How sponsorship is valued, and where the numbers come from

Sponsorship valuation looks like a dark art from outside. It is mostly one idea applied repeatedly: work out how many people saw a brand, then work out what reaching those people would have cost to buy.

The basic calculation

Exposures multiplied by a cost per thousand, adjusted for how prominent the exposure was.

A logo filling a screen for eight seconds is worth more than one occupying 2% of frame for half a second. Valuation models score prominence by size, position, clarity and how much competing branding surrounds it.

Advertising value equivalent, and its problem

AVE converts exposure into what the equivalent advertising would have cost. It is the industry standard and it is widely criticised, for a fair reason: a fleeting logo is not equivalent to a bought advert that someone chose to place and design.

It is still useful as a comparison unit, provided you say what CPM you applied and where it came from. It becomes misleading when presented as revenue the sponsor received.

Three grades of number

Keep them in separate columns. Adding them together is the single fastest way to lose a media agency, and once one figure is doubted the whole report is.

What broadcast valuation involves

Frame-by-frame analysis of televised coverage against audience figures from a national panel. Specialist agencies do this properly and it requires access to both the footage and the panel data.

We do not do it and we do not pretend to. Our numbers sit alongside a broadcast valuation rather than replacing it — that separation is deliberate, and it is what makes the digital figures trustworthy.

What clubs can do themselves

Count what you serve. Measure what you post. Label what you model. That alone puts a club ahead of most at this level, where the honest answer to "what did our sponsor get" is currently nothing at all.

The method is set out in sponsorship measurement, and how to price from it in how to price sponsorship inventory.

How prominence is actually scored

Exposure alone means little. A logo occupying 2% of frame for half a second is not equivalent to one filling a quarter of the frame for eight seconds. Valuation models score prominence on four factors:

A mark at 3% of frame, centre, unoccluded, with two competing brands present scores very differently from the same mark at 3% in a corner, partly hidden, among fifteen others. Any model that ignores clutter will systematically overvalue perimeter boards, which is where most of them sit.

Worked valuation of a single post

Take one Instagram post: a matchday graphic reaching 6,400 accounts, carrying two partner marks.

• Partner A — 7.2% of frame, upper centre, unoccluded. Prominence factor 0.68.
• Partner B — 1.9% of frame, lower corner, partly overlapped. Prominence factor 0.21.

Applying reach × prominence: Partner A receives 4,352 prominence-weighted impressions, Partner B receives 1,344. At a club CPM of R48 and a social discount factor of 0.45, that is roughly R94 and R29 of media value respectively, from one post.

Small numbers individually. Across 1,284 posts in a season they become the figure in the report, and every step of the arithmetic is inspectable.

Where advertising value equivalent breaks down

AVE is the industry standard and the industry's most criticised metric. The criticisms are fair and worth understanding before you use it:

• A logo glimpsed in a photograph is not equivalent to a bought advert designed to persuade
• The CPM applied is frequently a rate card figure nobody actually pays
• It ignores whether the audience was receptive, hostile or indifferent
• It produces large numbers that invite scepticism rather than trust

If you use it: show raw impressions alongside, state the CPM and its source, and never call it revenue. Better still, use your own club's paid CPM, which is a real transaction rather than a benchmark and typically lower — producing a smaller number that survives challenge.

What a sponsor's agency will actually test

If your report reaches a media agency, expect these four questions in roughly this order:

1. What proportion of this is counted versus modelled? Have the split ready as a percentage.
2. What CPM did you apply and where did it come from? Name the source and the date.
3. How was prominence scored? Explain the four factors, not just "our system scores it".
4. What did you miss? The coverage statement answers this before it is asked.

A club with answers to all four is in a completely different conversation from one presenting a single headline number. The four answers are also, not coincidentally, the four things most club reports omit.

Valuing what cannot be measured

Some assets have real value and no impression count: category exclusivity, front-of-jersey status, naming rights, the right to call yourself an official partner.

These are priced on scarcity and constraint rather than exposure. Exclusivity is worth what it costs the club to refuse everyone else in that category. Front-of-jersey is worth what it costs to forgo selling that space in any other configuration.

State that reasoning explicitly rather than folding these into an impressions figure. A sponsor understands paying for exclusivity; they do not understand a media value number that quietly includes something with no media attached.

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