MLB hit a record $2.12B in team sponsorship as deal sizes rose

The data comes from Stamford, Connecticut-based SponsorUnited, a global sports and entertainment intelligence platform, which reported that team revenue across the 30 clubs was a record $2.12 billion at the conclusion of the World Series. Revenue rose 7.3% from a revised 2025 total of $1.98 billion, according to Forbes, while deal volume grew 1.2%.

A longer view makes the pattern clearer. Sports Business Journal, which also covered the SponsorUnited report, puts the rise in MLB team sponsorship value at 57% between 2022, when it stood at $1.35 billion, and 2026. Total deals rose 17% over the same span, from 3,195 to 3,732. Value has grown more than three times as fast as deal count. Clubs aren't mainly selling more partnerships. They're selling bigger ones.

Bigger bundles, same number of signatures

Forbes offers one reading of the rise. Maury Brown writes that the average deal size reached $590,000, up 5.9% year over year, as brands continued to invest in more comprehensive partnerships.

Rohan Nagi, SponsorUnited's vice president of strategy and analytics, told Forbes the numbers reflect steady growth in a mature market, roughly in step with U.S. sports overall. He added that much of MLB's major inventory is already committed, and that the next phase of growth will likely hinge on how the league and its teams innovate around the game and the experience of attending it.

All 30 clubs have struck jersey patch deals, with the average deal at $8.6 million, up 1.3% year over year. SponsorUnited estimates three 2026 patch deals, the White Sox with CME Group, the Rays with Webull and the Giants with Airwallex, generated more than $20 million combined.

Put the two growth rates side by side and the source of the gains shows up. The patch, the most visible single asset, is fully sold, and its average price rose only 1.3%. The overall average deal rose 5.9%. That suggests the extra money is coming less from repricing marquee inventory than from packing more assets into each agreement.

Bank, trading and fintech brands set the pace

Financial was the top sponsorship category at $349 million, up 11.92% year over year, according to Sports Business Journal. Construction and industry grew fastest of the top five, up 13.19% to $115 million. Beverage ($176 million) and auto ($155 million), long fixtures of ballpark signage, were flat. Insurance rose 3.62% to $151 million.

Those dollar figures show how far ahead the leader is. Financial is worth nearly double beverage, the No. 2 category, and it's still growing faster than the market as a whole. The patch list makes the same point: CME Group, Webull and Airwallex all come from finance, trading or fintech.

For marketers at financial or industrial firms, the data indicates their categories added money fastest among the top sponsorship categories, which could make the remaining slots in them more contested at renewal time.

Churn cuts the other way. There were 632 new brand entrants versus 549 brand exits, according to Sports Business Journal. That turnover suggests inventory does come free even in a market Nagi describes as largely committed. It just tends to come back as part of a bigger bundle.

New ballparks and the Dodgers lead clubs

According to Sports Business Journal, the two teams moving to new ballparks posted the fastest sponsorship revenue growth: the Rays rose 33.8% year over year, and the Athletics climbed 19.3%. That fits Nagi's argument that the next round of growth will come from how teams innovate around the game and the experiences built on it.

The Dodgers still grew 14.5%. Last year the club was the first North American pro sports team to top $200 million in yearly sponsorship revenue. The White Sox grew at the same rate, and the Mariners gained 10.2%.

On deal count, the Reds led the majors with 223 deals, ahead of the Yankees at 171, the Padres at 156, the Braves at 155 and the Astros at 151. None of those five clubs appears in the revenue-growth top five. That gap suggests a long roster of partners and fast-growing sponsorship dollars are two separate achievements.

A revised baseline, and how 2023 compares

The 7.3% growth rate rests on a corrected number. SponsorUnited originally reported 2025 team revenue at $2.05 billion, then lowered it to $1.98 billion after what Jared Riegler, the firm's senior marketing manager, told Forbes was its post-season validation process. The record stands either way.

Forbes also runs the adjusted figures back to 2024's $1.86 billion, which produces annual growth of 6.5% and then 7.1% over the two seasons. Two years in a row in that band, read alongside Nagi's description of a mature market, make the case for treating 2026 as steady compounding. A sponsor budget can plan around that kind of growth. It isn't a surge.

A surge is what baseball looked like three seasons ago. Marketing Dive, covering an earlier SponsorUnited report in November 2023, said team sponsorship revenue grew 23% that season to $1.5 billion, even as rule changes shortened games and cut advertising time. The league added 500 new sponsors, and dynamic dugout signage, bought by 67 brands, was the most purchased asset of 2023. Bob Lynch, SponsorUnited's founder and CEO, called that growth "a pretty big outlier, even compared to other professional sports leagues."

Even with that caution, some threads carry through. Financial services was already the top category in 2023, at about $200 million and up 38%, and it stays on top in 2026 at $349 million. Auto was the only top-10 category to cut spending in 2023, down 8%. This year it was flat. Beer, long central to baseball marketing, fell 10% in 2023 to a 45% share of the league's alcohol deals, according to the same report.

Lynch's explanation then reads like a preview of this year's category table. "Historically, there were just a small set of those large endemic categories that would buy sponsorships," he told Marketing Dive. "And that's really starting to expand pretty significantly to other categories." Construction and industry posting the fastest growth in the top five, while beverage and auto sit flat, suggests that expansion has continued.

The bundling trend also shows up in the 2023 report. Beyond jersey patches, Marketing Dive noted, the league had been offering video board, ribbon board and outfield advertising and two types of backstop signage. A menu like that is what makes it possible to fill a deal averaging 8.32 assets.

Players: fewer deals, shorter terms

Sports Business Journal counts 472 active endorsement deals between players and brands, compared with 627 in 2025. Player deals renew at a rate of 30%, while team deals renew at 73.3%, and player contracts usually cover shorter terms.

Cal Raleigh has the most endorsements with 17. Julio Rodríguez is next with 16, followed by Vladimir Guerrero Jr. with 13, George Springer with 10 and Bobby Witt Jr. with nine. Rodríguez led in 2023 with 20, by Marketing Dive's count, and Guerrero had 13 then as well. While the overall pool shrank, the top of the list has held steady.

SponsorUnited flags several players to watch for endorsements: Pete Crow-Armstrong, who has six; Jacob Misiorowski, with three; Junior Caminero, with eight; Cam Schlittler, with none; and Jordan Walker, with one. The 2023 report saw the same early-career appetite, with Corbin Carroll signing four deals and Gunnar Henderson two in their first big seasons.

For a sponsor, the split is practical. On both renewal rate and term length, the club is the more durable relationship. A player deal is a shorter, more speculative bet, and the watch list shows how early brands are willing to place it.

The number to watch next October

The Rays and Athletics, both heading to new ballparks, are worth watching. If their growth holds once they move in, Nagi's idea of innovating around the game will have a dollar figure attached.

The category table offers a second marker. Financial and construction and industry both grew faster than the 7.3% market this year. If they keep doing so, the shift away from baseball's old endemic buyers that Lynch described in 2023 will show up in the rankings as well as in the growth rates.