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The purpose of this paper is to empirically investigate the following relationships in the Asian sports sponsorship context: first, the influence of self-congruity and perceived congruence on sponsor brand identification and sponsor credibility, respectively; second, the influence of sponsor brand identification and sponsor credibility on sponsor brand equity; and third, the mediating effect of sponsor brand identification and sponsor credibility on the relationship that self-congruity and perceived congruence each have with sponsor brand equity.

A field study was conducted in Taiwan, where 410 questionnaires were collected from baseball fans of the Chinese Professional Baseball League (the local professional baseball league).

The findings support all of the hypotheses and reveal that self-congruity and perceived congruence leverage sponsor brand equity through sponsor brand identification and sponsor credibility, respectively. Both sponsor brand identification and sponsor credibility partially mediate the relationship that self-congruity and perceived congruence each have with sponsor brand equity.

The findings of this study can assist sponsorship managers in realising how to leverage a sponsor brand equity.

The conceptual model investigated both direct and indirect (i.e. mediated) effects by providing different theoretical explanations to explore how self-congruity and perceived congruence leverage sponsor brand equity in the Asian sports sponsorship context.

The purpose of this study is to understand the occurrence, formation and magnitude of negative effects for sponsors of rival sports teams and to identify means to counteract negative sponsorship effects.

Surveys measure fans’ identification with their team as well as attitudes toward rival teams and their sponsors in a soccer context. An experiment introduces sponsorship communication activities that aim at mitigating negative sponsorship effects by shifting the focus of the sponsorship.

Results from surveys and experiments demonstrate that identification with a sports team negatively affects perceptions of a rival team, negative perceptions of a rival team negatively affect perceptions of its sponsors, this effect is stronger for fans with higher levels of team identification, companies can improve perceptions of rival team sponsors by shifting the focus of sponsorship-linked communication activities, but attenuating negative sponsorship effects is more difficult to achieve for fans with higher levels of identification with their team.

Further studies need to disentangle mitigating effects of framing sponsorship communication and investigate in greater depth conditions under which sponsorship leverage can emphasize specific social identities of sports fans and enhance the inclusiveness of fans’ self-categorization.

Companies can learn from this study how they can frame, design and use sponsorship communication activities to mitigate negative sponsorship effects in the context of rival-team sponsorship.

The study is one of the few studies addressing negative effects of sponsorship. In particular, the study provides first insights into how social identity theory, social categorization theory and framing theory work together with theories of image transfer in both the formation and the attenuation of negative sponsorship outcomes.

In 2017, the National Basketball Association (NBA) became the first major professional North American sport league to adopt jersey sponsorship. While professional leagues across the globe have allowed this practice for decades, the NBA's decision marked what may be the start of a new trend in North American sport sponsorship. With this in mind, the current study sought to assess the impact of fans' perceptions of these sponsorships on sponsor- and team-related outcomes.

An online sample of 301 NBA fans across the United States was conducted through Amazon's MTurk.

Results exhibited the importance of sponsorship authenticity, which maintained the strongest influence on sponsor- and team-related outcomes. Brand–team fit, sponsorship familiarity and sponsorship identification were also assessed, with mixed results for each factor.

Results of these findings related to sponsorship authenticity and consequent practical and theoretical implications are discussed, and areas for future research are provided.

Despite to useful relevance to better understand how group-level identity develops, few studies have explored the identity theory in the esports field and, in particular, considering the impact of a fan's role identity. The current study aims to explore esports fan role-identity vis-à-vis the relationship with the sponsor and the sponsee so as to understand the effects on their behavioral intentions.

Using a sample of 356 esports fans who attended the 2021 FPF eFootball Open Challenge, a Confirmatory Factor Analysis (CFA) analyzed the psychometric properties of the constructs and a subsequent Structural Equation Modeling (SEM) examined the effects of fan identity on two types of behavioral intentions and sponsor–sponsee relationship.

Results indicate that fans who highly identify with esports have the highest attachment to the event and tend toward having a positive word-of-mouth intention. Esports fans who have a higher brand identification reported a positive attitude toward the event's sponsor brand and tend to purchase its products. Moreover, the study findings also provide evidence of the bidirectional interaction between the way in which fans attach with the esports event and its sponsor brand, leading to greater reciprocity in their identity formation.

This study helps to understand how the fan identity process can enhance its fate and develop mutually, building role overlapping identity in the esports sponsor–sponsee relationship. Complementarily, it supports of how the marketeers and managers must analyze the importance of being a fan to the individual in order to understand how its self-identity can shape the future behavior.

Faced with ever-increasing advertising restrictions, sponsorship of sports has been an important promotional avenue for tobacco companies in North America and around the world. This paper examines the corporate sponsorship objectives and strategies of tobacco companies, based primarily on historical documents from the British-American Tobacco Co., which has operations in over 80 countries. The documents are part of the Guildford Depository located in Guildford, England. It contains over six million pages of corporate documents for the British-American Tobacco Company (BAT) from a 40-year span (early 1950s to mid 1990s). Tobacco company sponsorship practices include developing sponsorship evaluation guidelines, extensive prepromotion and post-promotion of sponsored events, making full use of the event site for sponsorship identification, ensuring that sponsored events are televised, and using an extensive array of public relations practices to ensure news coverage of a sponsored event. Other sponsors could benefit from emulating the sponsorship practices of tobacco companies.

