How long should a sponsorship last? Are a few months enough for such a complex tool to work, or are longer exposure cycles needed? Sponsorship is in fact a special case of the Life Cycle, one that needs its own timing and rhythm. Today we try to answer an important question: after how long, and for how long, does sponsorship pay off?

Article published in January 2023. At the end you will find an update written in September 2026.

Fans and enthusiasts will not have missed, in those days of January 2023, the announcement that two important partnerships of Scuderia Ferrari in Formula 1 were ending: the one with the cryptocurrency Velas and the one with the processor maker Qualcomm, present under the Snapdragon brand.

The news of Velas leaving Maranello comes at the end of a turbulent period for the cryptocurrency market and follows other significant departures, from the lesser-discussed Fantom to the far better known FTX. We are most likely looking at a natural moment in the life of an industry, Web 3.0, still searching for its stability, with a patchy, stop-and-start picture in which companies of extraordinary solidity stand beside others with shakier foundations.

As for the non-renewal of Snapdragon, it is the team itself that says both parties agreed not to continue down the road they had travelled together after the first year of the contract. A consensual goodbye, then, and one that respects the twelve-month contract signed at the start of 2022.

The duration of sports sponsorship

Setting aside the reasons, the predictability and the significance of the termination or non-renewal of a sponsorship contract, the question of sponsorship duration is central for anyone working in sports marketing.

As we have said many times on this blog, sports sponsorship is a three-dimensional object, very deep in its psychological, behavioural and motivational implications. One of the main differences from the other tools of the marketing mix and of communication lies precisely in how it handles time.

If we interpret a brand’s sponsorship of a given sports property as a product, in marketing terms, it becomes interesting to analyse and understand what the very particular PLC (Product Life Cycle) of sponsorship is, and what its implications are, in terms of time, for practical applications.

Product Life Cycle and the life of a product

Without wanting to go into long theoretical discussions that do not belong on these pages, a product’s life cycle is typically divided into four phases plus one, as the diagram below shows.

The chart puts on the X axis the time elapsed since the product was conceived and on the Y axis the economic result in terms of sales. The curve, or locus of points, traced by each moment of a product’s life is precisely the Product Life Cycle.

In the typical pattern, a development phase, meaning conception and study, is followed by an introduction phase, a growth phase, a maturity phase and finally a decline phase. It is a very natural pattern, typical of the vast majority of goods and services we know, and it sees in the maturity phase the most important moment of economic return.

The life cycle of the sports sponsorship product

Studies and experience in the field tell us that the shape of the PLC curve is significantly different when we analyse the sports sponsorship product, as the diagram below shows.

There are basically two reasons for this difference:

1. A fifth phase is added, between maturity and growth, which we call sedimentation here, and which adds a growth profile to the curve.
2. Because of the characteristics of the sports market and the different kind of meaning sport has in the life of the consumer-spectator, the decline period is replaced by a maintenance phase which, despite an initial drop in effectiveness, then stabilises over the years.

The sedimentation phase

After the growth phase, which typically takes place during the first year of a sponsorship agreement, the sponsorship does not enter the maturity phase straight away. This is in fact the moment when one of the most interesting phenomena of sports marketing occurs: the overlap, in the consumer’s mind, between the positive values of the sports property and those of the brand.

While in the growth phase the effectiveness of sponsorship is mainly tied to brand awareness, in the sedimentation phase the effectiveness of the tool has to do with a purely psychological phenomenon: the overlap of the positive perception that comes from the sport with that of the brand. This phenomenon, which typically happens during the second year of a partnership, causes a repositioning in the consumer’s mind, in a completely autonomous and non-directed way, of extraordinary effectiveness.

Take the example of Formula 1 sponsorship by a new hi-tech brand. The first year of the contract is very useful for putting the brand in front of millions of consumers. Formula 1’s very high global visibility raises the product’s brand awareness enormously, while the repetition of the brand across several races during the year guarantees excellent coverage of the target and a repetition of brand visibility.

However, it is only from the second year that consumers will begin to attribute to the new hi-tech brand the characteristics of speed, performance, prestige and effectiveness taken from the value system of Formula 1. This sedimentation phase, in which the values of F1 settle onto the perception of the brand, is long and here too benefits from repeated exposure, enriching the brand with new characteristics from time to time.

