ABX Sports Impact Index, 2026
Sport buys the audience. Your creative decides what happens next.
ABX measured 1,009 in-market ads across 14 major tournaments, 7 sports, 16 countries, and 6 media types. Sports fans gave the same ads far higher scores. Whether that attention works for the brand still comes down to the creative.
The question
40%of national US TV advertising is now tied to sports.
Super Bowl spots, tournament sponsorships, athlete deals, streaming rights. It is some of the most expensive real estate in media, so the call now sits with the CEO and the CFO as much as the CMO. Each of them is asking a version of the same question.
- CEOIs this growing the brand and our position in the market?
- CFOWhat did we get back, and where is the waste?
- CMOCan I defend this budget when it comes up again?
Is the spend building brand value, or just buying visibility? Impressions and reach can't tell you.
The question
Most sports measurement stops at the seat.
What most brands report
- Impressions
- Reach
- Clicks
- ROI unknown
What ABX reads
- Creative quality
- Audience response
- Brand reputation
- Purchase intent
- Business value
Live event data can tell you an ad ran and people saw it. Sometimes it shows clicks or a bump in sales. It can't tell you why the ad worked, why it didn't, or how it stacked up against the other brands in the same break.
If you judge sports on impressions and reach, you are measuring the cost of the seat, not the value of the ad.
The hidden variable
How much of an ad's sales effect comes from the creative?
Not the media plan or the targeting. The ad itself. Make your guess, then see what the research found.
The hidden variable
The creative tracked sales more closely than the spend did.
In an ABX case analysis for a skincare brand, the creative's Call to Action score tracked sales at a correlation of about 0.70. Media spend tracked at about 0.32.
That is the number a CFO cares about. Spend buys the seat. The creative decides whether anyone buys the product.
Fund the measurement, and you can defend the media.
How closely each one moved with sales
Correlation runs from 0, no relationship, to 1.0, moving exactly with sales.
The 2026 read
Every ad, scored twice.
Once by the general population, which gives the ABX Index. Once by sports fans, which gives the ABX Sports Impact Index. Both are set against the cross-media norm of 100 and a database of 600,000+ in-market ads.
Media types: TV, online video, online display, print, radio, and out-of-home.
The 14 tournaments, by ads tested
Ads that ran in more than one event are counted in each, so the event totals add to 1,154.
The 2026 read
Same ads. Sports fans scored them far higher.
Across all 1,009 ads, the biggest gains landed where the business case lives: Reputation and Purchase Intent. Every one of the 30 industries measured saw a lift.
Sports fans amplify what is already in the ad. Weak creative gets a much smaller lift.
The 2026 read
The lift holds in every sport.
Across all seven sports, fans scored the same ads 13 to 17 percent higher than the general population did. Where each sport started still depended on the creative.
The audience shows up for every sport. What it does next depends on the ad.
The 2026 read
Same tournament. Very different fans.
ABX scored 469 World Cup soccer ads in the markets where they ran, against local norms. Spain and the United Kingdom had the strongest creative. The biggest fan lift came in the United States, the UK, and Canada, all at 17 percent. In Mexico and Brazil it was 6 and 7.
If your sports creative runs in more than one country, one global average hides the markets where it isn't working.
World Cup ads across TV, online video, online display, print, radio, and out-of-home. Percent is the sports-fan lift.
The 2026 read
Find your category.
Creative strength in sports varied widely by industry. So did the lift from fans.
Every category saw a lift among sports fans. Pick yours to see where it landed.
Industries with 15 or more ads evaluated, ordered by general-population score as shown in the ABX report. Norms by media type and industry are available on request.
What moves the score
A sports theme or a famous face won't do the work for you.
ABX compared 210 US sports and talent ads from 64 brands with 3,413 of the same brands' ads from 2025. The 2026 sports and talent ads scored lower on almost every measure, and Message Delivery fell the most.
The brand has to be the hero of the ad, or the placement is just rented attention.
2026 US sports and talent ads vs. the same brands' 2025 ads. TV and online video, general population.
What moves the score
Small creative calls show up in the score.
When the brand first appears, and how often the logo comes back, is linked to whether people know who the ad was for. Try your own spot.
That is the level a benchmark works at: what to change, not just whether the ad worked.
When does your brand first appear?
Compared with ads that show the brand in the first half-second.
How many times does the logo appear in a 30-second spot?
