At a time when sports drinks and bottled water are outpacing soft drinks in sponsorship growth, Coca-Cola and PepsiCo continue to spotlight soda brands for some of their biggest sports partnerships - a move they’ve repeated over the last several decades.
Recent examples include Pepsi’s partnership with the New York Knicks, Mountain Dew Baja Blast’s MLB campaign featuring Tampa Bay Rays third baseman Junior Caminero and Sprite’s basketball partnership featuring NBA stars Nikola Jokić and Anthony Edwards.
The campaigns raise an obvious question: Why promote soda through sports when both companies’ beverage portfolios have brands that are arguably more aligned with athletic performance?
According to SponsorUnited’s 2024-2025 data, sponsorship spend for sports drinks grew 27.6% year over year and water grew 20.7%, compared with just 4.6% growth for soft drinks and carbonated beverages. Energy drinks posted the strongest growth at 52.7%.
On the surface, those figures suggest that hydration and performance-focused brands are a natural fit for major league sports teams and events. Yet for Coca-Cola and PepsiCo, many of those sports beverage brand relationships are already established.
Gatorade, synonymous with performance, became the official sports drink of the NFL in 1983 and the NBA in 1984, years before PepsiCo acquired the brand through its purchase of Quaker Oats in 2001. PepsiCo’s broader sports sponsorship history stretches back decades, including its Major League Soccer partnership that began in 1996. Similarly, Coca-Cola has established and cultivated some of the longest-running relationships in global sports, including decades of involvement with major professional leagues and international competitions like the FIFA World Cup and the Olympics Games.
For decades, the performance position has already been claimed within these beverage portfolios. While sports drinks serve athletes, that leaves another audience for activation: fans.
Soda taps into the sports zeitgeist through fandom
Over the years, soda-focused campaigns are less about fueling athletic performance and more about combining sports fandom with culture.
Pepsi’s Knicks campaign celebrates fan loyalty in a special edition 2026 New York Knicks can – a celebratory nod to the Knicks’ historic NBA Championship win after 52 years against the San Antonio Spurs. Sprite’s basketball partnership centers on basketball culture and star power – a strategy the lemon lime soda brand still plays up with its 32-year-old “Obey Your Thirst” slogan. Mountain Dew Baja Blast’s MLB activation leans less into hydration and more into fan entertainment and winning free product.
Athletes often appear in the advertisements, but the products themselves are largely marketed to consumers watching games, attending stadiums and participating in sports culture.
How have other categories played the game?
As consumers increasingly look for healthier food and beverage options, other categories may have room to cash in on the fandom.
Dairy companies, like Danone, Chobani or fairlife, have increasingly pursued sports partnerships by emphasizing protein, satiety and nutrition – despite dairy’s presence in sports being nearly “anonymous”, according to some industry experts. During the 2018 and 2022 FIFA World Cup and 2023 Women’s World Cup, sponsorship cycle, dairy brand Chinese dairy brand Mengniu competed for visibility in a space long dominated by Coca-Cola.
Water has also gained greater visibility among sports sponsorships. In 2024, BlueTriton Brands was named the Official Water of MLB through 2027, putting brands such as Poland Spring, Pure Life and Saratoga on one of professional sports’ largest stages.
From a functional standpoint, both water and sports drinks have stronger claims to athletic performance than soda. While some experts argue the combination of sugar and caffeine can provide a quick energy boost following endurance exercise, others point to soda’s carbonation and lack of electrolytes, vitamins and minerals as drawbacks compared with water or sports drinks.
While Coca-Cola and PepsiCo dominate as the official sports and hydration drinks for major athletic leagues, their soda sponsorships are designed to capture something else: fandom and the gameday experience.
