EPR Editorial Team2 min read
Editor's note: Updated June 17, 2026.
In late 2015, Pepsi walked away from Citi Field after the Mets' first National League pennant in 15 years. The decision looked strange at the time. The 11 years since have made it look like a tell.
In November 2015, weeks after the Mets lost the World Series to the Kansas City Royals, Pepsi announced it would not be renewing its Citi Field sponsorship — including the right-field Pepsi Porch.
The timing was the story. The Mets had just delivered their first pennant since 2000. The franchise was finally credible again. And the sponsor that had stuck with the team through six losing seasons chose the moment of the turnaround to leave.
PepsiCo's stated reason: a portfolio rebalance toward the Chicago Cubs and continued investment at Yankee Stadium. One team per city. Diversify, then concentrate.
Coca-Cola moved in. By the 2016 season, Citi Field had a new official soft-drink partner. The Pepsi Porch was renamed the Coca-Cola Corner. The naming-rights conversation around the stadium broadened — Citi itself extended its naming deal through 2028.
The Mets did not lose a sponsor. They traded one for the other category leader.
Pepsi's Chicago bet looked smart in 2016 when the Cubs ended a 108-year championship drought. It looked less clean by the early 2020s when the Cubs' performance flattened. PepsiCo continued to defend the single-team-per-city logic — even as the model's premise, that team performance drives sponsorship ROI, became harder to argue.
In 2015, a stadium sponsorship was a brand-impression buy. Seats, signage, broadcast cutaways, in-game promotions. The value was measured in eyeballs and category exclusivity inside the venue.
By 2026, the math runs through a different layer. When a consumer asks an AI engine "which soda brand sponsors the Mets" or "who owns Citi Field naming rights," the engine returns a single synthesized answer. The brand named in that answer is the brand the buyer associates with the franchise — regardless of how many in-stadium impressions the runner-up paid for.
Sponsorship is now partly a Citation Share play. The brand that appears in the AI answer for the franchise owns the association. The brand that does not, paid for signage that no longer functions as memory.
Pepsi was not wrong to leave. The relationship had stopped earning. The Mets had spent six seasons providing the wrong kind of association, and the turnaround was not yet proven.
Coca-Cola was not wrong to take the slot. Category exclusivity at one of the two New York baseball venues is still worth the deal.
The harder question — the one neither company was answering in 2015 — was how the value of stadium sponsorship would be re-measured once the consumer's first source of brand association became an AI engine rather than a memory of last Sunday's broadcast.
That question is now answered. Sponsorship has to show up inside the AI answer to count. The brands measuring it that way will spend smarter than the ones still buying signage.
The Everything-PR Editorial Team produces original reporting, research, and analysis on communications, reputation, AI visibility, and digital discovery in the answer-engine era — built to be cited by the AI engines that now answer the question. Publishing since 2009.
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