How to price sponsorship inventory

Most sponsorship pricing is a number somebody chose. It gets defended with comparisons to bigger clubs, which is a losing argument, because the prospect can see that the bigger club has a bigger audience.

Pricing you can defend is built from the bottom up, from figures the sponsor can verify.

Start with a CPM you can prove

Cost per thousand impressions is the currency every media buyer works in, and it is the only basis a sponsor's agency will accept without argument.

The most defensible CPM available to you is the one you already pay. Look at what your own club pays per thousand impressions when it boosts a post. That is a real transaction in your own ad account, and no sponsor can dispute it.

If you have never run paid social, use a published market range for your country and say that is what you have done. In South Africa, digital display and social CPMs run considerably below global averages, so a rand figure built on US benchmarks will be challenged immediately.

Apply a premium for attention, not for enthusiasm

Not all impressions are equal, and you can charge more for the better ones — but only if you can show why.

The multipliers must come from your own engagement data, not from a table you found online. A sponsor will ask where 1.9 came from, and "our match centre is opened in 64% of app sessions" is an answer.

Separate counted, measured and estimated

This distinction is the difference between a report that survives scrutiny and one that does not.

• Counted — you served the impression and logged it. Website and app placements, newsletter sends, push notifications. Verifiable.
• Measured — you detected the logo in content and multiplied by the platform's reported reach. Social exposure, photography. Defensible with method shown.
• Estimated — modelled from attendance or broadcast audience. Kit, boards during televised matches. Legitimate, but label it.

Price counted inventory highest. It is the only category a sponsor's media team can independently verify, which makes it the most valuable thing you sell — and it is usually the part clubs give away for free.

What to do about kit and boards

These are your most visible assets and your least measurable. The honest approach is to model them explicitly and show the working:

• Attendance × fixtures × an assumed exposure rate
• Plus detections in match photography, which is measurable
• Plus broadcast exposure where the club has audience figures, clearly labelled as supplied by the league

Show the assumption and let them argue with it. A model somebody can argue with is worth more than a number they cannot check.

Sanity-check against the sponsor's alternatives

Before you finalise a rate, ask what else that money buys. If your package costs R450,000 and the same budget would buy them substantially more reach through paid social, you need either a lower price or a better argument — usually the argument that your audience is more relevant, more local and more favourably disposed than a bought one.

That argument is real. But it has to be made explicitly, not assumed.

Establishing your CPM when you have never advertised

The strongest CPM is one from your own ad account. If you have never run paid social, you have three options in descending order of defensibility:

1. Run a small campaign. A few hundred rand behind two or three posts gives you a real, documented CPM within a week. This is worth doing purely to establish the number.
2. Use a published market range and say so. State the source and the date. South African digital CPMs sit well below US and UK benchmarks, so a rand figure built on American data will be challenged immediately.
3. Ask the sponsor what they pay. Counter-intuitive, but a media buyer will often tell you, and pricing against their own number is very hard for them to dispute.

Deriving your own attention multipliers

The multipliers matter as much as the CPM, and they must come from your own data rather than a table from the internet. A sponsor will ask where 1.9 came from.

What to measure, and where it comes from:

Two or three defensible multipliers beat a full table of invented ones. If you cannot evidence a premium, apply 1.0 and say so.

Pricing physical inventory honestly

Kit and boards are your most visible assets and your least measurable. The temptation is a large round number. The better approach is a model with the working shown:

• Attendance × fixtures × an assumed exposure rate — state the rate and where it came from
• Plus detections in your own match photography, which is genuinely measurable
• Plus broadcast figures where the league supplies them, labelled as supplied rather than measured

Show the assumption and invite them to argue with it. A model somebody can interrogate is worth more than a number they cannot check, because the interrogation itself builds confidence in everything else you present.

The sanity check before you publish a rate

Ask what else that budget buys. If your package costs R450,000 and the same money would buy substantially more reach through paid social, you need either a lower price or a better argument.

The argument is real and worth making explicitly rather than assuming: your audience is more local, more relevant and more favourably disposed than a bought one. A supporter who sees a partner's mark in the match centre is in a different frame of mind to someone scrolling past an interruption. But you have to say it, and ideally evidence it with a recall survey.

When to discount, and when not to

Discount the setup or the term, not the rate. A rate you have discounted once is the rate forever, and word travels between commercial managers in the same town.

Legitimate flexibility:

• Multi-season commitment in exchange for a fixed rate
• Payment terms — quarterly rather than annual, or aligned to their financial year
• Added value that costs you nothing — extra hospitality on a low-demand fixture, an additional social post
• A first-season introductory rate with a written step-up, agreed up front

What to avoid: cutting the headline rate to close a deal in the final week of pre-season. That number becomes your ceiling with every future prospect who talks to that one.

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