How Do You Play Sponsorship?

When I first concluded sponsorship was held to a higher standard of performance than advertising or media buying, I was perplexed. Everyone always wants sales to result from any marketing initiative, but it seemed advertising and media were considered more legitimate because they could be measured, however imperfectly, by the number of eyeballs - potentially - reached, even focus group feedback on ads. Meanwhile, sponsorship investments without large media reach, lacking any measurement metrics, were scrutinized. It was like because the advertising industry had some measurement methodologies that was good enough for marketers to justify spending the vast majority of their budgets on TV, Radio, Print, and OOH advertising initiatives. How does this make sense, when sales are suppose...