Wine Is Swinging for the Fences With Sports Advertising — Is It Working?
These days, when you watch sports, you’re inundated with ads. Every other commercial is for a betting app; stats and even plays are sponsored; and each break in action is filled by an announcer ad-read. There are CGI logos behind home plate and on the mound, floating on the basketball court, and even on the field during NCAA football games. And these aren’t just traditional sports sponsorship brands like beer, cars, and footwear: No industry or product is off limits, as Super Bowl ads over the past few years have shown.
As annoying as these advertisements are to viewers, companies are wise to invest in sports. NFL broadcasts are the most watched programs on live television, baseball has increased viewership of nationally broadcast games by 44 percent in the last year, and this year’s NBA finals saw the largest audience since 1998. Plus, women’s sports leagues are expanding tremendously and bringing in viewers who are outside the usual sports-watching demographic.
With all those eyeballs up for grabs, it was only a matter of time before the wine industry caught on.
The Opportunity
It’s no secret that wine is in a bit of a crisis. Demand is down, younger drinkers aren’t connecting, and there’s an oversupply causing producers to uproot vines around the world — not to mention the global wellness movement that has led to an overall reduction to alcohol consumption. As Britt West, chief commercial officer of GALLO puts it, wine has a recruitment problem, and it needs to face it head-on.
“Back to basics means recruiting and meeting people where they want to be spoken to about beverage alcohol,” West says. He cites the fact that over the past decade wine sales by dollars have increased, but the number of new wine drinkers has not. “Wine has to broaden its occasions from the traditional, formal meal and find occasions where beverage alcohol can show up and enhance the experience,” he adds.
Chris Jackson, co-proprietor of Jackson Family Wines (JFW), agrees: “If you want to win, you need to have a conversation with a broader array of people and bring them into the fold and meet them where they’re at.” In looking at where the company could expand its reach, Jackson and his team knew they needed to find a partner with an audience that mirrored the shifting demographics of the country. That’s what led them to sports and specifically the NBA and WNBA.
That distinct audience was also a key consideration for GALLO, which has major partnerships between its brands and the MLB, U.S. Open tennis tournament, NFL, and other sporting events. “I think the male component of it is very big,” West says. “I’ve been relatively vocal in the media about the need to engage with young males [LDA plus] in wine. Wine can’t start to grow again if it is ignoring 50 percent of the population.” The community of Hispanic fans for certain sports franchises is also a segment that he thinks has been overlooked.
An association with sports is also a chance to change the perception of an event where wine is acceptable. “We wanted wine to exist within a more high-energy environment,” Jackson says. The basketball programs with Kendall-Jackson and La Crema are helping to break the stereotype wine faces of being a low-energy, celebration-based beverage by pairing it with intense sports cultures. And sports and wine share a common goal of bringing people together, a symmetry that helped Jackson see the league sponsorships as a natural fit for his brands.
West points to data that shows that there are non-beer drinkers who attend sporting events who are simply not catered to in the stadium or arena, surrounding bars, or even at home. Besides being a moment where wine isn’t yet top of mind, he says that sports are “particularly appealing” opportunities because they are basically year-round, have a large audience, and offer brands the ability to both create awareness and drive trial and consideration.
The biggest obstacle to getting people to drink wine while watching a sporting event is consideration. Evan Goldstein, a master sommelier working for the San Francisco Giants, explains it well: “I think people have a ‘Severance’ experience. A lot of people are wine drinkers, but when they get to the severed floor, which is the ballpark, they completely forget and default to an IPA or a Modelo or a Coca-Cola and they forget that they are wine drinkers because historically they haven’t been offered a lot of options there.”
“Nobody here is in the dark to the fact that wine is having a hard time out there and we need to talk to new consumers. My firm belief is that there is going to be an increased connection between entertainment and community, and wine is a good way of bringing that together.”
Goldstein and the Giants have also found proof of concept. The team launched “Wine Tasting by the Bay,” which was essentially a walk-around tasting at the ballpark with wines from all over the world, in 1997 and has continued the event even after moving to a new stadium (with a few years off when the team was in the World Series). The fact that Goldstein’s job as the team sommelier (and yes, it is his dream job) even exists is testament to the team’s faith that a strong partnership between wine and sports is beneficial to both parties.
And the opportunity is there. Per Nielsen data, “the top 10 most valuable sports team sponsorship assets delivered almost $515 million in media value for brands in 2025.” Individual sponsorships of teams that featured logos on jerseys or playing surfaces delivered between $30 million and $80 million in media value and between 1.4 and 3 billion impressions during the season. Nielsen also found that 66 percent of sports fans agree that “companies involved in sponsoring sport gain in appeal with the audience” and 55 percent “would choose a sponsor’s product rather than rival brands if price and quality were the same.” Those are pretty compelling figures for an industry looking to boost both awareness and consideration.
