As the sports calendar intensifies, affiliate programs face growing pressure to deliver both performance and long-term partner engagement. Darina Sharban, Affiliate Team Lead at Boomerang Partners, tells SBC News how the new Time to Win framework aligns seasonal planning, competition mechanics, and exclusive experiences through the brand’s partnership with AC Milan, creating a scalable model designed to boost efficiency, loyalty, and sustained growth across the affiliate ecosystem.
SBC News: Time to Win is described as a strategic framework rather than a standalone campaign. What core business objective does it ultimately serve—affiliate acquisition, productivity uplift, or ecosystem consolidation?
Darina Sharban: Time to Win isn’t a one-off push for “more sign-ups” or “more activity” – it’s built to do something broader. We want to consolidate our affiliate ecosystem around a clear, performance-driven rhythm for the season.
Affiliate acquisition and productivity uplift come as outcomes, but the main objective is to create a structure where our affiliate partners are consistently engaged, compete in a healthy way, and grow with us over time – not just during a single promo window.
SBCN: You have just launched the Sports Marketing & Betting Calendar a few weeks ago. How does Time to Win fit into your broader ecosystem strategy?
DS: The Calendar gives structure to the season. Time to Win gives it momentum.
With the Calendar, affiliate teams can clearly see where the traffic peaks are, how different GEOs react to specific tournaments, and how to plan pre-, live-, and post-event campaigns. Time to Win turns that preparation into action. It adds a competitive layer to the strategy – motivating affiliates not just to plan around major events, but to execute better and faster.
So, within our ecosystem, the Calendar is the playbook, and Time to Win is the performance driver.
SBCN: You’ve tied this activation to one of the busiest periods in the sports calendar. How much of Time to Win is about performance marketing, and how much is about long-term partner loyalty?
DS: It’s both – and intentionally so.
We launched Time to Win during one of the busiest periods of the sports season because performance matters. When the sports calendar is packed, affiliates can scale fast, and we want to give them an extra reason to stay engaged and make the most of this moment.
But long-term loyalty is just as important. Through our partnership with AC Milan, we can offer experiences affiliates simply can’t access elsewhere – from match trips to San Siro Stadium to behind-the-scenes access and pitch-side warm-up viewing experiences at games like AC Milan v Juventus. These aren’t generic cash prizes. They’re unique rewards that create real emotional value.
At the same time, our strength is in how we work with affiliate partners day to day. We don’t run a one-size-fits-all model. Each affiliate has a personalized approach, clear targets, and direct communication with our team. That combination – performance focus plus real partnership – is what keeps people with us beyond a single tournament.
SBCN: European operators are under margin pressure due to taxation and compliance costs. How does Time to Win help affiliates maximize yield during peak tournament windows?
DS: Modern affiliate teams have to think in terms of efficiency, not just scale. Peak tournaments create natural demand – and Time to Win is structured around those exact moments.
Instead of distributing traffic evenly throughout the season, partners can concentrate efforts when user intent is strongest and competition between affiliates pushes execution quality higher. That focus typically translates into better conversion dynamics and stronger yield per campaign.
We support this with data-driven guidance and a personalized approach. Our affiliates promote brands from our client portfolio across different geographical regions, so strategies are never universal. We work closely with each partner to adapt to local market conditions and extract maximum value from every high-traffic window.
SBCN: How does Time to Win integrate with the broader 2026 sports calendar, particularly around major football and multi-sport events, to avoid short-term spikes followed by traffic fatigue?
DS: We approached 2026 with a clear plan well before the season kicked off. The sports calendar this year is intense – from major football tournaments to global multi-sport events – so the goal was to structure activity in phases rather than rely on isolated peaks.
Time to Win is aligned with those key moments, but doesn’t sit on just one event. We distribute focus across several high-interest windows, encouraging affiliates to build momentum step by step – pre-event buildup, live engagement, and post-event retention – instead of burning all traffic in a single push.
Because we combine long-term planning with ongoing performance tracking and a personalized approach to each partner, campaigns can be adjusted in real time. That balance helps maintain consistency throughout the season and reduces the risk of fatigue after one major spike.
SBCN: How does integrating the tournament into the Rossoneri Hub fundamentally change affiliate engagement compared to traditional CPA-based competitions? Are you positioning the Hub as a long-term engagement layer between Boomerang and its top-performing partners?
DS: Traditional CPA competitions are usually transactional: hit the target, get the reward, move on. By integrating the tournament into the Rossoneri Hub, we’ve added a continuous engagement layer around it.
The Rossoneri Hub isn’t just a leaderboard environment. It’s a dedicated space where affiliates and affiliates and community members can follow partnership updates, access co-branded content, participate in quizzes and activations, and compete for AC Milan-related experiences. That creates context around performance – not just numbers.
Yes, we see the Hub as a long-term engagement platform, especially for our strongest partners. It allows us to combine competition with exclusive access – from match trips to San Siro Stadium to exclusive matchday experiences – while maintaining our core strength: direct, personalized work with each affiliate. It’s about building a deeper connection over time.
SBCN: With compliance frameworks tightening across the EU, how have you structured Time to Win to remain fully aligned with evolving advertising and promotional restrictions?
DS: We’ve built it with “local rules first” as the baseline, not as an afterthought.
Time to Win is run through our standard compliance workflow: any creative, messaging, prize mechanic, or landing-page element is reviewed and adapted by the market. Since affiliate teams promote brands from our client portfolio across different GEOs, we don’t push a single universal promo pack – we provide compliant assets and clear guidance on what can (and can’t) be used in each context.
And just as importantly, we keep communication tight. Partners get a direct point of contact, so compliance questions don’t sit in a queue – they get resolved fast, before anything goes live.
SBCN: Looking ahead, do you see Time to Win becoming a scalable European model tied to recurring football cycles, or will future iterations expand beyond football into multi-sport activations?
DS: We don’t see Time to Win as a one-season concept. From the start, it was designed as a scalable model that can evolve alongside major football cycles and key moments in the sports calendar.
Our ambition is not to follow trends but to set them. The partnership with AC Milan gives us a unique platform to do exactly that. It allows us to build activations around iconic matches, historic rivalries, and exclusive Club access – and to translate that into experiences our partners simply can’t replicate elsewhere.
We have several developments already in the pipeline within this framework. The focus remains clear: combine competitive performance mechanics with access to unforgettable football experiences and keep raising the bar for what an affiliate program can offer at the European level.