Sports marketing in the Middle East has been witnessing a lot of momentum in recent years. As it stands, the regional industry has no shortage of sports events, sponsorship plays, intellectual property (IP), naming rights, content distribution, endorsements, media productions and rights management, omnichannel fan engagement platforms and conversations around local talent and women’s sports.
This means two things. On one hand, there’s a lot of positive sentiment around sports marketing with several brands showing up to participate in this space. Professional athletes, amateurs, fitness enthusiasts, brand aficionados and fans are fuelling the fervour across running clubs, football, basketball, cricket, golf, cycling, tennis, padel, badminton, squash and swimming, among many other sports. Top-down investments from governments are also boosting the sports marketing landscape.
On the other hand, the challenges are clear: several stakeholders are trying to do too much too fast, instead of focusing on firming up the foundations of a specific sport or community initiative. Too much of the industry still thinks in short bursts, surface-level visibility, tactical executions, short-term performance outcomes, quick returns on investment (ROI) and the short-term benefits of sponsorship cycles.
Leaders with decades of experience in regional sports marketing – who gather for the Campaign Market Minds: CMO Round Table on ‘Building the Future of Sports Marketing in the Middle East’ at Media One Hotel on 20 May – agree that activity is not the same as progress. They call for sports marketing to be more strategic, patient, consistent, long-term and community-oriented.
Above all, the sports marketing landscape must not lose sight of its purpose: to drive measurable brand and business outcomes; to bolster local talent; to foster identity and serve communities; to contribute to social change and inclusion; and to transform mellifluous brand messages into meaningful brand behaviour by contributing to the health and well-being of consumers and the economic and urban growth of nations.
After all, a successful and mature sports marketing landscape would not only result in better bottom lines for brands, but also grow grassroots sports systems, uplift tourism, create jobs, enable local talent and result in healthier communities that have civic pride and global recognition.
Contributing to this round table discussion moderated by Anup Oommen, Editor, Campaign Middle East, are:
- Al Lotter, Head of Creative, Equiti
- Ana Elisa Seixas, Head of Marketing, New Balance – Middle East, Africa and India
- David Collins, Senior Vice President and Regional Managing Director – MENA, IMG
- Dawn Barnable, Founder and Managing Director, The Mettleset
- Gabriela Duch, Head of Sponsorship, VISA
- John Nolan, Head of Sport and Commercial Investment, Publicis Sport
- Joseph O’Sullivan, Senior Sales Director, SPORTFIVE
- Nicola Vickery, Director, 160over90
At the outset, leaders call for sports marketing to move from reach to resonance, from buying attention to earning belonging, and from borrowing cultural credibility to contributing to cultural growth.
Stop confusing sports activity with strategy
The first major concern raised during the round table discussion is the speed of the market. The region is moving fast. But several leaders warn that speed can become a problem when brands jump from one opportunity to another without understanding the need for a long-term play.
Dawn Barnable, Founder and Managing Director, The Mettleset, explains that the audience appetite is already present. The harder challenge is getting brands to stop thinking only about immediate numbers and start investing in what comes next.
“The growth is there and the passion is there. We see engagement across our platforms. Sport has strong resonance with our audience,” Barnable says. “But from a business viewpoint, the big challenge has been legacy and tactical thinking rather than long-term strategic thinking. Also, reach should not be the only relevant metric. We need to measure better for long-term impact.”
David Collins, Senior Vice President and Regional Managing Director – MENA, IMG, agrees, saying, ““The industry needs to shift away from visibility as the primary metric and place greater emphasis on meaningful engagement. The brands winning in sports sponsorship aren’t just buying eyeballs – they’re buying audiences by identifying territories they can authentically own and build equity in over time.”
The point is not that visibility has no value; the point is that visibility on its own is too thin. A brand that only appears during a big sporting moment like the ICC Cricket World Cup or the FIFA World Cup is like a guest who turns up at the birthday party for the group photo but is absent and distant throughout the year.
Engagement and experiences are the new centre of gravity
Leaders at the round table also explore how fans now connect with brands. Sports marketing is no longer only about performance, competition or event attendance. Sport is increasingly becoming a social space, a lifestyle cue and a way for people to find friends and form communities.
Ana Elisa Seixas, Head of Marketing, New Balance – Middle East, Africa and India, shares how older marketing models often pushed brands towards scale. But today, the more valuable opportunity lies in creating engaging and memorable experiences that make people feel seen, heard and welcome. She explains that every brand must offer consumers the opportunity to express themselves because this contributes to a sense of belonging, which builds long-term brand love and loyalty.
“Old-school marketing teaches us that we should prioritise volume,” Seixas says. “Current marketing trends tell you that you should go for the experience and the engagement. Because when a brand shows up in a way that matters – not only on the big stages such as international marathons, but also in the local, everyday run clubs – it creates loyal customers. When brands show up for their consumers on the good days and the bad days, continuously and consistently, then consumers and communities will stand with and run for their brand, as well.”
