From a purely rational perspective, watching football is nothing more than entertainment and, consequently, serves very little practical purpose. And that is precisely what makes it so important.
Few industries are as successful as football. Yet there are few activities that are so seemingly irrelevant. Despite the apparent contradiction, this is a truth that is difficult to dispute. When a football match ends, inflation remains unchanged. No cure for a disease has been discovered. No technological innovation has emerged. The housing crisis has not been solved, and public debt has, in all likelihood, remained largely unaffected.
From a purely rational perspective, watching football is nothing more than entertainment and, consequently, serves very little practical purpose. And that is precisely what makes it so important.
Marketing teaches us that value rarely lies in utility alone. More often than not, it lies in meaning and emotion. We do not buy a watch simply to tell the time, nor a sports car to reach our destination faster, nor a bottle of fine wine because we are thirsty. We buy symbols, and among them, football stands as our greatest global collective symbol.
Football has the unique ability to serve as perhaps the only universal language capable of bringing millions of people together around a single narrative: the game itself. At a time when consumption is becoming increasingly individualised, as illustrated by social media, football continues to create tribes and generate a profound sense of belonging.
As a result, eleven people wearing the same shirt and chasing a ball can achieve what brands with multi-million-dollar budgets often cannot: create irrational passion and absolute, transgenerational loyalty.
This is why some of the greatest examples of engagement, community building, customer retention, and advocacy emerge and thrive around football, making it the world’s largest emotional platform. And, consequently, one of its most saturated.
There are thousands of sponsors, thousands of messages, and thousands more activations competing for attention. The battle for a few seconds of audience focus is immense, particularly in an industry where the main protagonists are the results, the players, and the clubs themselves. Very few sponsors manage to move beyond simple visibility to create genuine meaning through their presence.
And this is where smaller sports begin to reveal an unexpected competitive advantage: they offer something that football has gradually been losing — proximity.
In basketball, for example, communities may be smaller, but they are also more engaged. Athletes are more accessible. Fans feel closer to their clubs. This creates a unique opportunity for a brand to become more than just another logo on a jersey and instead become an agent of local and national transformation. And the difference between being present and being relevant is enormous.
Football will continue to be the world’s greatest spectacle. But the next great marketing success story will not emerge from a packed stadium. It will emerge where there is still room for a brand to be recognised and to make a meaningful difference. Where the “irrelevance” of sport ceases to be an obstacle and ultimately becomes its greatest advantage.
Opinion piece by João Santos, COO at WYgroup, written for ECO +M
