What Changed in a Year? The case for entering UKSA’s Rights Holder Award

British Cycling offers one example of what a broader rethink can look like. Its long-term partnership with Lloyds, announced in 2024, made the bank its lead partner and connected it with the Tour of Britain, elite national competitions and activities designed to encourage more people to cycle. The agreement followed British Cycling’s new vision for major events, while other partners subsequently joined the Tour of Britain programme. It illustrates how a rights holder can bring several parts of its work into a proposition that offers a sponsor more than visibility at one event.

In the arts, the National Portrait Gallery’s reopening created opportunities to reconsider how businesses could support its work. Longstanding sponsor Herbert Smith Freehills (now Herbert Smith Freehills Kramer) became its reopening partner in 2023 and title sponsor of the Portrait Award from 2024. The Gallery’s corporate offer also includes partnerships linked to exhibitions and other aspects of its programme. The example shows how an established relationship can develop as a cultural organisation changes.

The Jockey Club provides an example of scale being put to work. Its 2026 UK Sponsorship Award for Sports Rights Holder recognised its move to bring 15 racecourses together in a national proposition, supported by audience insights.

That approach was accompanied by a new two-year agreement with Debenhams, announced in 2025, spanning race sponsorship, experiences at major fixtures and year-round branding. Existing sponsors also deepened their involvement: Guinness, Holland Cooper and Turners expanded agreements to become group partners. Public announcements do not attribute those deals directly to the revised proposition, but they show the range of opportunities The Jockey Club is now offering across its racing calendar.

Festival operators are also showing how established properties can be brought together into broader offers. Live Nation’s new multi-year Vodafone partnership spans six UK festivals, while its 2026 agreement with AB InBev covers more than 20 festivals alongside Academy Music Group venues. By connecting events and venues, rights holders can offer brands a sustained presence across different audiences, locations and seasons - giving sponsors more reasons to invest than a single festival weekend.

These are different organisations with distinct cultures and resources. But what connects their stories and strategies is a useful exploratory question for any prospective entrant to the UK Sponsorship Awards Rights Holder category: what can we offer sponsors now that we could not offer them a year ago?

For some, the answer may be a new partnership opportunity. For others, it could be a clearer picture of their audience, a more flexible approach to campaign creation, or an improved experience for existing sponsors. A smaller rights holder may have an equally persuasive story about the challenges it faced and overcame.

That is the thinking behind the UK Sponsorship Awards’ Rights Holder Award. Unlike categories centred on a single campaign, it considers an organisation’s work across the year. Judges look at new business, returning partners, creativity and innovation, as well as the steps taken to make the platform more attractive to sponsors.

An entry can use individual deals to bring that story to life, but it should also show the work behind them. Did a revised offer open the door to new sectors? Did better audience insight improve activation? Did an existing partner renew or expand its commitment? If your organisation has made meaningful progress, the Rights Holder category is a chance to explain how it happened and give the team responsible some credit. For more details, go to the UK Sponsorship Awards website.

Six rights holder propositions to explore in 2026

New sponsorship opportunities emerge when venues open, competitions launch and established rights holding organisations rethink their commercial offers. These six developments show how the market continues to expand.

London Museum: a new home, a bigger platform. Opening at Smithfield on November 28, the museum expects to welcome two million visitors annually. Exhibition and programme sponsorship, together with potential naming rights for spaces and initiatives, give businesses several routes into a major new cultural destination.

V&A East: extending a familiar name. The opening of V&A East Museum in April 2026, following Storehouse in 2025, has created new opportunities around exhibitions, commissions and public programmes. For partners, the attraction is an established cultural brand developing a fresh relationship with east London and its audiences.

Premier League football: the sponsorship reset. The removal of betting brands from shirt fronts for 2026/27 has brought new sectors into the EPL. Brentford’s agreement with Indeed illustrates the change, while Sunderland’s search for a replacement shows that some opportunities still exist (at time of writing).

Tour de France: a double British debut. Britain will host the starts of both the men’s and women’s Tours in 2027, the first country outside France to stage both Grand Départs together. Six stages and millions of anticipated roadside spectators create a substantial new British activation moment around two established global properties.

Ultimate Championship: a new stage for athletics. World Athletics’ biennial competition launched in September 2026, adding a new property to the calendar. Its first partnerships ranged from Wizz Air’s airline role to Sony’s demonstration of broadcast tech, showing how a new event can give brands distinctive functions.

Goalhanger: from podcasts to a wider partnership platform. Goalhanger’s media network generated more than 750 million full-episode views and streams in 2025 and, according to the company, is on course to exceed one billion in 2026. Its expansion into live events was demonstrated by September’s inaugural The Rest Is Fest at London’s Southbank Centre, which sold 26,000 tickets across 22 shows. From January 2027, bringing advertising sales fully in-house will give brands a direct route to partnerships spanning audio, video, social, newsletters, live events and content.