SBJ Marketing: Spirits sponsorships (and numbers) remain high, even as Americans drink less

My Nutmeg State household is squarely behind UConn in the Final Four, principally because I enjoy seeing my tax dollars spent efficiently. Men’s basketball coach Dan Hurley and women’s coach Geno Auriemma are the top state employee wage-earners at $10.3 million and $4.2 million respectively.

Words of Wisdom: “Fear of failure is at least as common as the desire for success. In fact, if harnessed properly, it can be the energy that drives the wheel.” — Mark McCormack

While there’s been increasing discussion among the sponsorship cognoscenti about declining spirits and alcohol consumption, it hasn’t yet made an impact on team and league sponsorships in that area.

Still, it’s a growing concern as glasses stay unfilled. Alcohol consumption in the U.S. reached its lowest level in almost 90 years, according to a 2025 Gallup poll in which 54% of Americans said they consume alcohol. It’s a growing move toward less being more. The Gallup figure fell to 62% in 2023 and 58% in 2024, before reaching 54% last July. Other reports have U.S. retail liquor, wine and beer sales falling.

As ever, SponsorUnited’s Bob Lynch pulled some germane data. SU says that over the past four years, total sponsorship spending on alcohol (spirits, beer and hard seltzer) rose 18% to around $700 million across what it defines as the “five major U.S. pro sports.”

An average team in the top five sports has just over four spirits deals, according to SU. Within total alcohol, since 2022 spirits total spend shifted from 30 % to 32%.

The tequila market continues to drive a lot of growth within spirits, but the “brown liquors” —bourbon/scotch/whiskey — continue to be the largest sponsorship category at about 35% for 46 brands, declining slightly in spending. Tequila is now 20% of all spirits deals, with Casamigos pacing the way among 33 brands with the biggest total spend and 37 team deals. MLS, NFL and the PGA Tour are growing the most in terms of total deals, SU said.

“It [reported consumption decline] has generated a lot of discussion, but so many of these are multiyear deals, you probably won’t see anything resulting from that for a while,” said Nick Kelly, who heads consultancy Encore Sports & Entertainment and was the former VP/partnerships at Anheuser-Busch InBev. “So many of the big brewers are global. It isn’t impacting them much elsewhere,”

Ready-to-drink cocktails continue to outpace the rest of the category. The combination of those and hard seltzer now has 62 active brands accounting for a spending increase of 35% in two years. Most active brands include Surfside, Sun Cruiser, Top Chico and Cutwater.

Some 18 years after its founding by Rick Jones as FishBait Marketing, the boutique agency known as FishBait Solutions since 2021 is rebranding to Pivotal Sports & Entertainment.

Former ESPN SVP/Programming & Acquisitions Rob Temple joined as CEO and majority equity holder in 2021. “For a few years, I’ve been thinking about contemporizing,” he said. “As we were moving more into media consulting and media rights negotiations, along with our traditional sponsorship consulting, this was to add focus and reflect more where we were heading.”

Fully 75% of the agency’s business still centers on collegiate sports, including one of the most indelible, if not necessarily the largest: the 2007 deal that got Werner Ladders onto the NCAA basketball championships floor as the winning nets are cut.

Other clients of note: E. W. Scripps Co./Scripps Sports and poultry producer Wayne-Sanderson Farms, which has been the SEC’s “official chicken” since 2025 with help from the agency, along with work on the Coca-Cola Bowl Season entitlement, and for Cap One, Aflac, and Dragon Seats.

Under the rebranding, the focus will be on agency of record services, advisory/consulting and property sales.

Following some big deals, here are some agency markers in need of notoriety. Clients never seem to want to share the credit, but we will.

Genesco Sports Enterprises is “relishing” the work on the recent Kraft Heinz NFL sponsorship within the suddenly dynamic condiments category, which also saw a recent K-H deal across more than 50 OVG venues (that deal fashioned by OVG, naturally). For those of you scoring at home that’s either 10 or 11 NFL sponsor clients for Genesco, depending on whether you count Pepsi and Frito-Lay as one or two clients.

Pharma marketer’s AbbVie’s leaguewide MLB expansion of its Cubs “Striking Out Cancer” platform from last season was engineered by Revolution. The deal includes an MLB “official pharma” designation.

And it was Ari Mark at OVG Global Partnerships leading the effort on Zillow’s new sponsorship deal with MLB, which includes Little League Baseball rights. It’s the league’s first deal in that category since the end of the 2006 season, when Century 21 departed after seven years.

“Real estate is hyper local and baseball is similar,” said Zillow VP Brand and Product Marketing Beverly Jackson. As for KPIs on Zillow’s first leaguewide sponsorship? “We’ll be looking at how many of our local agents and brokers are involved in activating,” she said. “And we’ll be tracking whether we’re reaching the target audience of home buyers with the proper amount of reach and engagement.”

Simon Wardle, who spent nearly three decades in sports marketing, including 23 years in market research at Octagon, has retired.

Wardle and his wife are building a house in Waitsfield, Vermont, where the population of 1,800 is not much more than the entire employee count at Octagon. His wife’s grandmother is from the Green Mountain state.

“Her great-uncle ran a ski lodge in the valley in the ’60s, and her grandfather built a house there in 1971, that has been the family ski house for the past 30 years,” he said.

The Brit earned a Ph.D. in aerospace materials from the University of Birmingham in 1991 and spent 23 years at Octagon, most recently as chief strategy officer. Wardle said he notified Octagon CEO John Shea in early February.

“I realized that contrary to what I may have believed, I am not going to live forever, and nothing is guaranteed,” he said.

• SBJ’s Power Players: FIFA World Cup 2026 in marketing circles features Coca-Cola’s Mickael Vinet and Amber Steele, Visa’s Andrea Fairchild, Octagon’s Derek Aframe and Adidas’ Shane Jochum.
• Sustainability/carbon offset company Karbon-X signed sponsorships with Ilitch Sports + Entertainment’s Red Wings and Tigers, making it the “official sustainability partner” for both Detroit teams.
• MLB opened the 2026 season with 46 official sponsors, its biggest lineup in recent memory, reports SBJ’s David Broughton.
• Fanatics and the Bills struck a deal allowing Fanatics to operate e-commerce globally for the team, replacing Legends, writes SBJ’s Ben Fischer. It’s the sports merchandise giant’s 29th NFL team deal.
• Angel City FC signed L.A.-based Tampon Tribe as a sponsor in what is believed to be the NWSL’s first deal in the menstrual care category, reports SBJ’s Alex Silverman.
• Redfin, the real estate website, listed Rocket Arena — which, to be very clear, is not for sale — as part of an expanded arena naming rights deal and marketing activation between the Cavaliers and Rocket Companies, writes SBJ’s Bret McCormick.
• 23XI Racing says a sizzling start to the year on the track is about to dovetail with big commercial moves, like a Bubba Wallace meal deal at Hardee’s and growing hopes of a team shoe deal with Nike’s Air Jordan brand, notes SBJ’s Adam Stern.