Mumbai: WPP Media has announced the launch of WPP Media Sports, a unified sports and gaming practice designed to help brands unlock intelligent, measurable growth from sports marketing in an increasingly fragmented fan ecosystem.
As live sports continue to command premium attention and real-time engagement, WPP Media said the way fans engage, transact, and move across platforms has fundamentally evolved. WPP Media Sports brings together sponsorships, partnerships, content, gaming, data, and analytics into a single, integrated operating model to reflect how audiences experience sports today—across live events, streaming, social, creators, gaming, and culture.
The new practice builds on WPP Media’s long-standing sports leadership, evolving it into a scalable growth engine that moves beyond passion-led activations toward outcome-driven strategies.
“It’s one thing to be on a fan’s mind during the game, but it’s another thing to stay there after the final whistle,” said Martin Blich, WPP Media Executive Director and Head of U.S. Sports Investment & Partnership. “We focus on making every sports moment count — using data, insights, and tools to help brands turn fleeting attention into lasting engagement and real business impact.”
According to WPP Media’s This Year, Next Year forecast, global advertising revenue is expected to grow 8.8% in 2025 to reach $1.14 trillion, driven by AI-enabled efficiency, new advertiser categories, and smarter reinvestment into media. Live sports remain central to this evolution, anchoring streaming growth, delivering cultural relevance at scale, and commanding premium attention. However, WPP Media noted that unlocking its full value now requires a future-forward, connected operating model.
WPP Media Sports addresses this shift by eliminating fragmented planning and disconnected measurement. By integrating media, partnerships, content, experiential marketing, and analytics under one practice, brands can plan holistically, activate with precision, and optimise continuously over time.
A key strength of the practice lies in its data-driven foundation. Leveraging proprietary, partner, and marketplace data—along with partnerships with GumGum and Relo Metrics—WPP Media Sports enables real-time sponsorship measurement and contextual intelligence, helping brands understand not just visibility, but performance across platforms and moments.
“Sports delivers unmatched attention. The real challenge is converting it into results. That’s what we do at WPP Media — we bridge the excitement of the game with the rigor of data-driven marketing, ensuring passion translates into performance,” said Susan Schiekofer, Chief Media Officer, WPP Media U.S.
Launching in a year marked by major global sports moments, including Super Bowl LX, the Winter Olympics, and the lead-up to the FIFA World Cup 2026, WPP Media Sports is positioned for a landscape where speed, intelligence, and integration are critical.
“For millennia, sports has united people and ignited passion across cultures and generations,” added Blich. “Our role is to make sure that power translates into tangible growth, embedding sports strategically into broader marketing and growth plans, so every partnership contributes to measurable impact.”
With WPP Media Sports, the company aims to move sports marketing beyond one-off moments toward connected, multi-year strategies—making sports smarter, more integrated, and built for sustained growth in a rapidly evolving media environment.