The Action
Now that the wine industry has entered the sports space, it’s working on building up its association through advertising partnerships and activations. Per West, GALLO participates in nearly 40 different sports sponsorships, from giant platforms like the Barefoot Wine and NFL integration, which began in 2022, to smaller ones between individual wineries and teams (think J Vineyards and the Golden State Valkyries). But just because a brand pays to advertise during a game doesn’t mean consumers will automatically buy in.
The first step is matching brands. “We kind of matched up America’s favorite pastime with America’s favorite Pinot Noir,” West says of the MLB and Mark West partnership. “We felt there was some good marketing synergy there,” he adds. Other pairings are “one part science, one part art,” like the combination of ViBE Twisted Sips and Minor League Baseball — an RTD makes sense in a smaller ballpark with few concession stands.
For JFW, after entering into an overall deal with the NBA and WNBA, working more closely with the Golden State Warriors and Valkyries, both based in San Francisco, was, per Jackson, “a bit of a no-brainer” for the Sonoma-based company. Further team-level partnerships have come via organic conversations with teams including the Phoenix Suns and Milwaukee Bucks, both organizations that share “similar ethics in terms of sustainability” with Kendall-Jackson.
Another natural partnership for JFW is with the Kentucky Derby. The Jackson family has operated a horse farm for over 20 years, and the parent company recently debuted its first Kentucky bourbon. “It’s a little bit more integrated from a competitive standpoint,” Jackson explains.
It’s also important to eschew deals that might not be as successful. For example, golf might seem like a natural fit, but it doesn’t bring in net new consumers since the overlap in audiences is already so strong. “A lot of [these programs] are really about getting a different look at wine,” West says, and a PGA partnership wouldn’t offer that.
GALLO looks at the audience in three different components: wine drinkers who have never considered a glass (or bottle) at a sporting event; beer rejectors who haven’t historically been catered to at these venues; and net new consumers who haven’t had an approachable experience with wine. Getting in front of all of these consumers in one place — through both in-home advertisements and at venues themselves — is a meaningful component of a sports partnership deal.
Stadium placement has also helped drive product innovation on the packaging side. “For so long, somebody wants a single serve, and we offer them four glasses,” West explains. Even when canned wine had its moment, a 12-ounce can contains two full glasses. Because GALLO recognized the demand for single-serving wine, it’s been able to design 200-milliliter Tetra Paks, which the company feels is the freshest format to drink wine out of after a glass.
This also ensures that first-time consumers have a positive initial experience with wine. “The technology came through and gave us the opportunity to approach these occasions, and approach them on a sizable, significant basis, whereas maybe we wouldn’t have before,” West explains. He’s also sure to note that doing a media deal, like TV spots or ad placements at a stadium, doesn’t automatically mean a brand gains distribution at a venue, so it’s a full team effort to match media placements with distribution deals.
On a smaller scale, GALLO brand Smith & Hook is a sponsor of the Houston Rodeo, where there is already an interested audience coming for the Rodeo Uncorked International Wine Competition. Getting eyes on the brand in a core market over a very concentrated amount of time helps build awareness and loyalty, especially for local markets with fewer prominent wine producers.
“If you want to win, you need to have a conversation with a broader array of people and bring them into the fold and meet them where they’re at.”
JFW also adds intimate components to its league relations. Jackson recounts sending former basketball player Spencer Haywood a bottle of 1968 Freemark Abbey Cabernet from the year he helped lead Team USA to Olympic gold. “It’s a time capsule where he gets to experience and relive some of his greatest triumphs as an athlete while drinking something from the vintage in which his triumphs occurred,” Jackson says. The company has also hosted wine tastings for players — the partnership initially bloomed after Kendall-Jackson sent wine to NBA players in the bubble during Covid-19 — and a dinner on the floor at Chase Center with Warriors star Draymond Green.
The Giants, too, have developed close relations with Bay Area wineries. The stadium concourse features a large bar presented by Far Niente and smaller footprints from Caymus Vineyards as well as several concession carts dedicated to wine. Goldstein points out that the community of Giants fans comes from as far as Sonoma and Napa Valley and is already inclined to participate in wine-related activities, like the team’s wine club in partnership with the Sonoma County Winegrowers, which offers both wine and baseball events including a tasting and batting practice combo. Another consideration he brings up is that there are around 200 days a year where the stadium hosts events other than baseball games (concerts, soccer matches, etc.), and wine is also available to guests on those days.
