The Civic Dividend: Why Community Investment May Be Professional Sports’ Most Underutilized Asset

Created By: Tal Alter and Steve Rochlin
May 29, 2026

Professional sports franchises possess a uniquely powerful lever to generate business returns – stronger fan engagement, sponsorship value, franchise valuation, and community capital – that most are not yet deploying strategically. That lever is community impact investment, the intentional, strategically integrated deployment of a franchise’s civic assets toward defined community outcomes and measurable business return.

Realizing that return starts with organizational alignment – ownership committed to community impact as a genuine business priority, leadership empowered to execute on that commitment, and the community impact positioned as a core business function.

Alignment creates the conditions, but execution determines the return. When impact strategy, program quality, and external communication work together, the franchise captures both the community benefit and the business dividend.

I. The Argument 

Professional sports teams remain among the few institutions still rooted to place and community: anchored by stadiums and arenas and inextricably tied to the civic health, identity, and culture of cities and regions. Community engagement activities among franchises date back to the inception of professional sports leagues. Yet, in our experience, teams systematically under-leverage the power of these activities to create impact. Most strategies do not optimize the potential to benefit communities. In turn, they miss out on the very real opportunities to generate tangible financial returns. And the barrier is rarely the size of the investment but the strategy behind it.

II. What the Research Shows

The business case for strategic social impact investment is no longer theoretical. Project ROI, the most comprehensive research effort to date on the financial returns of corporate community investment, finds that companies with strategically integrated social impact programs generate measurable returns across multiple dimensions: 

• Increased valuation of up to 36%
• Sales growth of up to 20% in both B2C and B2B contexts
• Increased profitability of up to 20%
• Reduced financial, market, regulatory, and/or reputation risks by up to 30%
• Reduced employee turnover up to 57% 
• Lower financing costs by 10-14%

While the level of financial support matters, the defining variable to maximize return is the degree of strategic integration: how community investment aligns with organizational priorities, connects to stakeholder expectations, and is measured against defined outcomes.  For example, Hewlett Packard Enterprises (HPE) credits nearly $600 million in new sales to its social impact work. By demonstrating the power of technology in supporting public schools, the company was able to deepen new and existing client relations that converted into revenue, all while supporting the education of students in low-income communities.

III. Why Sports Franchises Are Differently Positioned

Professional sports franchises occupy a singular place in civic life. The identity of millions is inextricably linked to their teams, generating a level of passion that no amount of marketing can manufacture. Fans inherit their allegiances and pass them on to their children. Research confirms what any franchise executive already knows: loyalty among the core fanbase has no meaningful relationship to on-field performance. It persists through losing seasons, leadership and player turnover, and decades of heartbreak.

The Project ROI findings apply across industries. But beyond fan loyalty, professional sports franchises bring a civic asset base that is singular in its depth and reach. A major professional sports franchise also controls: 

• Facilities that function as civic anchors, often situated in the heart of urban markets surrounded by under-resourced communities 
• Convening power across sectors — the credibility to bring corporate, philanthropic, civic, and government leaders to the same table around a shared agenda 
• Players with genuine cultural influence, whose authentic community presence carries weight that no marketing budget can buy
• A philanthropic platform that, if fully activated, can mobilize community capital at extraordinary scale

Community and foundation teams do meaningful, often remarkable work, but without front-office alignment, a clear theory of change, and defined outcomes, the larger potential stays untapped.

Compounding the strategic gap is a visibility problem. Teams routinely communicate their community work without a strategy for how that visibility connects to fan affinity, sponsorship value, or community outcomes. Research shows that when fans learn about a team’s community investment, most report stronger affinity for the franchise. Among non-fans, awareness of community work meaningfully increases their likelihood to engage with the team. The community platform, when made visible, deepens affinity.

Notably, this is true for consumer relationships with brands in general. Project ROI finds that when consumers are aware of a brand’s social impact, and they can grasp the logic of how the brand’s community activities align with community needs and brand attributes, their loyalty, affinity, and purchasing intent increase.

