Maria Ntolkou: “We remembered Como FC through the presence of Hollywood stars in the stands”

Maria Ntolkou
Head of the specialized sponsorship evaluation service Sponsorvalue at Innews

How is a sponsorship evaluated and measured in a football team? What are the indicators that verify whether a sponsorship has achieved or not its purpose?

Measuring sponsorship and its holistic evaluation has been my professional daily routine for the last 5 years. As the head of the specialized service Sponsorvalue that deals with the monitoring, measurement and evaluation of sports sponsorship programs, I monitor daily with our team of analysts, the sponsorships of clients who have trusted us faithfully for the last 15 years, helping them to offer their sponsors as additional value the Sponsorship Evaluation Reports that we implement for them.

These reports measure the appearance of logos and the mention of sponsors in the media and more specifically in Television (live matches, broadcasts, news bulletins), in Online and Printed media as well as in Social Media. Through modern recording and monitoring software and based on the internationally accepted rule of Return on Investment – ROI, i.e. the return of the sponsorship investment, we measure the appearances, the duration of the projection and the sponsorship value that the investments of sponsors in teams, leagues and sports events bring. From the media measurement of the presence of sponsors, we can extract the results that will help us understand whether a sponsorship is effective or not, whether the projections of the logos in the various positions on the field “write” well and highlight the presence of the sponsors, whether improvements and changes are needed, etc.

However, for a sponsorship evaluation to be complete, other elements that are characterized as intangible assets must be taken into account, such as the status and popularity of a sport or a team, the fan base, sponsorship activations, the number of spectators at a match, the duration of a sponsorship partnership, etc. These elements can be adequately evaluated with targeted, sports research, which we additionally offer to our clients so that they have a measurable and complete picture of the value of their sponsorship programs.

From my experience, I have found that what sponsors in sports are looking for most is the connection with a passionate and dynamic community, such as that of sports fans, making the most of the multi-channel platform of sports, the continuous content they generate, as well as the much-desired awareness that will connect them with sports and allow them to reach even larger audiences with consumer dispositions. Once upon a time, sponsorship was another form of advertising for a brand through sports. In the modern era, the choice of what and how to sponsor is a result of the marketing strategy that will help the sponsor create the stories that will connect them afterwards both with the team they sponsor and with its fans.

What is the role of social media in the marketing strategy of teams? Have you noticed any changes in recent years?

From 2012, when, as part of my postgraduate research on the use of social media in the marketing strategy of Greek professional football and basketball teams, I interviewed the teams’ commercial directors, to today when as a doctoral candidate in Visual Culture, I research the use of images in athletes’ Social Media, a lot of water has flowed in the gutter of the sports industry, both domestic and foreign. In modern professional sports, teams and athletes are essentially brands that increasingly resemble other businesses in terms of management and administration, while sport managers adopt a long-term perspective on the sports experience, facing a multitude of challenges in the modern environment such as the ever-increasing needs of the sports fan/sports consumer and the intense competition of the broader leisure industry, with its diverse choices for entertainment and recreation.

The challenge is to recognize and positively and constructively utilize the identification of the sports fan/consumer with the team they love and to further strengthen the unique connections in their minds about it. New technologies and social media in particular, help in this as they create and strengthen online communities of fans, leading to an inevitable mutation of classic marketing strategies into flexible and adaptive forms.

TikTok in particular seems to have established itself as the most unexpectedly catalyst for shaping a modern strategy in sports today, with viral, stormy, continuous video with short-term content, creating new cultural trends and inspiring the creation of a sports fandom that stems from a huge, global community that uses it fanatically. SportsTok 2025, the platform’s latest guide to the sports content shared through it, is revealing in its results (you can read it here) and clearly shows the impact of the medium on sports today.

Therefore, with the sports fan at its core, modern sports marketing and its strategies depend crucially on technology and its tools that open new paths to interaction and connection with fans (fan engagement). In the modern sports marketing mix, components such as mobile apps, gaming technology, fantasy sports platforms, esports, Artificial Intelligence (AI) technology and generally the technologically advanced and highly effective content that is created, offer teams many opportunities to connect with their fans and integrate them even more into their environment, with customer-centric and original campaigns that often even use the users’ own content. And it is precisely this fan-centric strategy that has modernized modern sports marketing and pushes sports marketers to try to find increasingly imaginative and creative ways to offer the fan a holistic, sports experience, making them feel an integral part of the team.

If we were to make an assessment for the coming years, how do you see the evolution of sponsorships? Will there be new tools of sponsorship?

I will not try to be Isaac Asimov who will discover new life in the world of sports, but the sports sponsorship of the future will not be based solely on who has the biggest budget but on how to create the best story to connect with fans and teams. Certainly, the financial benefit is still the main issue, especially for small and medium-sized teams where sponsorship revenues constitute the main source of financing along with those from television rights. However, the contribution of technology offers alternatives for creating original content that the teams and athletes themselves can exploit commercially. This development can free them somewhat from the constant stress of “we have to find sponsors” and make them more open to sponsorship cooperation with other categories of companies, beyond the classic ones (betting companies, etc.). 

Modern sports fans are not simple spectators, they are conscious participants in a complete experience such as sports, informed about the issues that concern the planet such as climate change and environmental protection. This leads the stakeholders of the sports market to harmonize with their needs and to seek new categories of sponsors to include them in their commercial portfolio. Sustainability in sports and environmental protection, along with a number of important social issues such as inclusion and gender equality, are now leading to new, multi-level partnerships with sponsors who, in turn, wish to positively connect with the sports audience and the modern, ecologically and socially conscious modern consumers of the generations that follow Generation Z. 