Compared with ads that show the logo once or not at all. These are associations, not proof of cause.
What moves the score
The audience most sports ads leave on the table.
Fans of women's sports rate the same ads far higher than the general population. At women's basketball and golf events, ads already perform within 1 percent of the men's events. Yet women are rarely on screen, and women scored ads from the biggest events well below men did.
Casting more women is only half the opportunity. How they are portrayed matters too.
Increase over the general population, same ads
Ads that cast only one gender
Women-only ads scored higher than men-only ads with both male and female sports fans.
How women scored the same ads compared with men, general population
Women were 24 percent of the athletes in US World Cup ads and 3.5 percent in the other countries measured. At the NCAA Final Fours, where women were 35 and 41 percent of the people on screen, women still scored the ads lower. Across 568 ads showing both, women portrayed positively still score 4 percent lower than men on the ABX Gender Equality Index.
What moves the score
Cultural fit pays in Reputation and Purchase Intent.
ABX ranked 879 ads by their ABX Culture Index score, a read on how well an ad connects with cultural heritage, values, and customs. As the score rose, Reputation and Purchase Intent rose with it.
The top fifth beat the bottom fifth by 32 points on Reputation and 28 on Purchase Intent.
Each point is a group of about 176 ads, grouped by Culture Index score. General population reads.
Your move
Where does your sports spend stand?
Four questions, one for each thing the 2026 data says moves the score. Answer for your own brand. It takes about thirty seconds.
Creative quality
Is the brand the hero of our sports ads, shown early and more than once, instead of the sport or a famous face?
Benchmarking
Do we know how our sports ads score against the other brands in the same events, in each market where they run?
Audience fit
Do we know how each audience responds, including fans of women's sports and the women watching?
Business value
Can we show our sports spend built Reputation and Purchase Intent, not just attention that ends when the spend stops?
Your move
Five questions to ask your current measurement partner.
- Can you score my ads against the other brands in the same event, and against 600,000+ in-market ads?
- Can you use one methodology across TV, online video, display, print, radio, and out-of-home?
- Can you read the same ad against local norms in each market where it runs?
- Can you show how sports fans, fans of women's sports, men, and women each responded?
- Can you tell me why an ad worked and what to change, down to when the logo appears?
If any of these gave you pause, that is the conversation to have with ABX.
Your move
Walk into your next budget meeting knowing where your ads rank.
ABX will show you how your sports ads scored against the competition in these events, by audience and by country, and what to change before the next flight.
- Your ads scored against the other brands in the same events and 600,000+ in-market ads.
- A read by audience: general population, sports fans, fans of women's sports, men and women.
- Local norms in each market you run in, across six media types.
- The reasons behind each score, from brand timing to casting.
Request received.
Methodology and sources
How ABX ran the read.
ABX Sports 2026
1,009 in-market ads measured in 2026 against 14 KPIs, across 14 major tournaments in 7 sports, 16 countries, and 6 media types. The ABX Index is the general-population score; the ABX Sports Impact Index is the sports-fan score for the same ads. Both are indexed to the cross-media norm of 100. Sport, country, and industry positions are drawn from the report's charts; lift percentages are as published.
By sport, as published: soccer 469, golf 200, basketball 146, football 99, Olympics 38, auto racing 33, and horse racing 16. World Cup ads were measured in the market where they ran, against local norms.
Creative findings
Sports and talent: 210 US ads from 64 brands vs. 3,413 of the same brands' ads evaluated in 2025, TV and online video. Brand timing: video ads coded for when the brand first appears. Logo frequency: 30-second video ads, from AI coding of each ad. Culture: 879 ads with an ABX Culture Index score, in five groups of about 176.
Audience: fans of women's sports, 973 ads. Women's vs. men's events: 177 ads at women's basketball and golf events vs. 230 at the men's equivalents. Gender Equality Index: 568 ads showing both women and men.
Creative and sales
Creative's share of the sales effect: Circana, Five Keys to Advertising Effectiveness, from nearly 450 sales-effect studies. The 23 percent estimate: Advertiser Perceptions, brand and agency marketers. Both as reported by Westwood One. Call to Action and media spend correlations: ABX case analysis, skincare brand.
Notes
Sports share of national US TV advertising: ABX analysis, 2026. Segment reads with small samples should be treated as directional. Advertiser names are withheld; results are reported at category level.