compound.

What Africa's sports brands should learn from betting operators

In the absence of traditional brand sponsors, betting companies have become the most aggressive investors in African sports. South Africa's Premier Soccer League struck a R900 million deal with Betway -- described as the biggest investment in the country's sports sector. In Nigeria, betPawa injected N494 million into the Nigeria National League in 2024, introducing a bonus system that pays each player and staff member of every winning team directly.

Betting companies are not investing in one-off campaigns. They are buying naming rights, league sponsorships, and multi-season commitments. They understand that recurring exposure across an entire season generates far more value than a single activation.

The opportunity for mainstream brands -- in technology, finance, consumer goods, and telecoms -- is to adopt the same recurring format approach, but applied to athlete-led content rather than stadium signage. A brand that sponsors a 12-episode football culture series builds deeper equity than one that pays for a single match-day activation.

The shift from media buying to media ownership

The most sophisticated brands are not just sponsoring content. They are co-creating it. When a brand co-develops a recurring sports format, it gains something a one-off deal never provides: shared IP. The format can be licensed to other markets, adapted for different platforms, and run for multiple seasons. The brand becomes part of the IP itself, not an overlay on someone else's content.

This model requires a fundamental shift in how African sports sponsorships are structured. It requires production partners who think in formats, not campaigns. Distribution strategies built for multi-market reach, not single-platform posting. And IP governance that documents rights clearly from day one.

The one-off deal is not dead because it does not generate impressions. It is dead because it does not generate assets. In a market projected to grow to $20 billion by 2035, the brands that win will be the ones that own a piece of the IP, not just a line item on a media plan.