Financial brands have steadily come to dominate venue naming rights sponsorships within US sports, accounting for 35% of deals in the highly competitive sector across the five major pro sports. Notably, financial companies stateside far outpace their industry counterparts in Europe, which account for just 8% of these marquee partnerships within the top five soccer leagues across the pond.  

Banking brands are driving this growth, representing 58% of these deals with 20 unique brands across 26 partnerships. Industry giants including Bank of America, Capital One, Chase, PNC Bank, and Scotiabank have multiple naming rights sponsorships, highlighting the financial sector's aggressive pursuit of sports marketing opportunities. The emergence of fintech brands in this arena is especially noteworthy: the sector has secured four headline—making deals since having no naming rights presence in 2019—marking them as serious “challenger” brands to traditional banking and other financial subcategories.

Current FinTech Naming Rights Deals:

• Acrisure Stadium - Pittsburgh Steelers and University of Pittsburgh Panthers
• Q2 Stadium - Austin FC
• PayPal Park - San Jose Earthquakes and Bay FC
• SoFi Stadium - Los Angeles Chargers and Los Angeles Rams

The strategic inclusion of venue assets in 73% of financial naming rights deals reflects brands’ enduring efforts to maximize TV visibility and audience engagement: assets like fixed logo/name on videoboard, digital ads on videoboards, and ribbon board digital ads comprise components of more than 80% of these sponsorships. 

Given the FinTech industry’s impressive inroads into these big-ticket sponsorships so far—and its steadfast ambition to cultivate younger, tech-savvy audiences with innovative branding strategies and a keen focus on digital engagement—expect FinTech brands to further expand their footprint in the sponsorship industry within the next five years, as they battle traditional banking institutions for premier marketing partnerships.

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