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Michael Payne made his name by developing the first global marketing strategy, the TOP Programme, for the International Olympic Committee. In 1988 he became the organisation's first ever marketing director. In 2002 he took up the new post of director of Olympic global broadcast and new media rights. During his career at the IOC he oversaw the marketing of 15 Olympic Summer and Winter Games. He has been nominated as one of the world's most influential marketers by Advertising Age and has recently written the book Olympic Turnaround, the story of how the Olympics was saved. In 2005 he became special adviser to Bernie Ecclestone, with a brief to help develop commercial opportunities in Formula One.

The purpose of this paper is to explore the reasons for the discontinuation of sports sponsor–sponsee relationships and categorize them. Despite the negative outcomes of a sponsorship dissolution, research on this topic is rather scarce.

The paper relies on an analysis of 24 historical cases and 19 in-depth interviews focusing on the Dutch soccer league. Several sponsorship disruptors are identified and clustered into four categories.

The four categories for sponsorship dissolution are the following: sponsor-related factors, sponsee-related factors, inter-relational factors and external factors. In total, ten sponsorship disruptors are identified: insufficient value creation, objectives achieved, sports results, signal to society, exclusivity, negativity, personal relationship, changed marketing strategy, financial situation and legislation and regulation.

This study primarily investigates soccer sponsorship cases. Future research could investigate other sponsorship areas, which could yield different reasons for sponsorship termination.

Practitioners are advised to view the sponsorship relationship as a strategic alliance, rather than a resource, from the beginning of the sponsorship. A solid relational framework is needed, which is built around the elements of trust, commitment and collaborative communication. If such a foundation does not exist or has eroded, the sponsorship relationship is fragile and can be endangered by various factors.

This study uses inductive reasoning to devise a framework that enables sponsees to anticipate when sponsors are likely to discontinue their sponsorship such that the sponsees can take actions accordingly. Apart from validating existing reasons for sponsorship dissolution, this research also presents novel and previously undiscovered sponsorship disruptors.

This study explores the effect of video assistant referee (VAR) sponsorship on spectator response and compares it with advertising and conventional sponsorship.

An experiment with 809 subjects is conducted by analyzing 20 one-minute video clip stimuli from a Premier League soccer game divided into four formats: two formats of VAR sponsorship, advertising, and conventional sponsorship.

The results show that the indicators of recall, credibility, and perceived congruence improve when the VAR sponsorship format is used.

This is the first manuscript to examine the effectiveness of a new type of sponsorship: VAR sponsorship. This manuscript provides metrics that will guide practitioners on whether to use this type of sponsorship.