Key findings at a glance
The numbers from the research in one view. Eight statistics that tell the story together — followed by three observations that struck us most.
Executive summary
During the 2025/2026 season we surveyed 855 sport clubs about their sponsorship policy, administration and acquisition. The conclusion is unambiguous: sponsorship is critical to a club's financial health — yet most clubs leave significant money and opportunity on the table.
Three-quarters of participants know it could be better. Only 7% describe their own sponsorship policy as professional. The rest work with loose files, manual invoices and personal inboxes as an archive. The result: missed renewals, burnt-out volunteers, and sponsorship revenue that stays flat.
The signals are hopeful, too: 40% of clubs saw their sponsorship revenue grow last year. Sponsors are loyal — 60% of clubs retain more than 75% of them annually. And 39% say sponsorship is a higher priority for the coming season.
The five most important findings
1.Administration is the biggest pain point
2.Lack of time slows everything
3.Acquisition stays hard for most
4.Professional clubs perform measurably better
5.There's strong willingness to improve
Who took part?
855 clubs participated in the research — a broad cross-section of sport, from large to small. Football is the largest group (41%), followed by volleyball (12%), tennis (6%) and field hockey (5%). The remaining 36% is a mix of korfball, athletics, basketball, rugby and other sports.
Number of members
70% of participants have 100 to 800 members — the typical mid-sized sport club. Results are most representative for this group.
Annual budget
Clubs above €100,000 (43%) are slightly over-represented — logical, since larger clubs tend to have more interest in and experience with sponsorship.
Sport distribution
How important is sponsorship?
For most clubs, sponsorship is a substantial part of the budget. For 40%, that revenue grew over the past year.
Share of sponsorship in total revenue
For two-thirds of clubs (66%), sponsorship covers a meaningful share of the budget. Every missed renewal or unfound sponsor has a direct impact on what the club can do for its members.
Change in sponsorship revenue last year
40% of clubs saw their sponsorship revenue grow; only 15% saw a decline. Growth is genuinely possible — for clubs that work at it actively.
“We've become more deliberate about sponsorship. By tracking everything and following through on commitments, this year we picked up three new sponsors and renewed nearly all our existing ones. That brings real peace of mind.”
Number of active sponsors
Two clear clusters emerge: clubs with few sponsors (<10) and clubs with a large network (50+). Those that invest in structure quickly build a bigger sponsor base.
How do clubs manage sponsorship?
More than 60% of clubs work without a professional system. The cost is high: missed renewals, forgotten invoices, and knowledge that disappears with every board handover. A central system for sponsor management is the most concrete improvement a committee can implement in a single afternoon.
How is sponsorship tracked?
38% use Excel or Google Sheets — familiar, but fragile during personnel changes. More worryingly: 16% have no central record at all.
“During a board handover last year we completely forgot to send out a few invoices. And two sponsors we could have kept — we just weren't paying attention any more.”
How are invoices sent?
56% send invoices manually via email. That costs time and creates fragility: when the person sending the emails drops out, all context goes with them. Only 11% have automated this.
Time per month spent on sponsorship admin
65% spend less than 2 hours a month — but those hours go almost entirely on firefighting. Barely any time is left for what adds real value: proactive relationship work and outreach.
How difficult is sponsor acquisition?
Six in ten clubs find it difficult to very difficult to acquire new sponsors. Lack of time and the absence of a clear approach are the biggest barriers. More on how to handle this on our sponsor acquisition page.
How difficult is finding new sponsors?
Clubs with a professional policy find acquisition easy or manageable in 82% of cases — versus 34% at other clubs.
“Approaching sponsors too often feels like begging. You put a lot of energy in, then you get a no anyway. That doesn't exactly motivate you to do it again.”
What makes acquisition so hard?
| Obstacle | How often | What clubs say |
|---|---|---|
| Making first contact | 192x | Getting in the door at companies without an existing relationship feels like a high barrier. |
| Time constraints | 105x | Too little time to approach companies, prepare pitches and follow up. |
| Limited network | 26x | Reliance on personal contacts limits growth potential. |
| Articulating value | 19x | Concretising what sponsorship delivers for the company stays hard to phrase. |
What would help with acquisition?
More time isn't coming. What can change: working smarter with the time you have. A platform with templates, a prospect list and automatic follow-up solves both the time problem and the approach challenge at once.
How loyal are sponsors?
The good news: sponsors are loyal. 60% of clubs retain more than 75% of their sponsors annually. Steer this deliberately and you can push that even higher.
Renewal rates
60% retain more than 75% of their sponsors — a solid foundation. But 9% don't even know their own renewal rate. You can't improve what you don't measure.
“Honestly, I didn't even know precisely how many sponsors we had or when their contracts ran out. That cost us two sponsors last year that we could have kept if we'd reached out in time.”
Professional policy = higher renewal
The data shows a clear pattern:
| Indicator | Professional policy (n=45) | Other clubs (n=810) |
|---|---|---|
| More than 90% renewal | 53% | 29% |
| 75 to 90% renewal | 29% | 30% |
| Less than 75% renewal | 18% | 32% |
How do clubs perform online?
81% rate online visibility as important — yet nearly a third have no up-to-date sponsor page. A missed opportunity with both existing and new sponsors.
Status of sponsor page on the website
19% have an outdated page, 10% have none at all. Combined, that's 29% of all clubs failing to deliver on a basic digital promise to their sponsors.
Importance of online visibility
How mature is the sponsorship policy?
Only 7% describe their own sponsorship policy as professional. But most clubs know it could be better — and are open to taking that step.
Sponsorship policy maturity (self-assessed)
What does the professional 7% do differently?