Franchises that have yet to point this asset in the right direction with strategic intent and adequate resources are leaving that return on the table. And because it proves most valuable when on-field results are weakest, it functions as a counter-cyclical lever no other part of the business can offer.

IV. The Business Case for Sports Franchises

Fan loyalty alone does not maximize revenue for franchises. Fan spending most often accompanies winning. When teams struggle, loyalty may persist, but spending on tickets, cable packages, and merchandise usually wanes. Understandably, franchises invest heavily to convert passive attachment into active engagement through marketing initiatives, stadium experience, and fan development programs designed to build relationships that can withstand difficult times.

The translation requires specificity across the metrics that matter most to a franchise: fan engagement and retention, sponsorship value, municipal relationships, and long-term franchise valuation.

Fan engagement and retention 

Community identity creates loyalty that winning alone cannot sustain. Fans who connect a team to meaningful civic work report stronger affinity and engagement that holds up through losing seasons. For franchises in rebuilding cycles, authentic community engagement and impact can serve as the most reliable way to maintain sentiment while performance catches up. For franchises performing well, a stronger community identity expands the total addressable fan market, reaching audiences whose entry point is civic or community connection rather than the sport itself.

While robust longitudinal data on American franchises is still emerging, research on European clubs finds that community impact builds fan trust and drives intention to attend. A study of Real Madrid found that the club’s community investment activities positively influenced fan commitment, and that keeping supporters updated on social impact initiatives helped build emotional attachment and brand love that translate into loyalty. Liverpool FC’s “Red Neighbours” program and the LFC Foundation, focused on the L4 postcode around Anfield, have similarly been observed to strengthen affinity and drive ticket purchases.

Sponsorship value 

Corporate partners face growing pressure to demonstrate genuine community impact, not just association with a well-known brand. A franchise with a credible, strategically integrated civic platform offers something qualitatively different from logo placement: alignment with a civic mission, in a market those partners are also trying to reach. That changes both the nature and the economics of the partnership conversation from transactional to strategic. A research study found that, compared with conventional sponsorship formats, social-impact linked sponsorship generates stronger positive impact on attitudes and purchase intention among home-team supporters, making sponsor inventory more attractive to brands and more effective with fans.

Municipal and civic value 

Teams that address social and economic barriers at scale create measurable value for the cities that host them—in workforce development, neighborhood stabilization, public health, and youth outcomes. That translates into stronger relationships with municipal and state governments, more favorable terms in stadium negotiations and community benefit agreements, and a civic standing few, if any, institutions can match. The franchise that is genuinely woven into the fabric of civic life is a partner, not just a tenant, of its city.

Franchise value 

Civic reputation is a balance sheet asset even where accounting does not capture it. For investors, the risk reduction dimension may be equally compelling: teams with credible civic platforms face lower reputational exposure, stronger government relationships, and more resilient revenue streams when on-field performance disappoints. Ownership groups that have built genuine civic platforms—seen as indispensable to their markets—command valuation premiums and face lower reputational risk. In an era of increasing scrutiny around sports ownership, community benefit agreements, and public stadium financing, civic standing carries new weight.

For example, as the Golden State Warriors planned to move from Oakland to San Francisco to open the Chase Center in 2019, the team used its foundation as a key tool to gain vital government and civic support in a politically complex environment. The Golden State Community Foundation has invested over $52 million since 2012, including a record $4 million in 2025 alone, much of it targeted at Bay Area youth and minority-owned small businesses. Observers credit those activities for blunting local opposition to the Chase Center; the franchise is now valued at approximately $10.8 billion. The Atlanta Falcons, FC Cincinnati, Los Angeles Clippers, and Milwaukee Bucks are among a growing number of teams that have used substantial commitments to community investment to secure new stadium approvals, with corresponding effects on franchise valuations.

