Weirdly enough, sponsoring a winning football team hurts a company’s stock price more than sponsoring a team that just ties.
SSRN · March 18, 2026 · 6274198
The Takeaway
While you might expect a victory to provide the best marketing boost, this study of UEFA sponsors found that matches ending in draws generated the highest abnormal returns for the sponsoring firm's shareholders. This suggests that the 'attention' and prolonged media exposure of a tense draw is more valuable to investors than the positive sentiment of a win.
From the abstract
The purpose of this paper is to empirically assess whether exposure of a main sponsor's logo on the shirts of clubs competing in UEFA competitions under the new format in the 2024/2025 season translates into a short-term increase in shareholder value for publicly listed sponsor firms and whether the market reaction depends on the sporting context. The study applies an event-study design using daily data. Expected returns are estimated within the Fama-French five-factor model in the estimation wi