The final maintenance

A successful sponsorship programme in fact never knows a real decline.

In the minds and hearts of the fans of a sport, if you have stayed long enough (theory says it takes 5 years for this to happen), the bond between sponsor and sports property remains indelible even when the contract between the parties has ended.

This is the case of the great motorsport sponsorships, such as those between McLaren and Marlboro (1974-1996), Repsol and Honda HRC (1995-2024), Canon and Williams (1985-1993) and many other excellent examples. But it is also the case of sponsorships outside motorsport, such as the historic ones between Sharp and Manchester United (1982-2000) and between JVC and Arsenal (1981-1999).

If it is clear that this is another of the reasons why sports sponsorship is an excellent marketing tool, it is equally true and obvious that for this situation to occur you must give the tool time to express itself fully and to release all its effectiveness.

Sponsorship timing and effectiveness

The timing of sponsorship is a topic we have insisted on on several occasions, because it is absolutely peculiar. This is true both for the time it takes to get into a partnership programme and for the time it takes to come out of it.

Unlike other tools, sponsorship is not completely “plug and play”, but needs a learning curve of introduction and application that can be eased with the advice of a sports marketing agency specialised in the field. Contacts, applications, activations, logistics, management and measurement of sponsorship are extremely specific and particular aspects of sport, a world that moves on entirely its own geographies and time horizons: learning and handling them with good timing can be hard without the right support, especially at the start.

On the other hand, at the end of the programme, as we have seen, sponsorship can offer opportunities, advantages and resources that go well beyond the duration of the agreement. Good partnerships can, in short, keep paying off even after you have stopped paying for them, extending memory and effectiveness through the emotional and psychological components of sport.

Managing this timing well, so as to match it with the company’s other phases and take advantage of the many opportunities that arise between one phase and another, is as much an art as a science, but here too lie the many advantages of a tool that is proving ever more effective and rich in opportunities for companies and industrial groups of all types and sizes.

2026 update: what happened next

When we wrote these pages, in January 2023, Ferrari had just closed two deals: the one with Velas, which the team said it had terminated early and on which it declined to comment further because it was the subject of a dispute, and the one with Snapdragon, a one-year commitment that the two parties chose not to extend. Two different stories with one thing in common: neither deal got past the first year, that is, the moment when sponsorship has just finished building awareness and has not yet started to settle values. The years that followed confirm the model.

On one side are the partnerships that last. Petronas has been a Mercedes partner since 2010, and the team announced a multi-year renewal that takes the deal beyond 2026, with a focus on sustainable fuels: the kind of collaboration in which the brand is not just on the car but inside the team.

On the other side are the partnerships that end, even very long ones. Repsol and Honda shared thirty years, from 1995 to 2024, and won fifteen riders’ titles together in the premier class. Then Marc Márquez’s departure from Honda changed the balance: in 2024 Repsol made its logo less visible, and from 2025 the team is Honda HRC Castrol, with Castrol, already a sponsor in the LCR team, becoming title sponsor on a multi-year deal that includes a technical partnership. The maintenance phase is real, but it is not eternal: a sponsorship goes on as long as it keeps generating value for both parties.

There is also a market fact that, for anyone entering Formula 1 today, is the practical version of this theory. Almost all teams ask for a minimum commitment of two years, and below 2 million dollars a year you can no longer buy anything: there is no such thing as sponsoring a single race. It is the same logic as the life cycle: the first year builds awareness and the second is when F1’s values begin to settle on the brand. The investment levels are in our guide to the cost of Formula 1 sponsorship.

If you are weighing how long a deal should last, or what to do when a cycle is about to end, two further reads may help: one on renewal, renegotiation or switching at the end of a cycle and one on the one-year versus multi-year contract in MotoGP.

Sources for the update: GrandPrix247, Ferrari and Velas; BlackBook Motorsport, Velas and Snapdragon; BlackBook Motorsport, Mercedes and Petronas; Formula 1, Mercedes and Petronas; Motorsport.com, Honda, Castrol and the end of Repsol; The Race, the Honda without Repsol.