She also explains how psychology and behavioural patterns around running clubs have changed. This has affected how people perceive sports and the brands that are actively associated with each sport.
“If you look at a running club through its former lens, it was only about fitness and performance,” she adds. “Now, people join running clubs because they want to be around other people with similar interests, in a safe space, where they can hang out with like-minded individuals. This moves a brand far beyond a logo or an intangible asset. When the leaders of a brand and the product show up in places that matter, the brand begins to belong in a community as much as it creates a space for belonging.”
This matters because sport is one of the few places where people still gather with feeling.
Gabriela Duch, Head of Sponsorship, Visa, adds that brands need to think more widely about where they can add value.
“Stop doing the same thing that has been done for decades,” Duch says. “Look at the value that you can bring to the events, not just what value the events can bring to you. Sports marketing is not just about putting a logo first, but how you can help the event to get bigger.”
Community cannot be an afterthought
Leaders also reveal how some of the strongest brands in sport do not invent communities from scratch; instead, they find communities that already exist, listen to them, understand them and support them with care.
Al Lotter, Head of Creative, Equiti and New Balance’s Seixas highlight how their brands show up with care within basketball and running initiatives, respectively, but the deeper focus is community. That distinction matters because it moves the conversation from product and category into culture.
“We see that intersection of sports, community and culture, and that’s really where I feel so passionate about the brand,” Seixas says.
Lotter adds, “The time has come for brands to walk the talk – rather than just being present in some community events, rather than borrowing credibility from such presence, and rather than one-off sports marketing partnerships or sponsorships, brands need to connect with communities of local and regional consumers who are actually passionate about that sport. This can only be achieved through consistency, genuinely giving back to the community, helping grow grassroots systems, supporting local talent, shining a light on athletes and their accomplishments, and genuinely contributing to the growth of the sport in the community and region.”
The same theme comes through when the discussion turns to grassroots sport. There is broad agreement that the region has major top-down ambition, but that this needs to be met with deeper bottom-up development.
This will require more than just investment in proper infrastructure; it will also involve investments in sports marketing intelligence, such as Publicis Sport’s Intelligence platform, which identifies neighbourhoods most interested in a specific sport; identifies and connects with verified fans across media, experiential activations, content and hospitality; measures the impact of athletes and creators as community leaders, and much more.
Barnable adds that there are already local athletes, founders and community leaders doing strong work. But in some cases, they are still not being embraced or funded in a meaningful way.
“The right sports culture and passionate audiences already exist,” she said. “The real question is: are we supporting it and embracing them in meaningful ways?”
This means that brands cannot lean on communities as an afterthought – when it’s convenient – they need to be present, purposeful and productive in their contribution to local and regional communities.
A deep-rooted sense of identity within sports
Leaders at the round table are clear that sponsorship cannot end when the deal is signed and a logo is placed on an athlete’s jersey or the media wall of an event. In fact, the deal is only the doorway. What matters is what the brand does once it enters.
Joseph O’Sullivan, Senior Sales Director, SPORTFIVE, says, “When a lot of brands enter the sports marketing domain, they come in with a mentality that they need to drive high-volume sales. What they sometimes fail to realise is that sports marketing is also closely associated with the brands’ identity and the fans’ identity.”
Addressing this point from a brand’s perspective, leaders point to the fact that Formula 1 teams are often remembered by the name of the brand sponsoring them; football stadiums are remembered by the names of the brands; and a logo on an athlete’s jersey has a sentiment of loyalty and identity attached to it.
Addressing this from a fan’s perspective, John Nolan, Head of Sport and Commercial Investment, Publicis Sport, says, “Sport has become a proxy for identity. Every fan’s cultural identity, especially in the region, is closely associated with the club teams and national teams they support, the players they like, and the sports that they either play, participate in or follow. Sport can be family inheritance, city pride, national emotion or personal passion.”
Why does this matter?
O’Sullivan says, “Brands must understand that they need to separate their sports marketing budget from their traditional marketing budgets. When the region goes through geopolitical turmoil or economic crunch, traditional marketing may be pulled back, but one can’t simply pull the plug on that sense of identity or long-term commitment within sports. Brands must understand the realm they are stepping into and the responsiblity that comes with it.”
The point is simple: if sport is treated as a short-term campaign cost, its impact will be judged too narrowly. But if it is treated as a brand platform, it can build meaning over time.
Nolan adds, “Sport is and remains the only constant, highly emotional touch point in a changing media landscape. It is the only mass participation reach tool that combines individual passion and identity with culture and connection. Now, combine that with clear measurement, attribution and long-term strategies that are difficult, dangerous and disruptive – and you have a powerful, influential option that is better than anything else we have in the market.”
Be brave enough to say no
The group of leaders also discuss focus. With so many opportunities available, brands can be tempted to invest in several attractive options all at once. But in sports marketing, spreading too thin can make a brand invisible.
