Creative Is a Line Item, Not a Cost Center
Why marketers and creatives need to learn to speak P&L. And why the CFO needs to learn to read a brand.
For most of my career, I’ve sat in rooms where marketing was the last slide in the deck. The budget conversation went like this: revenue, operations, ticketing, partnerships… and then “brand,” presented as a cost we hoped leadership would tolerate then approve.
Fourteen years across professional sports, media, and nonprofits taught me one thing clearly: creative and brand aren’t what you spend after the business works. They’re a large part of why it works. Now, this is the only framework that I accept.
But here’s the honest part. If we want a seat at the revenue table, we have to show up speaking the language of those at the table. That means understanding a P&L well enough to point to the line our work moves.
Every Campaign Touches A Number
Marketing (organic) and creative rarely have their own row on the income statement, and that’s exactly the problem. Our impact is spread across rows that belong to other departments:
Ticket and attendance revenue. A content series that drives 2,000 more people through the gates isn’t a “brand win.” It’s a revenue line.
Partnership revenue. Sponsors don’t buy logo placement. They buy an audience that trusts the brand. Creative built that trust.
Merchandise and retail. Design is the product. The jersey drop that sells out started with a creative brief.
Cost of acquisition. Great brand work makes every paid dollar work harder. That’s not a vanity metric, it’s margin.
Retention and lifetime value. A fan who feels seen renews. That renewal never gets attributed to the storytelling that earned it.
If we don’t connect our work to those rows ourselves, no one will do it for us.
Three Habits That Changed How I Lead
Start every brief with the business outcome, not the creative idea. Before we talk about the look, the talent, or the platform, I ask myself: what number are we trying to move, and by how much? Everything downstream gets sharper when the answer to that question is specific.
Build the measurement plan before the content plan. If we can’t say how we’ll know it worked, we’re not ready to make it. Impressions are a leading indicator, not a result. Conversions, revenue per fan, partner renewals, retention, and the interactions that lead to those metrics are results.
Report like a business unit, not a service department. When sharing results, lead with revenue influenced, cost efficiency, and growth, then the creative that made it happen. The work is still the star. Just make sure you walk it in through the front door instead of the back door.
The Part Creatives Don’t Like To Hear
We’ve spent years arguing that our work “can’t be measured.” Some of that is true. Brand equity compounds slowly and doesn’t show up cleanly in a quarter. But we’ve used that truth as a cover for not trying, and it’s cost us budget, headcount, burnout and credibility.
You don’t have to become an accountant. You have to become curious about where money comes from in your organization and honest about where your work shows up in the budget.
The Part Finance Doesn’t Like To Hear
The reverse is also true. Brand is a long-term asset that a quarterly view will always undervalue. A team that cuts creative to protect this year’s margin is borrowing against next year’s revenue. The organizations that win understand that the brand (organic marketing, creative content, unscripted moments) is what makes every other revenue line possible.
That’s the conversation I want more of us having, from both sides of the table.
I’m getting back into writing regularly about marketing, brand, and the business of sports. Next up: what it actually means to give back to culture instead of taking from it. If there’s a topic you want me to dig into, tell me in the comments.
// A Nine28 Publication