I also hope that athletes will further strengthen their commercial and sponsorship value, provided that they strengthen their personal expression and education and realize the dynamic influence they can have on society and the younger generations that follow them. In the Sports and Entertainment environment, their stories and successes continue to be of great interest to sports fans, which is also evident from the continuous content of sports documentaries that flood the Netflix platform and other media. The connection of sports, fiction and star actors also creates new environments full of Hollywood stardust, under which are found intelligent new strategies for promoting sports teams as brands. Even we in the football world remembered the Como FC team through the constant presence of Hollywood stars in its stands such as Benedict Cumberbatch, Hugh Grant and Keira Knightley, as they were captured in the international media. Or we followed with undiminished interest the investment of Ryan Reynolds and Rob McElhenney in Welsh Wrexham through the popular sports documentary “Welcome to Wrexham”. The documentary was absolutely popular and successfully promoted the team’s brand, so much so that it secured additional sponsorships with companies that I suspect did not even know where Wrexham was located before.

In the past, we have been seeing sponsors on football kits with different business activities. For example, we had Barilla at Roma, Sharp at Manchester United or Nintendo at Fiorentina. Now we mainly have betting companies or even cryptocurrency companies dominating the market. What has changed?

Especially the Manchester United jersey in the 90s, as even we Liverpool fans remembered it from the extremely successful sports documentary “Beckham” on Netflix, has marked sports fashion and pop culture forever, along with the connection of the Sharp brand with the club.

The wider sports market has changed, following the smart interconnection of betting companies initially and cryptocurrency companies subsequently with sports brands. Cryptocurrencies in particular are enjoying a second honeymoon after Trump’s election in the US (let’s not forget that the orange planet leader himself launched his own cryptocurrency before the US elections). And despite many doubts about the security of transactions or the general importance of their existence in the global economic ecosystem, cryptocurrencies are increasingly investing in sports sponsorships, in an effort to reach even larger audiences, increase their financial agreements, and generally diversify their investment portfolio. A recent example is the investment of the company Tether Holdings by acquiring a minority stake in the Juventus team.

Betting companies are still firmly in the strongholds of sports sponsorship, with enough budget for investment and reshaping their image through extensive Corporate Social Responsibility programs, which run in parallel with the corresponding sponsorships. This is basically true in Greece and some other European countries, but the most commercial championship in the world, the English Premier League, has decided to completely ban the display of betting companies on the jerseys of the teams participating in its championship from the 2026-2027 season, taking into account the serious incidents of gambling addiction and involvement in betting scandals of its football players. Of course, since it would not be possible to ban betting companies from appearing on team kits forever, the loophole in the ban is that it only concerns the front of the jersey, leaving free areas such as the sleeve and sportswear, along with of course the display positions on the pitch. Another factor that helps betting companies to develop sports sponsorships even more is the opening of new markets such as Latin America. A typical example is the vast betting and online gambling market in Brazil. In the country, they love gambling on the internet and despite the lack of a regulatory framework and regulations, the popularity of the games is enormous and Brazilian users fanatically pay their respects to the altar of online luck. Now, with the Brazilian market licensed and regulated, players enjoy their game on legal websites, while betting companies are happily discovering the benefits of entering a promising market, strengthening their presence and awareness through sponsorships to teams and federations in the country.

“The match is starting, the streets are empty…” sang Loukianos Kilaidonis decades ago or more recently the lyrics of Greek rapper Lex read “Humble and hungry with Aris”. How connected is football to society and popular culture and how sponsorship and the perception of the sport as a commercial product can penetrate into this relationship?

And my beloved fellow countryman Thanasis Papakonstantinou has also very vividly captured with his verse “Life is a cake and AEL is the icing on top of it” the joy that my own favorite team offered back in the 80s, breaking with its frenetic course the then establishment of the big teams and flooding its fans with feelings of pride (FORZA AEL). Football has always been and will always be connected to popular culture and has long been the subject of analysis, studies, sociological approaches, historical retrospectives and philosophical research. The modernity of the sport, its postmodern aspects, the “Against Modern Football” movement as a rallying cry challenging the turn the sport has taken due to relentless commercialization, constantly stir up an ongoing debate about what football ultimately means to people today and to what extent it influences the formation of modern civilization and pop culture.

Football is connected to society, but to what extent and with which social strata it is the subject of a great debate. Part of the fan movements is teetering between violence and delinquency and seems to have been disoriented from the original purpose which was the sincere support of the beloved team together with the democratic and progressive highlighting of social issues through solidarity and collectivity. The sports market treats the sport as a machine for making billions and achieving lucrative commercial agreements while even the football players themselves are transformed into social media influencers of different speeds, without actually thinking about their basic status, that of a worker who in the vast majority of cases is not guaranteed decent work and the guarantee of his basic labor rights. The global bodies of the sport, amidst accusations of corruption and laundering (sportswashing), organize mega events such as the World Cup, with the assistance of regimes that are burdened with multiple accusations, without ensuring transparency. A glimmer of light seems to be the increasing integration of women in the sport and the successes of female footballers who respond with trophies to the patriarchal, raised eyebrows of still male-dominated sports environments.

Football is also a commercial product, however, it is a special product, with an involvement of realism and romance at the same time and with excessive emotions that flow from huge, passionate audiences who love their team and everything about it. The fact that commercial companies, through sports sponsorships, try to exploit this explosive composition to their advantage is an inevitable condition and, as long as this relationship is properly regulated, it contributes to the development of the sport and provides funding to teams so that they can survive and develop in an increasingly competitive environment.