Oliver Wolfs
Three platforms dominate every sponsorship management shortlist in 2026: KORE Software, SponsorCX, and wehave. Each claims to be the right fit. Each solves a different problem.
That last point matters more than any feature list, because these three sit in different categories. KORE is an intelligence platform — it tells you what a partnership is worth and who your fans are. SponsorCX is an inventory and fulfillment platform — it tracks what was sold and proves what was delivered. Wehave is a full commercial HQ — pipeline, rights, hospitality, invoicing, reporting and proof in one system.
Comparing them feature by feature is misleading. This post covers what each platform actually does, what it costs, and which category problem it was built to solve.
All three handle the core sponsorship workflow: contacts, agreements, deliverables, and reporting. The differences are in category, depth, price, and who can realistically use them.
KORE is the most established option, built for the top tier of global sport and now positioned around fan and partnership intelligence. SponsorCX delivers structured tracking and fulfillment without enterprise overhead. Wehave covers the full commercial operation — including hospitality, invoicing and partner portals — with a permanent free tier.
| Platform | Category | Starting Price | Best For | Key Differentiator | Free Option |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| KORE Software | Fan & partnership intelligence | Custom quote | Major franchises, leagues & large venues | Deepest data and valuation layer, backed by Two Circles | No |
| SponsorCX | Inventory & fulfillment | Custom quote | US sports properties, universities & events | Clean sell-to-deliver workflow with agreement AI | No |
| wehave | Full commercial HQ | €0/mo | Pro and semi-pro clubs | Sports-native, free tier, AI co-pilot, hospitality, clean room | Yes — no card required |
KORE has been in the category for two decades. Founded in 2002, it grew through a series of acquisitions — SponServe in 2018, Sports Alliance in 2022. Two Circles acquired KORE in October 2024, in a deal that valued the combined business at $650M.
The rebrand is now complete. koresoftware.com redirects to kore.twocircles.com, and the product is presented as the KORE Intelligence Platform, built around two modules: Audience Intelligence and Partnership Intelligence.
Two Circles analyses 1.6 billion fan data profiles per year. That parent network gives KORE analytics depth no standalone platform can match. KORE says the platform has been built alongside 900 of the biggest brands and rightsholders in the industry over 20 years, under the "KORE | A Two Circles Platform" brand.
The platform is comprehensive and complex in equal measure. It is the right conversation for major franchises. It is the wrong one for almost everyone else.
As of 2026, KORE documents two modules publicly.
Historically KORE also documented named modules including a Deal Wizard, rate-card benchmarking, KORE Planning and Insights with 30+ report templates, ticketing and premium suite tools, the Helix fan data warehouse, and a Salesforce AppExchange integration. Those capabilities may still exist inside the product, but they are no longer described on the public site following the Two Circles rebrand. Ask in the demo rather than assuming.
KORE does not publish standard pricing. All contracts are custom — enterprise quote only, with a full sales process and dedicated IT resource required. No free tier, no self-serve access, no pricing before a sales call.
KORE is the most mature platform here, and its own positioning is the clearest signal of what it now is: an intelligence platform. It answers what a partnership is worth, how it performed, and who your fans are. That is a real and valuable category, and KORE leads it. It is a different question from the one a commercial team asks on a Tuesday morning — what exactly did we promise this sponsor, and have we delivered it yet.
The confirmed client base tells you exactly who it was built for. Major North American franchises and the biggest clubs in world football: Kansas City Chiefs, Dallas Cowboys, Golden State Warriors, Real Madrid, FC Barcelona, LaLiga, NASCAR. The pattern is tier, not geography — KORE serves the top of every market it enters.
The Two Circles acquisition in 2024 adds context. It connects KORE's sponsorship platform to a fan intelligence business processing 1.6 billion fan records globally. For top-tier clubs already investing at that scale, the combined capability is genuinely unique.
There is no self-serve path and no pricing before a call. KORE's own site routes every enquiry through a scoped demo, and the model assumes a full sales process and dedicated IT resource on the club side. For any club outside the top tier of global sport, KORE was never designed to be the answer.
Best for: Major franchises and large sports bodies with enterprise budget, a data team to feed it, and procurement runway. Skip if: you need pricing before a sales call, a fast implementation, or manage dozens rather than hundreds of partnerships.
NFL clients: Denver Broncos, Kansas City Chiefs, Las Vegas Raiders, LA Rams, NY Giants, Dallas Cowboys, Pittsburgh Steelers, Houston Texans. NBA clients: OKC Thunder, Golden State Warriors, NY Knicks, Cleveland Cavaliers, Boston Celtics, San Antonio Spurs. NASCAR, Madison Square Garden, Monumental Sports, LAFC, San Jose Sharks, NY Mets, Minnesota Wild, Buffalo Sabres, DC United and Las Vegas Athletics also appear on the public client wall.
