Charlotte’s three major-league sports franchises generated a combined $110 million in sponsorship revenue during their most recent full seasons, an increase of 8% over the previous year, according to a new industry analysis.
Stamford, Connecticut-based SponsorUnited, a data and tracking firm, compiled the figures as part of a study published this month looking at nine sports cities and regions.
Three of the cities — Austin, Texas; Las Vegas; and Charlotte — were categorized as fast-growing emerging markets. Seven of the nine are in North America; the others are London and Madrid.
The three Charlotte teams in the analysis are the NFL Carolina Panthers, MLS Charlotte FC and NBA Charlotte Hornets.
SponsorUnited and other firms typically analyze and estimate sponsorship revenue by team, league or sport, not by geographic area.
Bob Lynch, SponsorUnited CEO, shared the financial data during an interview this week with CBJ. The report does not include financial figures but instead provides breakdowns by company and industry of sponsorship share within sports and music in Charlotte.
Overall, sports sponsorships are worth a combined $125 million annually in Charlotte, according to SponsorUnited. That figure includes minor-league teams such as the Charlotte Knights and Charlotte Checkers as well as the Charlotte 49ers college athletics program.
Not included in that figure: NASCAR, the PGA Tour’s annual Wells Fargo Championship and the annual neutral-site college football games sponsored by Duke’s Mayo.
Because there are only nine cities ranked of various sizes, it’s hard to draw direct comparisons — and it’s also impossible to assign a specific ranking to Charlotte as a sports market, though SponsorUnited may explore such comparisons in subsequent studies.
Remember, too, that sponsorship revenue is just one part of the financial model for sports teams. They share league-wide revenue such as national media rights fees and licensed-product sales while also generating revenue from ticket sales, concessions and facility rentals, among other things. Each NFL team receives $400 million in league-shared revenue alone — before considering local sales of any kind.
Lynch said the sponsorship numbers here surprised him.
“That’s pretty significant, that’s not a small ecosystem of investment,” he said. “I never really put my eyes on one market like that and realized just how big it is.”
Lynch estimated North Carolina as a whole with pro and college sports approaches $300 million in combined sponsorship revenue.
Leaving out NASCAR is significant: According to London-based GlobalData, companies spend $425 million per year on NASCAR sponsorships, including league and team contracts. Some of that goes elsewhere as the circuit makes its way around the country to various tracks and the sanctioning body has its headquarters in Florida. Still, nearly every major team has its headquarters in the Charlotte region, NASCAR itself has major business units here and Charlotte Motor Speedway hosts two major races annually.
Adding MLS team Charlotte FC seems to have strengthened the sponsorship market, Lynch said.
“It is a very healthy sports market,” he said. “And when you have Charlotte FC come in a few years ago — oftentimes people say, oh, another major professional sports team, that’s going to just chop up the amount of dollars that are currently being spent. It’s actually just the opposite.”
The average sponsorship for Charlotte FC, the Panthers and the Hornets sells for $608,000 per year, the company determined.
The sponsorship analysis includes the 15 most active brands and companies in sports and music — combined — for each market. It does not include estimated spending totals.
In Charlotte, the most active spenders, in order, are:
- Atrium Health
- Bank of America
- Ally Financial
- Harris Teeter
- Bud Light
- Novant Health
- Lowe’s
- Coca-Cola Consolidated
- Bojangles
- Blue Cross Blue Shield of North Carolina
- Spectrum
- Ticketmaster
- Coca-Cola
- Honeywell
- Daimler Truck North America
To the surprise of absolutely no one, SponsorUnited determined that the most active industry for sponsorships in the Charlotte area is banking. Examples include Bank of America Stadium, home to the Panthers and Charlotte FC; Truist Field, home to the Triple A Knights; Ally, the lead sponsor of Charlotte FC; and the Wells Fargo Championship golf tournament, which many expect to align with a different major bank (hello, Truist) starting in 2025.
Expanding to music, banks have their names on two amphitheaters here: PNC Pavilion and Skyla Credit Union Amphitheatre.