The purpose of this paper is to explore the role of brand associations and the formation of attitudes towards a new sponsor. Specifically, the paper evaluates the Under Armour brand and its anomalous position in the Barclay’s Premier League.

The research design is longitudinal, qualitative and interpretivistic, utilising 26 online focus groups with 213 participants over a 24-month period encompassing the 2012/2013 and 2013/2014 Premier League seasons.

The results indicate that Under Armour’s lack of football (soccer) presence in the context of the Premier League offered significant differentiation, as it diminished “common ground” with other fans, offered the opportunity to create personal identities beyond the club and the consumption of kit apparel, and was seen as positive given the articulation that brands such as Nike and Adidas were “forced” onto fans. Additionally, for the first time in the sports sponsorship literature, the findings reveal fans engaging with brands in a utilitarian manner, expressing concerns relating to cost, durability, functionality and value for money.

This study is exploratory in nature and highly contextualised, and a larger-scale study of the phenomenon is desirable. This study extends the literature on fans’ perceptions of sponsoring brands and shows that a new sponsor, without prior league or club associations, can generate significant brand interest and elicit consumption behaviours beyond team apparel.

The findings suggest that there are considerable opportunities for “outside” brands to garner a market share and instigate loyalty through sponsorship. Subsequently, kit manufacturers should consider strategies that encompass entry into new sporting areas.

The study reveals that fans seek uniqueness and differentiation in a sponsoring brand, with brand image paramount in relation to the club and to both social and personal identity.

The purpose of this paper is to study the effects of sports sponsorship on brand equity using two managerially related outcomes: price premium and market share.

This study uses a best–worst discrete choice experiment (BWDCE) and compares the outcome with that of the purchase intention scale, an established probabilistic measure of purchase intention. The total sample consists of 409 fans of three soccer teams sponsored by three different competing brands: Nike, Adidas and Puma.

With sports sponsorship, fans were willing to pay more for the sponsor’s product, with the sponsoring brand obtaining the highest market share. Prominent brands generally performed better than less prominent brands. The best–worst scaling method was also 35% more accurate in predicting brand choice than a purchase intention scale.

Future research could use the same method to study other types of sponsors, such as title sponsors or other product categories.

Sponsorship managers can use this methodology to assess the return on investment in sponsorship engagement.

Prior sponsorship studies on brand equity tend to ignore market share or fans’ willingness to pay a price premium for a sponsor’s goods and services. However, these two measures are crucial in assessing the effectiveness of sponsorship. This study demonstrates how to conduct such an assessment using the BWDCE method. It provides a clearer picture of sponsorship in terms of its economic value, which is more managerially useful.

Four demographic variables (education, age, gender and internet use) and two psychographic variables (attitude towards NASCAR sponsors and NASCAR involvement) were investigated for impact on NASCAR fan ability to recall sponsor brands. Regression analysis indicates that the above variables are significant predictors of ability to recall sponsor brands, combining to explain 33% of observed variance.

The purpose of this paper is to explain the benefits of charitable sport events and examines how consumer involvement in the cause, attitude toward the event, and event-sponsor fit influence corporate image (CI) and corresponding purchase intention (PI).

The conceptual model developed in this research consolidates various constructs related to sponsors and events into a single comprehensive framework, thus offering an integrated view of the factors that determine consumers’ perceptions of a sponsorship and their attitudes toward a sponsor. Data were collected from participants in the Pink Ribbon Love Marathons (PRLM) held in Seoul, South Korea. A total of 650 female subjects (mean age=41.2, SD=12.5) participated in this investigation.

The findings indicate that CI plays a significant role as a partial mediator within a reciprocal relationship between participants’ event perception and patronage intention. Sponsoring a well-targeted event might have a positive impact on CI and PI.

What makes this study unique is the application of previous research examining cause-related sport sponsorship from a sport participant’s perspective. From a practical standpoint, the findings of this study reveal the importance of corporate communication in CSR.

This paper aims to analyze the visual attention, transparency perception and attitude of Brazilian women from generation Z toward sponsorship disclosures with a different number of text messages used in native advertisements made by a digital influencer.

A quantitative and multi-method experiment was conducted through a within-subjects experimental design with 149 women. The eye-tracker assessed visual attention and questionnaires measured transparency perception of sponsorship and attitude toward native advertisements. To analyze eye-tracking and transparency perception data, Friedman’s analysis of variance was used. Structural equations were modeled for analyzing attitude data.

The quantitative results indicate that disclosures with a single textual message obtain more visual attention than multiple textual messages. However, sponsorship disclosures with multiple textual messages obtain the best transparency perception and generate a better attitude toward native advertisements.

This study extends the theory by investigating the relationship between visual attention to sponsorship disclosure with a different number of textual messages and the target audience's responses to them.

The analysis of Brazilian generation Z women's responses to native ads might contribute to companies, marketing professionals and digital influencers obtaining great visual attention, transparency perception and attitude toward ethical and transparent ads to this audience.

To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this is the first study to analyze Brazilian generation Z women's visual attention, transparency perception and attitude toward sponsorship disclosure with single and multiple textual messages in native advertisements.