Europe is represented at the very top of the market: Real Madrid, FC Barcelona and LaLiga. KORE also expanded into EMEA by acquiring London-based Sports Alliance and its 140+ clients in 2022, and parent Two Circles is headquartered in the UK. So the constraint for a European club is not geography — it is tier and budget.
Public review presence is minimal. G2 carries only a handful of ratings for KORE, none post-dating the Two Circles acquisition, and the listing is easily confused with several unrelated products also named Kore. No self-serve trial means smaller clubs cannot evaluate the platform without a full sales engagement. That barrier is by design — KORE targets enterprise.
SponsorCX launched in 2017 in Utah with one focused promise: make sponsorship tracking simpler. The tagline reflects the positioning: you make it happen, the platform makes it simple. The workflow maps to four stages — Centralize, Automate, Track, and Report.
The platform operates on both sides of the market. A separate brand product handles evaluation and reporting from the sponsoring company's perspective. That dual-sided design — serving both the property selling and the brand buying — is unusual in the category.
SponsorCX has scaled quickly. It serves 300+ organisations across North America, New Zealand and the UK, and was named to the 2026 Inc. 5000 on the back of 609% three-year revenue growth. It has also signed Learfield — the largest brand portfolio in US college sport, at 12,000+ brand partners across 140+ schools. The centre of gravity is North America, but Bath Rugby and a wider UK footprint show it is not exclusively so.
SponsorCX does not publish rates. Its About page states that packages range from basic to enterprise and are priced on number of users and integration requirements. No free tier, no self-serve access, no pricing before a conversation.
SponsorCX handles the core sponsorship workflow cleanly. Teams leaving spreadsheets feel the difference in the first week — structure replaces chaos, fulfillment gets tracked. Named clients report saving 4–5 hours per week, and the Learfield deal is a serious validation of the workflow.
The difference is scope, not quality. SponsorCX is an inventory and fulfillment platform and does not claim otherwise. There is no dedicated hospitality or premium seating module, no B2B ticketing, no data clean room, and no free tier or self-serve entry point. Its AI today structures agreements and creates tasks rather than acting as a proactive co-pilot that chases renewals for you — though SponsorCX has publicly stated it views AI as the next foundation of the platform, so expect that gap to narrow. For European football clubs, the US market model shows up in seasonal structure and terminology.
SponsorCX solves the sell-and-deliver problem properly. It is deliberately narrower than a full commercial operation.
Best for: US sports properties, universities, and events needing structured CRM and fulfillment tracking without enterprise complexity. Skip if: you need hospitality or B2B ticketing, a data clean room, a free or self-serve entry point, or a platform built for European football context.
Named clients include Learfield, Green Bay Packers, Sacramento Kings, Washington Spirit, Portland Timbers, Vancouver Whitecaps, AMB Sports + Entertainment, Fanatics Events, Bath Rugby, BYU Athletics, University of Kansas, University of Utah and Clemson Tigers. Beyond sport: Mohegan Sun, Universal Orlando, Kentucky Derby, Barrett-Jackson, Valero Alamo Bowl, US Figure Skating and CrossFit.
“The most impactful feature for us has been the inventory rate analysis.”
Luke Hendry, Valero Alamo Bowl
“Everything lives in one dynamic platform, and that has been a game changer.”
Megan Eisenhard, University Credit Union
“I'd estimate we save around 4–5 hours per week.”
Bryan Miller, The Summit League
Independent review presence is light relative to the client base — a single G2 rating and nothing on Gartner Peer Insights — though for a platform at this stage the Inc. 5000 listing and the Learfield deal are stronger third-party signals than review counts.
“Quick note: We built wehave. We put it on this list because we believe it belongs here — but you should factor that in.”
Wehave was founded in 2023 and went through Techstars that year. The current platform has been live since 2025, making it the newest on this list by a significant margin. CEO Oliver Wolfs frames the founding story plainly: "Found out sports clubs track €10M+ in partnerships on Excel. Started a company." That observation, and the problem it describes, is why the platform exists.
The platform is built exclusively for sports commercial teams. CRM, rights tracking, hospitality, automated reporting, partner portals, invoicing, and AI — all in one system. No configuration required for seasons, matchdays, or renewal cycles.
A €1M+ seed round in March 2025 was led by Miles Ahead Capital, joined by Techstars, Belfius, PMV and BAN Vlaanderen. Wehave has grown to 50+ clubs, including RSC Anderlecht, Feyenoord, and PSV. It is the only platform on this list with a permanent free tier: no credit card, no sales call required.
