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Frank Cooper’s on-camera recollections about pitching Beyoncé read like a Hollywood script — a reminder that today’s corporate marketing lives or dies on celebrity theater, not substance. In a recent Forbes Enterprise Zone conversation he traced a winding career path from Motown Records to BlackRock and Pepsi, and confessed that working celebrity deals taught him how to make bold, show-stopping plays for brand attention. That kind of bravado plays well on stage and in interviews, but it should make everyday Americans ask what our biggest companies are really investing in.
What should worry patriotic consumers is that Visa’s newest playbook puts spectacle ahead of loyalty: the company will end its three-decade, league-wide NFL sponsorship when the contract expires in March 2026 and pivot to deals with teams, players and creators. That’s not a small tactical shift — it’s a wholesale abandonment of a national institution that has long been a reliable partner for American fans and small businesses around stadiums. Frank Cooper framed the move as a way to build “fan-first” content, but many Americans will rightly wonder whether this is marketing innovation or corporate retreat.
Adding insult to injury, American Express is reported to be stepping into the NFL card-sponsorship slot with a deal worth roughly $910 million over seven years, a figure that showcases just how bloated sports-rights economics have become. If banks and card companies are pouring nearly a billion dollars into access to our national pastime, taxpayers and consumers deserve a hard conversation about whether corporate America’s money is being spent on real value or on status signaling. Visa’s own CMO openly cited rising rights costs as a driver for change — an admission that the market is being gamed by escalating price tags, not by enlightened consumer focus.
There’s no denying Cooper’s hustle or his marketing chops; his resume — from Motown to Pepsi to Visa — proves he can sell a story and move crowds. The Forbes segment makes clear he learned the art of big, cultural activations from those years, including high-profile music partnerships and stadium-scale activations. But expertise in spectacle does not absolve executives from accountability to American fans and to the small businesses that prosper around game day commerce. When a corporation treats civic rituals as mere stages for celebrity-driven content, patriotism is an easy casualty.
Visa’s explanation for the pivot is predictably global: the company plans to lean into premier international properties like the 2026 FIFA Men’s World Cup, the 2027 Women’s World Cup and the Los Angeles 2028 Olympic and Paralympic Games. Those are massive events, to be sure, but the result is a marketing strategy that chases global flash rather than investing in the steady, domestic partnerships that sustain local economies and American traditions. Cooper calls it a three-year “fan-first” arc, but fans in the heartland aren’t fooled by buzzwords that paper over an appetite for ever-larger, more centralized marketing spectacles.
At the end of the day, this is more than corporate rebranding — it’s a cultural choice. Companies like Visa should be reminded that their strongest brand asset is the American people and the American way of life, not a rotating cast of influencers and global events. If executives want to keep our business and our respect, they should put principle ahead of performance art, support the institutions that knit our communities together, and stop pricing out the fans who made them household names. American consumers know how to reward loyalty; corporations would do well to remember where their real power comes from.
