Across 14 markets and more than 22,000 respondents, KAI's 2026 Trust Index confirms what marketers have long suspected: sport is no longer just an audience play, it is a credibility play. Eighty-one percent of consumers say they trust brands that show up consistently around the teams, leagues and athletes they love — a figure that dwarfs traditional display, social and even influencer formats.
The mechanics are simple. Sport delivers appointment viewing in an on-demand world, emotional spikes that anchor memory, and a communal context that turns private consumption into public conversation. When a brand earns the right to stand inside that frame, it inherits a halo no performance channel can manufacture.
The numbers behind the headline are equally telling. Trust scores for sports sponsorship sit 34 points above programmatic display, 22 above social and 17 above podcast advertising. In categories under reputational pressure — finance, energy, telco — the gap widens further, as sport offers a stage where credibility can be rebuilt in public.
But trust is not bought, it is built. The brands winning the Trust Index are those treating sponsorship as an editorial commitment — investing in storytelling, fan utility and year-round presence rather than logo placement. They are the ones using rights as raw material, not as wallpaper.
Three patterns separate the leaders from the laggards. First, they design for the fan, not the federation. Second, they show up in the off-season as loudly as in the final. Third, they measure brand outcomes, not just impressions, and feed those learnings back into the creative loop.
For CMOs rebalancing budgets in 2026, the implication is clear. Sport is no longer a brand-building luxury alongside performance — it is the substrate that makes performance work. The trust economy rewards those who commit early, commit deeply, and treat the fan as the protagonist.
The full KAI Trust Index 2026, including the market-by-market breakdown and category benchmarks, will be released to partners in June.
