Airlines are investing more in soccer and other mainstream sports than ever, but is it driving standout results or getting lost in the noise?
In 2024, airline sponsorship reached new highs. With 296 active deals and 152 new ones already signed (GlobalData). Airline brands are raising their profile across sport partnership portfolios, driven by rights-owner promises of massive global reach, cultural relevance, and strategic association.
Football alone accounts for over $692 million (GlobalData) of that spend. While it’s the most invested category, the opportunity to stand out still exists, thanks to relatively low sponsorship clutter, at just 2.7% on the Luscid platform. There appears to be a massive bias to the biggest properties, with plenty of smaller rights owners not seeing a slice of this substantial pie.
Major airline brands like Emirates, Qatar Airways, and Malaysia Airlines have signed high-profile, multi-year sponsorships in recent years; those deals are increasingly spread across multiple sports, including basketball, tennis, and more. And they’re not alone. From Formula 1 to Baseball, airline brands have snapped up deals across the tier 1 properties, with the unfortunate outcome of creating a saturated stage of familiar logos, all competing for attention, differentiation and relevance.
This is where the visibility challenge begins.
Visibility Isn’t One-Size-Fits-All
As we’ve noted, many airline brands are turning to the same high-profile team-based properties for impact. In fact, 46% of the sector’s total annual sports sponsorship spend goes to specific teams (GlobalData).
Soccer dominates investment, and while clutter is officially low, the competition for attention is high within the biggest properties in the most popular sports, and finding cut-through requires great synergy, both to drive real-world business results and we suspect increasingly to justify the massive fees.
Where is the investment and What Does It Mean for Visibility?
Luscid’s proprietary technology reveals where airline sponsorship activity is concentrated, and where opportunities remain to potentially go a different way and cast a new path.
Here’s how key sports stack up in terms of visibility, efficiency and brand clutter:
Note: Formula E and Winter Sports are also emerging as valuable options, with 0-5% clutter and growing visibility.
The data reveals both saturation and standout potential, depending on where you look.
Not Just the Size of the Stage, but the Number of Voices On It
Each of these properties offers different trade-offs between scale, brand fit, and clutter. While F1 and major soccer teams deliver vast audiences and premium equity, the cost is increased competition to gain attention.
Not all airlines are the same. A global long-haul carrier looking to build prestige might embrace that visibility battle. A regional or domestic airline with tighter budgets and different goals? They need precision, not noise.
Brands looking to lead should consider not just how big the stage is, but how many other voices are shouting on it.
That’s where underutilised spaces like cycling (average partnership deal size $500k) and winter sports ($260k) stand out. These are high-efficiency, lower-clutter platforms that align with typical airline brand values and target audience demographics. These environments allow opportunities for brands to command attention and lead the conversation from likely highly grateful rights-owners. The question arises if each property delivers the raw scale required, but a combination of the properties mitigates this concern, although it may require more effort to manage than a global giant alone.
Luscid’s Take: Where Visibility Gets Smarter
With $548 million worth of airline sponsorships that expired in 2024, this is a pivotal moment for strategic resets.
The strategy should match and reflect the objectives, and that’s exactly what Luscid is designed to help with:
- Don’t just follow the crowd. Soccer, Motorsport and Basketball are packed with airline deals, but that doesn’t mean they’re the wrong move. If the aim is to defend market share or block a competitor, that might be exactly where they need to be.
- Find more ownable platforms. Sports like Athletics, Winter Sports and Tennis offer premium value with significantly more breathing room.
- Make visibility the strategy. Invest where your brand isn’t one of many, it’s the one that leads.
- Back clarity over clutter. A smaller stage with fewer logos can deliver more cut-through and tangible value than even the biggest events in the world.
What This Looks Like in Action
Take a challenger long-haul airline launching new routes between Eastern Europe and Asia. Awareness is low. Budgets are tight. Every decision needs to work harder.
Using Luscid, they can:
- Identify high-impact and efficient properties like cycling and winter sports, where competition is very low and alignment and impact are still high.
- Understand where competitors are most active and also where your brand has room to lead and own space.
- Select sponsorships with the strongest potential for maximum efficiency and impact.
The result? A high-impact investment aligned to the brand values and objectives, engineered for visibility and brand advantage.
Ready to Rethink Your Sponsorship Strategy?
The breakthrough doesn’t come from spending more. It comes from knowing where each brand can lead a new flight path, finding the properties that align with key brand values and where the opportunity for genuine cut-through with valuable audiences is highest.
Want to know where to go next and how to outpace the competition when you do? Let’s talk. Luscid turns noisy sponsorship decisions into clear brand advantages.