Wehave publishes all pricing openly:
Monthly plans are available at roughly a 20% premium. Full plan limits and the complete feature matrix are published and kept current at wehave.io/pricing.
Wehave is the only platform here operating as a full commercial HQ rather than one layer of it. Pipeline, rights, hospitality, ticketing, invoicing, partner portals, reporting and the data clean room run in one system, so the sponsor a club sold in August is the same record it invoices in November and reports on in May. Sports-native design, a permanent free tier and AI at the core mean clubs outside the KORE and SponsorCX budget range have a real option for the first time.
The legitimate gap is track record. Wehave has been live since 2025; KORE has two decades, SponsorCX since 2017. For clubs needing years of public reviews first, that gap matters — even though early clients speak well of it.
Best for: Professional and semi-professional clubs wanting a purpose-built commercial platform — free to start, zero overhead. Skip if: you need years of public reviews before committing, or need hospitality tools but can't reach Enterprise.
Wehave serves 50+ clubs across Belgium and the Netherlands. Clients include RSC Anderlecht, Royal Antwerp FC, Royale Union Saint-Gilloise, KAA Gent, KV Mechelen, OH Leuven, SK Beveren, Feyenoord, PSV, and Tomorrowland.
“I see new solutions every year. The only time I was impressed, was with wehave.”
RAFC
The three platforms are not competing for the same job. KORE Software is the intelligence layer for the top tier of global sport — valuation, performance measurement and fan data, backed by Two Circles. At that scale the depth is unmatched. For everyone below the top tier, the complexity and cost structure work against you.
SponsorCX owns inventory and fulfillment. For US sports properties, universities and events, it delivers a clean sell-to-deliver workflow without enterprise overhead, and the Learfield partnership shows it scales. What it deliberately does not cover — hospitality, B2B ticketing, a data clean room, a free entry point — becomes a real constraint as a commercial operation broadens.
Wehave is the full commercial HQ, built for the clubs the other two were never designed to serve. Sports-native design, visible pricing, a permanent free tier, and one system covering pipeline through hospitality to proof of delivery.
Free to enter, no sales call, live before the next training session.
Start for free →What is the difference between a sponsorship intelligence platform and a sponsorship management platform?
An intelligence platform values and measures partnerships — what a deal is worth, how it performed, who the fans are. KORE is the clearest example. A management platform runs the day-to-day operation — what was sold, what must be delivered, what has been proven. SponsorCX is the clearest example. A full commercial HQ does both operational halves plus hospitality, ticketing, invoicing and partner-facing reporting in one system, which is where wehave sits. Clubs often shortlist all three and then discover they were comparing answers to different questions.
Which platform is best for a European football club?
Wehave is the strongest fit for most. It was built for European football from day one — Belgian Pro League, Eredivisie and below. KORE does serve European football, but at the very top of the market: Real Madrid, FC Barcelona and LaLiga. SponsorCX uses a US market model, and that friction shows in seasonal structure and terminology.
Is KORE worth the price for a mid-tier club?
For most clubs, no. KORE targets the top 5% of global sport — major franchises, large venues, league bodies with enterprise IT budgets. The custom-quote model and months-long implementation put it well beyond most professional clubs.
Does SponsorCX work for European clubs?
It can, and Bath Rugby is a published case study, but the platform was built around a US market model. For European football clubs the friction shows in seasonal structure and club terminology, and there is no hospitality module for the matchday side of a commercial operation.
Which platform sets up fastest?
Wehave. Setup takes under an hour — no implementation project, no consultants, no demo call required. KORE runs a scoped enterprise implementation with a sales process and dedicated IT resource attached. SponsorCX is considerably faster than KORE — one published case study has a client dashboard live within a week — but it still starts with a demo rather than a signup. If a club wants to self-serve and be live before the next matchday, wehave is the only option here.
Do any of these platforms have a free option?
Only wehave. The free plan: 10 active partnerships, one partner portal, core CRM features — no credit card, no time limit. KORE and SponsorCX both require a sales conversation before any access is provided. The free plan is a permanent tier, not a trial.
Can wehave handle a Premier League or NFL-level club?
The Enterprise plan covers hospitality, B2B ticketing, and the Data Clean Room for larger clubs. Wehave already serves clubs at Belgian Pro League and Dutch Eredivisie level. For NFL or NBA franchises managing hundreds of partnerships alongside dedicated analytics teams, KORE remains the platform built for that volume.
wehave gives commercial teams everything they need - CRM, live inventory, partner portals, hospitality, and AI - in one place.
Get wehave free →