WPP Media Sports Is Reinventing Sports Marketing for Growth

Sports marketing is at an inflection point.

The attention is there: live sports remain one of the best places for brands to reliably reach massive, engaged audiences in real time. The way fans engage, move, and transact around sports, however, has fundamentally changed.

That’s why we’re launching WPP Media Sports, a unified sports and gaming practice delivering premier, scalable sports sponsorships, integrations, and content to drive intelligent growth with fans, wherever they are. This practice is an evolution of our longstanding sports leadership, which has been delivering best-in-class media, partnerships, and activations for some of the world’s most valuable sports moments.

WPP Media Sports is built on a simple belief: passion alone isn’t enough to cut through the noise. To deliver real growth, sports investment must be planned, activated, and measured within a broader growth system that reflects how audiences experience sports today — across live events, streaming, social, creators, gaming, and culture. Our approach harnesses fan engagement through content, precision, and scale for lasting performance.

“It’s one thing to be on a fan’s mind during the game, but it’s another thing to stay there after the final whistle,” says Martin Blich, WPP Media Executive Director and Head of U.S. Sports Investment & Partnership. “We focus on making every sports moment count — using data, insights, and tools to help brands turn fleeting attention into lasting engagement and real business impact.” 

According to WPP Media’s latest This Year, Next Year forecast, global advertising revenue is expected to grow 8.8% in 2025, reaching $1.14 trillion, fueled by AI-enabled efficiency, new advertiser categories, and smarter reinvestment of savings back into media. Sports are at the center of that evolution: Live sports continue to anchor streaming growth, command premium attention, and provide cultural relevance at scale. Unlocking its full value now requires a future-forward operating model: one that connects media, partnerships, content, experiential, and analytics, eliminating fragmented planning and disconnected decision-making.

That’s where WPP Media Sports comes in, shifting brands from reactive execution to proactive, holistic sports strategy. By bringing those capabilities together under one integrated practice, WPP Media Sports eliminates fragmented planning and disconnected measurement, enabling brands to plan sports holistically, activate with precision, and optimize continuously over time. 

A core strength of the practice is its fully connected, data-driven foundation. Leveraging proprietary, partner, and marketplace data — and amplified through partnerships with GumGum and Relo Metrics — WPP Media Sports enables real-time sponsorship measurement and contextual intelligence, helping brands understand not just where they show up, but how performance evolves across platforms and moments. 

As WPP Media U.S. Chief Media Officer Susan Schiekofer explains, “Sports delivers unmatched attention. The real challenge is converting it into results. That’s what we do at WPP Media — we bridge the excitement of the game with the rigor of data-driven marketing, ensuring passion translates into performance.” 

Launching in a year defined by major global sports moments, including Super Bowl LX, the Winter Olympics, and the lead-up to the FIFA World Cup 2026, WPP Media Sports is built for a landscape where speed, intelligence, and integration matter more than ever. 

“For millennia, sports has united people and ignited passion across cultures and generations,” says Blich. “Our role is to make sure that power translates into tangible growth, embedding sports strategically into broader marketing and growth plans, so every partnership contributes to measurable impact.” 

The future of sports marketing isn’t about who’s the loudest. It’s about meeting fans where fandom happens, moving beyond one-off moments or games toward connected, multi-year strategies built to last. Through WPP Media Sports, we’re making the passionate tradition of sports smarter, more connected, and built for what comes next.