{"id":340733,"date":"2025-09-04T10:21:14","date_gmt":"2025-09-04T10:21:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/340733\/"},"modified":"2025-09-04T10:21:14","modified_gmt":"2025-09-04T10:21:14","slug":"american-express-replacing-visa-as-nfl-credit-card-payment-sponsor","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/340733\/","title":{"rendered":"American Express replacing Visa as NFL credit card\/payment sponsor"},"content":{"rendered":"

More than a third of the NFL\u2019s teams will field a new starting QB as the season opens this week. For those at the corner of sports and commerce, there\u2019s an impending NFL roster shakeup of far greater significance. American Express<\/a> will replace Visa<\/a> next season as the NFL\u2019s corporate sponsor in the credit-card\/payment card category. <\/p>\n

Sources with knowledge of the deal said the terms are seven years for around $910 million, although one involved source insisted the total deal was \u201ccloser to $950 million.\u201d Visa\u2019s current NFL rights expire at the end of March. That means it will have a lame-duck year as an NFL corporate sponsor; ironically, one that will conclude with the Super Bowl in and around Visa\u2019s HQ city of San Francisco. (The euphemism for the NFL championship at Santa Clara\u2019s Levi\u2019s Stadium<\/a> next year is the \u201cBay Area Super Bowl.\u201d)<\/p>\n

An NFL spokesman offered a \u201cno comment\u201d on the deal. <\/p>\n

Aside from the stunning rights fee, Visa\u2019s departure from the NFL sponsor fold after three decades is striking. The leading payment-card brand has been an NFL corporate patron since 1995, making it the league\u2019s second most-tenured sponsor, after Gatorade<\/a>. When Visa signed on 30 years ago, it was paying around $10 million a year, and it replaced AmEx, so it\u2019s a full circle moment.<\/p>\n

Under the deal expiring after this season, Visa also has rights to associated categories, including peer-to-peer banking, like PayPal and Venmo, along with retail banking, which Visa previously passed through to Truist, the \u201cOfficial Retail Bank\u201d of the NFL since 2021. Consequently, with this deal, the NFL was able to increase its yield on payment-card sponsorship by around 2.5x, sources said, and still have those associated categories left to sell. Anyone need to be reminded of who the biggest kid on the block is in terms of U.S. spectator sports?<\/p>\n

\u201cThey [the NFL] sold a third of the rights and got back more than double,\u201d said a team source. \u201cThat\u2019s called having a big hammer.\u201d <\/p>\n

With sponsorship rights to next year\u2019s FIFA World Cup, and the 2028 Summer Olympics in Los Angeles, Visa can easily rationalize that its marketing budgets are better spent on those events, some of the few that can contest the NFL and the Super Bowl in terms of America\u2019s sports and pop-culture consciousness. The FIFA World Cup and Summer Olympics also pull a significant global audience; consider that around 58% of Visa\u2019s revenues are from outside of the U.S. Around 22% of AmEx revenues are from outside the U.S.<\/p>\n

AmEx could turn that logic around to justify what\u2019s easily its biggest sports-marketing expenditure. The NFL and the Super Bowl are the only things across sport and entertainment that could approximate challenging the World Cup and Summer Olympics, in terms of consumer attention and affinity. Considering that high-end hospitality is one of the healthiest sectors in the industry, it will be intriguing to see how AmEx leverages the Super Bowl tickets it got as part of the deal. <\/p>\n

Card check<\/p>\n

Bread Financial\u2019s (formerly Alliance Data Systems) rights to issue team-logoed NFL Extra Points Visa cards through its Comenity Bank are separate. However, unlike Visa, AmEx issues its own cards and on its own is one 20 largest banks in the U.S.<\/p>\n

Visa dominates the U.S. market share battle in credit cards, both in terms of cards (312 million to 48 million credit cards issued last year) and purchase volume (around 52% to AmEx\u2019s 19% in 2024). AmEx has long argued that its customer base is more affluent, resulting in higher-ticket purchases, and a higher per purchase ring. Is the NFL\u2019s unrivaled breadth, reach and TV dominance across American sports enough to close those large share gaps? AmEx is paying a lot to determine just that.<\/p>\n

There will be, and already have been, a variety of marketing responses to this deal, seemingly escalating the long-simmering rivalry between Visa and AmEx. Sponsor United says just eight NFL teams had sponsorships with credit brands last season and that the total category across the NFL was worth around $7 million for teams. Other sources said it was around half the league\u2019s 32 teams. Either way, that\u2019s changing quickly. <\/p>\n

Sources said AmEx\u2019s deal was settled in early summer. Less than two weeks ago, AmEx announced its first NFL team deal in 10 years, a broad sponsorship with Hard Rock Stadium, which included rights to the Dolphins, and the F1 Miami Grand Prix. <\/p>\n

Expect to see further jockeying for the remaining team rights between Visa and AmEx (we note the champion Eagles have a vacancy there). \u201cIt\u2019s already become a very competitive category at the team level again,\u2019\u2019 said a veteran team sponsorship sales exec. <\/p>\n

It also seems reflexive that Visa, already a heavy spender on NFL TV advertising, will maximize those with some of the dollars it won\u2019t be spending in NFL sponsorship fees starting next season. <\/p>\n

According to an SBJ analysis of Ispot.TV data tracking linear TV from Aug. 1, 2024, through Sept. 2, 65% of Visa\u2019s $49 million TV ad spend over that period was with NFL programming. AmEx spent $108.2 million during that same period; 53% of that was on NFL programming.<\/p>\n

American Express\u2019 roster of sports\/experiential shops include longtime agencies Momentum WW and Wasserman. <\/p>\n

Those newfound NFL rights for AmEx buttress an already impressive assemblage of sponsorships, including global rights with F1, an NBA league sponsorship of longstanding, now augmented with G League and WNBA rights; a sponsorship of the USTA\/U.S. (tennis) Open that dates to 1994; golf assets including PGA Tour rights, through which it titles a tour stop in La Quinta, Calif; along with the PGA of America; and the USGA. There\u2019s also a longstanding deal covering an array of AEG venue and team assets, including Crypto.com Arena, London\u2019s O2 arena and the L.A. Kings and Galaxy.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"More than a third of the NFL\u2019s teams will field a new starting QB as the season opens…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":340734,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[58140,7,6,45180],"class_list":{"0":"post-340733","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-nfl","8":"tag-american-express","9":"tag-football","10":"tag-nfl","11":"tag-visa"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nfl\/115145532135349103","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/340733","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=340733"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/340733\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/340734"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=340733"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=340733"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=340733"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}