America's Game Comes to Wembley — And It's One of the Biggest Sponsorship Opportunities of 2026
By Paul Bryant Birdwell | paul@roaringforkagency.com | 415 730-4854
At Roaring Fork Agency (www.roaringforkagency.com), we are always looking for sponsorship properties that are more than events — they are moments that create history. That is exactly what the Union Jack Classic represents.
On September 19, 2026, college football will touch down on British soil for the very first time when Arizona State Sun Devils and Kansas Jayhawks face off at Wembley Stadium in London, in the inaugural Union Jack Classic. This is not simply another neutral-site game. This is a global sports business platform. It is where college football, international tourism, media rights, hospitality, destination marketing, and corporate sponsorship all collide in one historic event.
And for brands, that creates serious opportunity.
The Best Sponsorships Are Built Around Firsts
Firsts create urgency. Firsts create media. Firsts create the kind of cultural conversation that no amount of paid advertising can manufacture.
The Union Jack Classic is a genuine first — the inaugural Big 12 college football game ever played on British soil, staged at one of the most iconic sports venues in the world. Wembley Stadium has hosted FA Cup Finals, Champions League Finals, NFL International Games, and some of the biggest concerts in history. On September 19, 2026, it adds something entirely new to that list.
That alone is enough to make any serious sponsorship strategist pay attention.
London Is Not an Ordinary Market
London is one of the world's great sports cities. It has hosted the Olympics, welcomed the NFL for over a decade of international games, and built an enormous and growing appetite for American sports. There are more than 300,000 American expatriates living in the UK, and British fans who discovered the NFL through the London Games are now actively looking for the next chapter of American football on their doorstep.
The Union Jack Classic speaks directly to all of them — and then some. This is American College Football with its full identity intact: marching bands, cheerleaders, tailgate parties, halftime shows, and the raw pageantry that makes Saturday gamedays in the U.S. unlike anything else in sports. Now imagine all of that energy unleashed at Wembley.
Sponsors gain something rare: American college football relevance combined with international destination marketing value. That combination does not come around often.
This Is a Full Sponsorship Ecosystem — Not a Single-Day Activation
What makes the Union Jack Classic particularly compelling from a sponsorship standpoint is the architecture around the game itself. This is not a one-day event — it is a game week. Official bus and boat party tours are already in market. Hospitality packages through Wembley Stadium's own premium experiences program are live. Tickets are on sale through Ticketmaster UK.
The event is structured from the ground up as an experiential platform, which means sponsors are not buying a logo placement. They are buying access to multiple touchpoints across multiple days with a captive, engaged, and enthusiastic audience.
That is where the best sponsorship deals get made.
Who Should Be at the Table
The Union Jack Classic opens the door for a wide range of brand categories. The event's dual American-British identity creates natural fits across sectors on both sides of the Atlantic:
Travel & Hospitality — Airlines, hotels, and destination brands have an obvious play here. American fans making the transatlantic trip to London represent a high-value consumer cohort. British fans discovering American college football for the first time are exactly the kind of experiential traveler that premium tourism brands want to reach.
Financial Services & Fintech — Cross-border brands with audiences in both the U.S. and UK have a rare opportunity to activate against a single property that speaks authentically to consumers in both markets simultaneously.
Consumer Products & Beverage — Tailgate culture, stadium concessions, and the broader celebratory atmosphere around game week make this a natural fit for food, beverage, and lifestyle brands looking for high-engagement brand moments.
Automotive — The aspirational, achievement-oriented demographic of college football fans — both the American diaspora and the British early adopters discovering the sport — is a strong target for premium automotive brands.
Technology & Telecommunications — Global brands expanding their footprint across markets, or looking for a high-profile stage to demonstrate connectivity and innovation, will find real value in an event that is by definition a bridge between two worlds.
Apparel & Sportswear — The visual identity of college football — helmets, jerseys, school colors — is one of its most commercially powerful assets. The Union Jack Classic puts that identity in front of a British audience seeing it up close for the first time.
The Student-Athlete and University Dimension
It is worth noting that the Union Jack Classic is not just a business event. For the student-athletes, coaches, staff, and alumni of Arizona State and Kansas, this is described explicitly as a "bowl game atmosphere abroad" — a once-in-a-lifetime experience that connects them to a global stage.
That authenticity matters to sponsors. Brands that align here are not just buying eyeballs — they are associating with a genuine moment of athletic and cultural significance for real people. That kind of emotional resonance is what separates a sponsorship that moves the needle from one that gets forgotten by Monday.
Global Ambitions, Local Heart
The organizers behind the Union Jack Classic are not thinking about one game. They are building a tradition — investing in youth outreach, flag football development, and cross-continental fandom. The model they are following is the one the NFL already proved works: show up consistently, build a local fanbase, and watch the market grow around you.
Getting in at the inaugural event means getting in before that growth happens. The brands that sponsored the first NFL London games are not the same brands paying to be at the table now. The math on inaugural sponsorships, when the property is legitimate, tends to favor the early movers.
This Is Where Sponsorship Becomes Business Development
At Roaring Fork Agency, we say it often: sponsorship is not advertising. The Union Jack Classic is not a media buy. It is a business development opportunity dressed up as a football game.
The right brand, in the right category, activating against this property — with the right hospitality, the right experiential strategy, and the right storytelling — walks away with something that a media plan cannot replicate: a genuine connection to a historic moment, in a global city, in front of an audience that will be talking about this game for years.
Because when you are the first, everyone remembers who was there with you.
Roaring Fork Agency specializes in sponsorship strategy, brand activation, and commercial partnership development. If you're ready to think differently about how your brand shows up in sport and entertainment, we'd love to talk.
Union Jack Classic - www.unionjackclassic.com
Roaring Fork Agency - www.roaringforkagency.com
If you have any questions about event sponsorship or venue naming rights contact Paul Birdwell at the Roaring Fork Agency:
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