The data shows a consistent, compelling pattern:
| Indicator | 7% professional | 93% other | Verschil |
|---|---|---|---|
| More than 50 sponsors | 80% | 21% | +59 ppt |
| Renewal > 90% | 53% | 29% | +24 ppt |
| Acquisition easy or manageable | 82% | 34% | +48 ppt |
| Revenue increased | 69% | 38% | +31 ppt |
People actively involved in sponsorship
18% of clubs have no fixed sponsorship committee, or do it with one person. At every handover, all knowledge is lost.
“We know we could organise this better. Right now it's a bit ad hoc, even though sponsorship is a substantial part of our income. We're looking for a way to tackle it structurally without it eating up even more time.”
Five concrete recommendations for your club
The challenges are clear and the solutions are available. Clubs that take the step toward better structure see immediate results — in sponsorship revenue and in peace of mind for their volunteers.
Centralise your sponsorship data
Stop with loose files. A central place for all contacts, contracts, agreements and deadlines — accessible to everyone on the committee — prevents chaos at every board handover.
Automate your invoicing
Manual invoices are the single biggest time sink. Automatic invoicing and payment reminders keep your cash flow healthy — and the relationship pleasant. No more awkward chasers.
Set up a renewal calendar
Reach out to sponsors 3 months before their contract ends. Not with an invoice, but with a conversation. Done structurally, this lifts renewal rates from 75% to 85%+.
Make online visibility concrete
Update your sponsor page each quarter, mention sponsors on social media, and send a periodic reach report. That makes the value of sponsorship measurable and tangible for the company.
Don't let knowledge sit with one person
Sponsorship can't depend on a single individual. A system that captures knowledge and shares tasks lowers the barrier for new committee members and prevents volunteer burnout.
Methodology & disclosure
- Sample: n=855 sport clubs, recruited via the Sponsorvista database and industry invitation. Respondents are based in the Netherlands; the insights apply broadly to amateur sport club sponsorship.
- Period: 2025/2026 season, data collection completed December 2025.
- Questionnaire: 31 questions across 7 themes (participant profile, revenue, administration, acquisition, retention, online visibility, organisation).
- Distribution: clubs with an annual budget above €100,000 are slightly over-represented (43% versus the general population), consistent with the fact that larger clubs tend to engage more actively with sponsorship.
- Privacy: no club names or contact details disclosed; all quotes anonymised.
- Rounding: all percentages rounded to whole numbers.
Frequently asked questions about this research
The numbers journalists, bloggers and industry publications most often want to cite. Each question is also delivered as JSON-LD to Google and LLM crawlers — useful for quickly looking up a fact.
How many sport clubs participated in the research?
855 sport clubs completed the survey during the 2025/2026 season. 70% of participants have between 100 and 800 members — the typical mid-sized sport club.
What share of sport clubs operate without a professional system for sponsor management?
62% of sport clubs work without a professional system. 38% use Excel or Google Sheets, 19% an accounting package, and 16% don't record sponsorship information centrally at all.
What percentage finds sponsor acquisition difficult?
60% of sport clubs find acquiring new sponsors difficult to very difficult. Only 5% rate it as easy.
What renewal rate do clubs with a professional sponsorship policy achieve?
53% of clubs with a professional sponsorship policy achieve a renewal rate above 90%, compared with 29% at the other clubs.
How much time per month goes into sponsorship administration?
65% of sport clubs spend less than 2 hours per month on sponsorship admin, 23% between 2 and 5 hours, and 11% more than 5 hours.
What share of clubs saw sponsorship revenue rise?
40% of sport clubs saw their sponsorship revenue grow in the past year, 45% remained stable, and 15% saw a decline.
How many sport clubs consider online visibility important?
81% of sport clubs rate online visibility for sponsors as (very) important. Yet 29% have no up-to-date sponsor page on their website.
What percentage of clubs describe their own sponsorship policy as professional?
Only 7% of sport clubs describe their own sponsorship policy as professional. 36% call it advanced, 36% basic, and 20% beginner.
Cite this research
This research is available under the Creative Commons BY 4.0 licence. You may use the data, charts and conclusions freely — including commercially — provided you credit Sponsorvista with a link back to this page.
Ready-to-use headline statistics
Five sentences you can drop directly into an article, presentation or LinkedIn post. Click “Copy” for the full sentence including the source attribution.
“Only 7% of sport clubs describe their own sponsorship policy as professional.”
Sponsorvista, The Sport Club Sponsorship Report 2025/2026 (n=855)
“60% of sport clubs find acquiring new sponsors difficult to very difficult.”
Sponsorvista, The Sport Club Sponsorship Report 2025/2026 (n=855)
“62% of sport clubs work without a professional system for sponsorship management — 38% still rely on Excel.”
Sponsorvista, The Sport Club Sponsorship Report 2025/2026 (n=855)
“Clubs with a professional sponsorship policy are 4x more likely to have 50+ sponsors and a renewal rate above 90%.”
Sponsorvista, The Sport Club Sponsorship Report 2025/2026 (n=855)
“For two-thirds of sport clubs, sponsorship accounts for 10–60% of total revenue.”
Sponsorvista, The Sport Club Sponsorship Report 2025/2026 (n=855)
Attribution
Suggested citation (APA)
Sponsorvista (2026). The Sport Club Sponsorship Report 2025/2026. Sponsorvista. https://sponsorvista.com/en/research/sport-sponsorship-studyPlain-text attribution
Source: Sponsorvista, The Sport Club Sponsorship Report 2025/2026 (https://sponsorvista.com/en/research/sport-sponsorship-study)HTML for blog or article
<p>Source: <a href="https://sponsorvista.com/en/research/sport-sponsorship-study" rel="noopener">Sponsorvista, The Sport Club Sponsorship Report 2025/2026</a> (n=855 sport clubs)</p>