Just as agencies must learn to challenge the brief and advise against tactical whims and ludicrous trends, so too must brands learn to pick what’s best from the buffet of sports marketing opportunities.
For brands, learning when to say ‘no’ is essential because a mismatched or overextended sponsorship can dilute core messaging, waste massive budgets on the wrong audiences, cannibalise budgets across the same audiences, and ultimately erode consumer trust.
On the other hand, Nicola Vickery, Director, 160over90, also reveals how brands can potentially get trapped by their own internal rules and miss cultural moments because they are too rigid.
“Brands often get in their own way, especially when they’re so boxed into their brand guidelines,” Vickery says. “One smart creator or one smart move into where you want to position your brand with an audience can work wonders.”
The lesson for marketers is uncomfortable, but useful: not every opportunity is right; not every sport is your sport; and not every audience is yours to claim. The best brands know where they belong, and where they can be a benefit to others.
Lotter also shares a word of caution about brands shifting to autopilot once they activate their sports marketing strategies.
“This is not as simple as plug and play. One size does not fit all,” Lotter says. “Brands must resist default thinking and challenge category behaviour. It’s important to differentiate yourself even when you are sponsoring alongside other brands within the same sport or category. It’s important to go against the grain. If anyone says, ‘stick to what works’ brands must learn to respond by saying, ‘no’.”
Measurement beyond the top of the funnel
Data came up repeatedly in the discussion. Leaders in the room agree that sports marketing not only needs stronger measurement, but also needs to ask better questions.
Nolan explained how measurement within sports marketing has evolved to become very specific. He reveals how Publicis Sport can help brands make better choices before a single dollar of investment is made through an in-depth look at behavioural patterns, preferences and purchase intent at the intersection of passion and culture. The agency helps brands identify and connect with actual fans rather than relying on assumed demographics.
He also explains how the effectiveness of every dollar of investment can be tracked by shifting measurement from broad, vanity metrics to tangible business impact. Publicis Sport moves beyond basic media impressions to track concrete commercial outcomes, such as ticket sales, site traffic and direct conversions resulting from sports sponsorships.
Additionally, instead of tracking only top-of-funnel or being obsessed only with conversions, Publicis Sport takes a full-funnel approach that reveals the effectiveness across media placements, experiential activations, sponsored events and grassroots community programmes in a single view. It even integrates athletes and creators as community leaders, allowing brands to track engagement and conversions in a booming social sports landscape.
Leaders also discuss how data can help challenge personal bias. When decision-makers working with specific brands or clients prefer not to invest in sports marketing either because they are personally disinclined, don’t like a sport or aren’t convinced about the merits of sports marketing, the consumer data can prove why it’s a great decision for the brand and the business.
That said, growing a new audience is not always linear. Women’s sport, new formats and younger fan bases may need time, repeated exposure and different storytelling models before behaviour shifts at scale.
Sports marketing is not a CSR play
Women’s sport remains one of the strongest themes in the discussion. The leaders agree that it is still one of the most underdeveloped commercial opportunities in the region. But they also warn that it should not be approached as a token gesture.
Explaining why it remains an undervalued partnership opportunity, Barnable says, “Women’s sport is not overcrowded. It is not overpriced. It offers access to highly engaged audiences. But it requires belief and consistency.”
Collins adds that the opportunity is often misunderstood. It is not about putting money behind women’s sport because it looks good; it is about recognising the commercial value of an audience that many brands still underestimate.
He says, “You’re not only doing it for the good of women’s sport. You’re doing it because it’s good business. Investing in women’s sport isn’t philanthropy – it’s strategy. The commercial returns are real, and the brands moving early are the ones who’ll define the category.”
The discussion also touches on the need to separate women’s sport from outdated prejudices. Leaders explain that younger audiences may not divide sport in the same way older generations do.
“For them, football is football. Racing is racing. The labels are often imposed by the industry, not demanded by the next generation,” Collins adds.
Sport needs brands that are builders, not tourists
The Middle East does not need more brands that treat sport like a rented billboard. It needs builders. It needs brands willing to show up before the spotlight arrives, stay after the first season, fund the activation as well as the rights, and understand the community before asking for its attention.
Sports marketing in the region is standing at a fork in the road. One path is crowded with short-term deals, recycled names, logo-led sponsorships and decks full of reach numbers. The other path is harder. It asks brands to choose a space, earn trust, build grassroots systems, back athletes, measure properly and commit for long enough to matter.
The second path is where the real value sits. It is where women’s sport becomes business, not charity. It is where running clubs become cultural engines, not weekend content. It is where basketball, football, cricket, tennis, cycling, golf and emerging formats become communities that brands can support, not just exploit.
The region has the ambition. It has the fans. It has the infrastructure. Now it needs focus, courage and patience. Sports marketing is not a campaign waiting to take flight; it is a season, a rivalry, a family story, a childhood memory and a source of national pride. Brands that understand that will not only appear in the game but also become part of why people keep playing, watching and caring.
