Cybersecurity & Trust: The New Currency of Partnerships in Sports & Entertainment
For years, cybersecurity sat quietly in the background. An insurance policy, compliance checkbox, a cost centre designed to stop bad things from happening. Today, cybersecurity has become a commercial accelerator, particularly in sports and entertainment, where digital partnerships cannot scale without trust. The strongest partnerships are no longer built purely on brand fit or audience reach, but on security-enabled confidence. The ability to innovate, personalise and activate at speed without putting fans, data or reputations at risk. In an industry built on emotion, trust has become the ultimate infrastructure.
Why Sports & Entertainment Are Uniquely Exposed
Few industries have digitally expanded as fast or as emotionally as sports and entertainment. Fan engagement now spans vast, interconnected ecosystems: apps, ticketing, streaming, payments, in-stadium tech and immersive experiences – all powered by data.
This data is highly sensitive. Alongside fan payment, location and behavioural data, sports organisations manage athlete health and biometric records. Unsurprisingly, 70% have already experienced a cyber incident, with fan data, athlete data and core infrastructure the most common targets. The stakes are high: one breach doesn’t just disrupt operations, it fractures the fan experience and damages every brand in the ecosystem. As the French Football Federation recently experienced when a data breach exposed personal details of millions of fans, players and coaches.
Fans feel the impact. 73% worry about how their data is used, while 79% of consumers trust businesses more when customer data is protected. Trust drives behaviour: higher engagement, greater data sharing and increased spend. When it breaks, churn follows and brand equity erodes with it. Cybersecurity now protects the emotional ‘contract’ between fans and rights holders.
The Partnership Shift: From Brand & Reach to Trust
This shift is reshaping how partnerships are evaluated. Sponsors are no longer asking only who can we reach? They are asking where is it safe to activate? Rights holders, in turn, are scrutinising whether partners introduce risk into fan ecosystems before enabling data-driven campaigns.
Security maturity has become a signal of operational excellence. It’s no coincidence that cybersecurity brands are now deeply embedded across the sponsorship landscape. According to SponsorUnited, over 270 cybersecurity brands are active in sponsorship and out-of-home, driving more than 460 sponsorship deals and 500+ digital partnerships. This is strategic alignment with environments where trust, data and performance intersect.
Cybersecurity as a Commercial Differentiator
When security is assumed, innovation accelerates. Trusted environments unlock real-time data, personalisation and immersive technology and brands pay more to activate within them. Global scalability becomes possible, enabling cross-border campaigns without regulatory paralysis.
Emerging technologies such as AR, VR, AI, biometrics and mobile commerce only work when trust is embedded by design. This is why leading organisations are embedding cybersecurity early in partnership strategy, not as an afterthought, but as part of the value proposition. Security credentials are increasingly featured in partner narratives with authentic tech stack integration which enables activations to tell their brand story. Cyber teams are repositioned as enablers of innovation, not blockers.
Security standards are being unified across partner ecosystems to reduce friction and risk. The market momentum reflects this shift. The global cybersecurity market is valued at $271.9bn in 2025 and is projected to reach $663.2bn by 2033. North America currently accounts for nearly 38% of global revenue, while APAC is expected to be the fastest-growing region, mirroring the global expansion of digital sport and entertainment platforms.
Why Certain Sports Lead the Way
Cybersecurity partnerships are most prevalent in Formula 1, football, American football, golf and esports, each for distinct reasons.
Formula 1’s hyper-digital, engineering-driven environment makes it a perfect proving ground. A cyber incident is treated with the same seriousness as a car failure. As McLaren’s Director of Business Technology put it, a major breach is “almost like a DNF on race weekend.”
Football and American football both offer massive broadcast reach, particularly in the US, where most cybersecurity companies are headquartered.
Golf provides premium, corporate-friendly environments aligned with enterprise decision-makers.
Esports offers a platform for education and community building with digitally native audiences.
Across all of them, the message is consistent: performance now depends on secure systems.
The New Playbook: Cybersecurity as Growth Infrastructure
The most progressive sports & entertainment organisations no longer treat cybersecurity as an IT function. They elevate it alongside marketing, fan experience and partnership strategy. In an industry driven by emotion, trust is the most valuable currency there is.
Cybersecurity is no longer about avoiding worst-case scenarios. It’s about enabling the best ones: deeper engagement, smarter partnerships, faster innovation and global scale. The next era of sports and entertainment growth will be secure by design, not because regulation demands it, but because trust does. And trust is increasingly the foundation on which partnerships are built.
In sport, fans are already clear. 62.6% would rather pay more than give up their data, across ages and income levels. Transparency matters too: nearly a third want brands to be explicit about how data is collected and used, rising to 45% among over-65s.
Trust isn’t just defensive; it’s a growth engine.
To chat with the team to find out how Bright Partnerships can help you and your brand, contact us at Bright Partnerships.
Sources
Canvas8 (various articles)