Is It Working?
“It’s been really, really gratifying,” Jackson says of his brands’ partnerships with the basketball leagues. Before these sports deals, JFW did not have a presence in arenas. Now, the category ranks in the top 10 in sales for the company. JFW has also seen a shift in its consumers from 74 percent women and 25 percent men to 71 percent women and 28 percent men, a ratio that is closer to that of the male-dominated NBA audience. More significant, Jackson feels, is the multicultural outreach and appeal the partnership brings.
By the numbers, Jackson says JFW saw a 190 percent increase in in-arena sales in 2025. It has also seen a lot of acceptance in the areas surrounding the venues of teams it works with directly in restaurants, bars, and retail outlets. And while sales have mostly been steady, Jackson notes that there was a massive spike around the NBA All Star Game. In host city Los Angeles, JFW saw a 20 percent sales increase, and Kendall-Jackson specifically saw a 25 percent increase. “It was material, it was significant to us,” says Jackson.
The numbers are important, but so is the player reaction, which has been highly positive. “We’ve built deeper relationships with some of the iconic players in America and seen a lot of development in Kentucky of our wine business, which is over-indexing in terms of the population,” Jackson says. “Sales, market share, positive social media, frankly, positive interactions, traffic, and visitation to our tasting rooms, all of these are a part and parcel of how we’re viewing the partnership, but at the end of the day, all the data has been compelling, but it also just feels right.”
For GALLO, West says the Barefoot Wine and NFL partnership has brought 2.7 million new people into wine each year. He also notes that GALLO’s sports franchise partners do a good job keeping brand partnerships top of mind outside of the regular season. “We’ve stepped into this and tiptoed it a little bit more over time, and we have seen that it’s been impactful,” he says.
One growing collaboration is between Clos du Bois and the U.S. Open. “We really saw a strong display and retail lift, and that resulted in a 12.4 percent velocity lift but also just a 6 percent total sales lift in the Tri-State area” during the tournament, West says. The combination of awareness, activation, and in-stadium sales “really got you all those components working synergistically together, and we believe that that opportunity benefited the brand in total.”
Goldstein has seen first-hand how pleased wineries have been by their partnerships with the Giants. While getting wine into the glass of fans at the stadium is a big part of it, “it’s not exclusively about wine at the ballpark,” he says. Through the team’s wine club and events, Goldstein says, the team is able to drive adoption not just at the stadium but also at home.
The park has wine sales that are significant for the Giants brand and definitely higher than at stadiums that offer very little wine. The in-stadium and club programs are creating buzz around the league, and others who hope to mimic Goldstein’s program often call him for advice. It all seems like a win for the fans and the participating wineries.
Hope Is Alive
These partnerships are giving everyone involved a sunny outlook on the future. “Nobody here is in the dark to the fact that wine is having a hard time out there and we need to talk to new consumers,” Goldstein says. “My firm belief is that there is going to be an increased connection between entertainment and community, and wine is a good way of bringing that together.”
West points to Gen Z engagement as a somewhat surprising bright spot. “Millennials now represent 31 percent of wine drinkers,” he says. They’re now the largest consumer group of wine drinkers, but what is interesting to me is that Gen Z engagement jumped from 9 to 14 percent, which really to me signals that there’s future momentum coming.”
“We’ve built deeper relationships with some of the iconic players in America and seen a lot of development in Kentucky of our wine business, which is over-indexing in terms of the population.”
West also says that these sports deals are great opportunities to build “in the more casual, social, on-the-go occasions where beverage alcohol is already being consumed.” And building is key. All of GALLO’s sports sponsorships are multi-year. West stresses the need to show up continuously because just running ads for one season without associated retail execution and bar consideration won’t move the needle. “Ultimately, if we don’t bring new consumers in as a company and as an industry, we will continue to face rough times,” he says. That’s why GALLO has really been embracing new occasions and opportunities — and West admires other companies that are doing the same.
“We’re going to be doubling down on the sports part of our marketing as an organization,” Jackson says. He’s seen the most value in the franchises JFW has formed a direct relationship with and would like to expand that to include more teams in the leagues. “There’s a natural positivity and optimism to this partnership, which we love because you have to be an optimist in our industry if you aspire to do great things.”
Something Jackson says sums up the wine industry’s current attitude toward sports and other non-traditional marketing streams: “There’s been a lot of negative media in the wine industry. For us, we see an opportunity to bridge an awareness gap and speak to younger generations and a more diverse community of fans, so we’ve got an extraordinary amount of optimism about it.” So far, the bet seems to be paying off.
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