Sponsorship Is Borrowed Trust
- Alyxandra Sherwood
- Aug 14
- 6 min read
Over fifteen years in broadcasting, I learned that some of the most valuable things a media company can sell don't appear on a rate card. Trust. Familiarity. Consistency. The voice you recognize before you've consciously registered which station you're listening to. The face that's been delivering the evening news for so long that seeing them feels less like turning on a television station and more like checking in with someone you know.
I've had the privilege of working with two broadcasters who exemplify that better than almost anyone: Dan Palmer at WDOE in Dunkirk and Don Alhart at 13WHAM ABC in Rochester. Both have been recognized by the New York State Broadcasters Association. Dan joined WDOE in 1975 and was inducted into the NYSBA Hall of Fame in 2024. Don spent 58 years at Channel 13 before retiring in 2024, earning the Guinness World Record for the longest career as a male television news broadcaster.
Those numbers are extraordinary. But longevity by itself isn't what makes either man valuable to an audience—or to a sponsor. Consistency over that longevity does.
They showed up, year after year, and built relationships with audiences one broadcast at a time. Eventually, the talent became part of the product. That's something I've been thinking about as I've explored nostalgia this week. Sometimes nostalgia isn't a logo you bring back or a character from your childhood. Sometimes it's a person your community trusts.
Not Just a Sports Broadcaster
Dan Palmer is a sports institution in Chautauqua County. He has called thousands of local football, basketball, baseball, softball and other sporting events over his career. The Chautauqua Sports Hall of Fame credits him with more than 2,000 play-by-play broadcasts.
But there's another side of Dan's job that I've always found fascinating - Dan also sells. He's spent years calling local businesses about sponsorship opportunities connected to the games he broadcasts. After decades of doing that, those aren't necessarily cold sales calls anymore.
Think about the business owner answering the phone. Maybe Dan announced their daughter's name during a basketball game. Maybe their son was recognized as the student athlete of the day. Maybe they listened to Dan call a championship game their child played in. Some of those business owners may remember hearing Dan on the radio when they were students themselves. So when Dan calls about supporting local sports, he's offering something very different from another advertising package.
The sponsorship dollars help support something woven into the community's history—and Dan is one of the people who has spent decades documenting it. That's hometown heritage attached to someone the customer already trusts. You can't manufacture that with a campaign.
Don Alhart and the Bright Spot
I experienced another version of that relationship while working at 13WHAM ABC. One of Don Alhart's legacy features during the 6 p.m. news was the Bright Spot, an uplifting story Don personally curated to close the newscast on a positive note.
During COVID, you can probably imagine how valuable that became. The news was exhausting. People were isolated. Every day seemed to bring another frightening statistic, restriction or uncertainty. Then, toward the end of the broadcast, Don gave viewers something positive.
Naturally, that made the Bright Spot attractive from a sponsorship perspective. But the thing that made the Bright Spot valuable was also the thing we couldn't interfere with. It was Don's. His editorial judgment was part of the product. If we suddenly transformed the Bright Spot into an obvious sponsored segment, we risked damaging the very thing the advertiser wanted to associate itself with.
So I worked with Don and his producer, Beth, to find a way around that problem. Rather than inserting additional commercial messaging into the story, we created a scheduled stinger in the preceding commercial break—a short logo and audio mention identifying the sponsor before seamlessly returning to Don and his story.
The sponsor received the association. The audience received the Bright Spot they expected. Don retained the editorial integrity of the feature. And the newsroom didn't have to add another cumbersome step to the daily production process. Everybody got what they needed because we started by protecting what made the product valuable.
Brand Stewardship in Sponsorship Marketing
There's a reason broadcasters like Dan and Don strongly defend the things they've built. Dan can control the quality of his broadcast. Don could protect the editorial standards attached to his name. From the outside, that can occasionally look like someone being overly protective of "their" product.
I see it differently. That's brand stewardship. Their reputations weren't built by being on television or radio for a long time. They were built by delivering something consistently enough that audiences learned what to expect from them. That's an important distinction. Longevity creates familiarity. Consistency turns familiarity into trust.
We see the importance of that whenever a longtime broadcaster retires or leaves a station. The building hasn't moved. The call letters haven't changed. The newscast may air at exactly the same time with many of the same reporters, producers and stories. But someone turns on the television and thinks: "This doesn't feel like my news anymore."
What changed? The person they associated with the product. That's why long-tenured talent can become such an enormous brand asset—and why replacing them isn't simply a staffing decision. You're changing part of the audience's relationship with the brand.
Nostalgia Is Accumulated Trust
That's where this connects to everything else I've been thinking about this week. Nostalgia isn't always about wanting things to stay exactly as they were. Sometimes it's the emotional shorthand created by hundreds or thousands of consistent experiences.
A viewer doesn't consciously think: "This person has demonstrated sound editorial judgment for several decades, therefore I assign greater credibility to today's broadcast." They think: "I know Don." A Chautauqua County business owner doesn't need a presentation explaining Dan Palmer's personal brand. They've heard his voice for decades. They know what he represents. That familiarity dramatically changes the sponsorship conversation because the advertiser isn't starting at zero. They're entering a relationship where trust already exists, and as Dan once admitted to me, that makes it incredibly hard to tell him 'no'.
Professor Sherwood's Practical Wisdom
Sponsorship marketing is borrowed trust. When a company sponsors a trusted broadcaster, beloved community event, longstanding feature, nonprofit organization, sports team or local tradition, they're not merely purchasing impressions. They're borrowing some of the meaning the audience already associates with it.
That's incredibly valuable. It's also a responsibility. If you're considering attaching a sponsor to a trusted property, don't start by asking: How much inventory can we sell around this? Start by asking: Why do people care about this? Then protect the answer. Most importantly, get buy-in from the people who created and curate the property. They understand why the audience trusts it, and they need to see a natural alignment with the potential sponsor. If they don't see the fit, there is no path forward.
Maybe it's editorial independence. Maybe it's the personality delivering the message. Maybe it's a community tradition. Maybe it's local ownership. Maybe it's simply the knowledge that every Friday night during football season, the same familiar voice will be there calling the game. The sponsorship should sit beside that value, not on top of it. Because you can't borrow someone's trust while simultaneously undermining the thing that created it.
So What?
Marketing spends enormous amounts of money trying to manufacture familiarity.
Brand awareness campaigns, influencers, testimonials, sponsorships, creator partnerships and community activations are all trying, in one way or another, to shorten the distance between: "I've never heard of you," and "I trust you."
People like Dan Palmer and Don Alhart built that bridge the slow way.
one game
one story
one broadcast
one year
then another
That's why the important number isn't simply 50 years or 58 years. Consistency over longevity is the asset. Show up long enough and people recognize you. Show up consistently enough—with standards, credibility and something the audience values—and people begin to trust you.
Eventually, the talent becomes inseparable from the product. That's why audiences notice when familiar broadcasters leave even though the station itself remains. The logo is still there. The studio is still there. The news is still there, but part of the relationship isn't.
That's when nostalgia becomes something more valuable than remembering the good old days - it becomes heritage. And heritage creates extraordinary opportunities for marketers, but it also creates an obligation.
Sponsorship is borrowed trust. When a sponsor attaches its name to something a community has trusted for decades, it's borrowing a little of the credibility, familiarity and goodwill someone else spent years earning. The marketer's job is to make sure they give that trust back in the same condition they found it.
