Beauty Brands Are Coming for Sports—and They Want More Than Exposure
Sports sponsorship spending has long been dominated by categories like automotive, telecom, alcohol, and banking. In recent years, healthcare, crypto, fantasy sports, gaming, prediction markets, and beauty have joined the party.
Beauty presents a distinct opportunity among them, in part because brands within the category are decidedly investing to reach females. The industry also has an $11.4 billion global advertising budget and has historically spent little with sports properties.
“[Beauty] is a really big growth category based on the number of deals we track,” Bob Lynch (founder and CEO, SponsorUnited) said. “So many dollars [are] being spent from [brands] that you never saw in sports marketing ever [before].”
Two tangentially related forces are behind the recent increase in investment: the growing reach of several professional women’s sports leagues and marketers’ realization that female fans remain a distinct and overlooked audience.
“Purpose only matters when you put it into action,” Patrick O’Keefe (chief integrated marketing officer, e.l.f. Brands) said. “For us, that means showing up where others don’t, serving the underserved and delivering the unexpected with positivity, inclusivity and accessibility.”
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The continued growth of women’s sports has made sports sponsorship more compelling for beauty brands.
Deals with the Big Four leagues remain relatively expensive, and beauty marketers have long questioned whether traditional sports sponsorship assets even align with how their customers discover and buy products. But properties like the WNBA, NWSL, and AUSL now provide a viable, lower-cost platform to test that fit.
While beauty brand spending remains relatively modest compared to other sports sponsorship categories (think: ~$65–70mm annually), it is growing. Deal volume is the signal.
SponsorUnited data indicates the number of beauty brand partnerships in sport (includes athlete endorsements) rose from under 3,000 in 2023 to 7,187 in 2025.
Lower costs may get beauty brands in the door, but fan loyalty is giving them reasons to stay.
“Women's sports [have been] outkicking their coverage, if you want to use a sports analogy, in favorability and purchase intent,” Sara Gotfredson (founder and CEO, Trailblazing Sports Group) said on a recent episode of JaneWallStreet’s At The Table podcast. Fans are consistently showing a willingness to “pay back brands that are investing in those leagues. 54% of women's sports fans will actually be loyal and purchase a product of the brands that they see showing up again and again in women's sports.”
Nielsen Fan Insights support that narrative. 75% of PWHL fans said they are more likely to remember the name of a league sponsor, 65% feel greater loyalty toward them, 63% are likely to consider a sponsoring brand, and nearly one-third (32%) have actually made a purchase from a brand after seeing that it sponsors the Professional Women’s Hockey League.
As the brands spending see results, many will begin to look beyond the women’s game to men’s leagues with large female audiences (see: NFL’s fan base is ~47% female, ~44% of MLB fans are women).
e.l.f. Beauty (NYSE: ELF) is among the brands that have spent in both men's and women’s sports to date.
The cosmetics brand serves as the NWSL’s official makeup and skincare partner and presenting partner of the NWSL Challenge Cup. It is also a PWHL and Billie Jean King Cup sponsor. Those partnerships are part of a broader sports marketing strategy that includes activations around marquee events, like the Indy 500 and Super Bowl.
The company’s diversified approach appears to be working. ELF reported brand awareness among key demographics has risen from 13% to 40%.
Returns on brand investments in both men’s and women’s sports should improve as rights owners learn how to serve beauty companies as effectively as their peers in music and fashion. Beauty brands are looking to deliver hands-on consumer experiences, such as product sampling opportunities and tutorials. Those activations have not traditionally been a part of sports sponsorship packages.
For context, SponsorUnited reported that on-site activations were ~25% more common at music festivals than at women’s sports events last year.
Interactive experiences have the potential to travel beyond the venue too, as they’re often inherently shareable. Attendees will often post product demonstrations and new looks to their own audiences.
In fact, social sharing and organic word of mouth are increasingly shaping how consumers discover and engage with brands. Expect the next wave of beauty spending to favor properties that can deliver compelling experiences and extend their reach.
Unlike many sponsorship categories, beauty encompasses several distinct segments, including cosmetics, haircare, skincare, and grooming. Rights owners should be looking to sign multiple beauty partners, each with its own category rights.
That structure helps explain how so many beauty brands have been able to enter sport within the last few years.
The WNBA has done a particularly good job of creating room for multiple brands. Glossier has been its official beauty partner since 2020, while P&G activates Olay, Secret, and Mielle alongside it.
JaneWallStreet Takeaway: Rights owners and holders are going to need to offer beauty brands more than visibility. However, properties that can successfully pair access to female fans with engaging on-site activations and measurable gains in awareness, purchase intent, and/or sales should be positioned to capture an outsized portion of a fast-growing category’s spend.
About the Author: Deirdre Lester is a seasoned executive with more than two decades of experience at the intersection of sports, digital media, and business strategy. She has held senior leadership roles at Major League Baseball, Rivals.com, and Barstool Sports. Most recently, she served as CEO of Teton Ridge, leading efforts to elevate Western sports into mainstream entertainment. Deirdre is also an investor and advisor to several emerging sports and media properties, and serves as a JohnWallStreet Advisory advisor.
Looking for some help driving digital media revenue and want to talk with Deirdre? Reach out at [email protected] and we’ll make the connection.
On the latest episode of JaneWallStreet Presents: At The Table, JaneWallStreet Executive Chair Deirdre Lester sits down with Kraft Analytics Group CEO and Sloan Sports Analytics Conference Co-Founder & Co-Chair Jessica Gelman.
In this hour-long conversation, the two surface and talk through a range of actionable insights, including how women’s sports are attracting new fans, how AI could improve the fan experience and athlete performance, how open access, business outcomes and engaged alumni have fueled the growth of the MIT Sloan Sports Analytics Conference, and more.
📺 Watch the full episode on JohnWallStreet’s YouTube page.
🎧 Listen on Apple Podcasts or Spotify.
Catch previous episodes of At The Table, including our sit-down with LOVB Chief Growth Officer Stephanie Alger, former Amazon Web Services’ (AWS) Global Head of Sports Julie Souza, Head of Fubo Sports Network & Fubo Studios Pamela Duckworth, former Barstool Sports CEO & Mule Media Co-Founder Erika Badan, ATHLOS Acting President Kayla Green, former CEO of CBS News Wendy McMahon, A-Rod Corp Chief Business Officer & Minnesota Timberwolves Chief Strategy Officer Kelly Laferriere, Rasenberger Media Founder & President Cathy Rasenberger, AUSL Commissioner Kim Ng, Jomboy Media CEO Courtney Hirsch, and Trailblazing Sports Group Founder Sara Gotfredson on JohnWallStreet’s YouTube channel.
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Editor’s Note: JohnWallStreet IQ member John Kosner and his long-time NBA colleague Ed Desser have written a book all about the sports media business, "We're Live! Inside the BIG Business of Sports Media." It describes how the business is organized, what's likely to happen going forward and why, with a big emphasis on career development. It's also filled with anecdotes from their respective five-decade careers and is dedicated to their former boss, NBA Commissioner David Stern.