V. What Strategic Integration Looks Like

Across professional sports, the most common model looks something like this: a foundation with dedicated staff, an annual grantmaking budget, player appearances coordinated through community relations, a signature program or two, and a well-produced impact report. This is substantive work, reflecting genuine commitment, and it represents a meaningful investment in the communities these franchises call home. 

Strategic integration looks different. Not necessarily more expensive, but more intentional. It means community impact is seen as a priority investment for the business of the franchise, while resourced and measured accordingly. 

What distinguishes organizations that have made this transition: 

• A theory of change that connects community investment to civic outcomes and business value—championed by leadership across the organization, not held only by foundation staff and board members 
• Front-office alignment—community impact appears on the agenda in the same rooms where sponsorship, ticketing, and franchise development are discussed, as part of an integrated business plan rather than a parallel track 
• A brand communications function that treats community work as core to the franchise narrative in a way that is unmistakable to those who follow the team
• Measurement that captures community impact, business return, and the relationship between them

Each of these is a structural condition. Where they exist, the work succeeds, typically led by a senior executive with a community impact remit, strategic alignment with ownership and business leadership, and the autonomy to operate with nonprofit discipline while embedded in the franchise’s commercial business. Where those conditions are missing, no hire fixes it. The strategy stays siloed from the business, and both community impact and business results go unrealized.

VI. The Horizon 

The framework above describes what’s possible for any franchise that chooses to invest in its civic platform with intention. The returns are meaningful, the path is navigable for franchises willing to do the strategic work, and the teams doing this well are already seeing the difference. 

But there is a further horizon—one almost no franchise has yet reached—that represents the largest opportunity in this space. 

A franchise that fully activates its civic asset base becomes something more than a team with a strong foundation. It becomes a platform capable of catalyzing an entire community of philanthropy, convening individual donors, corporate partners, player philanthropists, and civic capital around a shared agenda for its market. At full expression, the franchise becomes a civic institution built around a city’s most powerful attention and identity platform. This is not a requirement. Every step along the path described in Section V creates genuine value and genuine impact. Good is good. But for ownership groups with the vision and the appetite, the ceiling is higher than the field has yet imagined. The franchise that reaches it will have built something that outlasts any season or player tenure and persists through leadership transition. 

VII. The Call to Action 

The research is clear. With the right strategy, the right leadership, and the right organizational commitment, the path from where most franchises are today to where the best of them could be is within reach. And for the philanthropic and civic partners best positioned to do this work alongside franchises, there has rarely been a more powerful platform with which to align.

For ownership groups, team presidents, and the leaders driving this work inside franchises: community investment may be worth more to your business, and to your market, than you might imagine. The opportunity is to treat it like every other investment the franchise makes: with strategy, alignment, and accountability for the return.

The franchises that do can build something lasting: a civic identity woven into the fabric of their market, a community of philanthropy organized around their platform, and a franchise valued for what it brings to the city it calls home beyond wins and losses. The place to start is a clear-eyed assessment of where your franchise is today—what you’re investing, what you’re communicating, and what you’re leaving on the table.

Orr Group partners with a wide range of nonprofits, including professional sports organizations, to design and implement civic strategies that are focused, authentic, and long-term. Get in touch to learn more about our unique approach.

Tal Alter is a Managing Director at Orr Group. With over 20 years of experience creating, leading, and scaling programs and teams, Tal brings his passion for sports, leadership, and community development to all aspects of his work. Before joining Orr Group, Tal served as Chief Executive Officer of Washington Nationals Philanthropies, where he oversaw the MLB team’s official charitable arm.

Steve Rochlin is the CEO and Founder of Impact ROI. Steve has over 20 years of experience in sustainability and corporate responsibility. He has advised leading companies across a wide variety of industry sectors, associations, NGOs, multi-lateral organizations, grant-making institutions, and government agencies on how to improve sustainability performance in a way that drives competitive success.