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This study seeks to examine how a sport league, a unique feature of professional sport, influences the business‐to‐business marketing of teams participating in the sport league.

This study uses a qualitative research design based on a single case study, the UCI ProTour in professional road cycling. The primary sources consist of 27 semi‐structured interviews complemented by written sources and controlled for construct validity, external validity and reliability.

From a theoretical point of view, a sport league is a marketing channel network (a specific type of an intentionally developed business network or IDBN). Theoretical analysis also reveals that the teams' business‐to‐business marketing is positively related to the network's value‐creating system. Empirically, it is argued that the introduction of a marketing channel network has a positive influence on the financial value of the teams' business‐to‐business market but does not result in a change in the business demographics of corporate sponsors.

The study has possible sport‐specific limitations.

Business‐to‐business marketers and sport league managers should pay attention to the characteristics of the sport league as these influence the teams' business‐to‐business market. This is especially valid for sports in which teams rely strongly on sport sponsoring and, to a lesser extend, on gate revenues, television rights and prize money.

For the first time, this study examines and provides data on the business‐to‐business environment of teams in professional road cycling. It contributes to the literature of international sport marketing and professional road cycling, a sport gaining momentum in various countries and which is understudied in comparison to other sports.

The purpose of this paper is to examine the impact of doping scandals (n=25) in professional cycling Grand Tour events on the primary team sponsor’s daily stock return.

Event study methodology.

Overall it was found that during the time period and events under examination in this study doping scandals had no significant impact on the primary team sponsor’s stock returns.

There is limited research to explain the economic impact of widespread doping in cycling and its commercial shareholders. This study addresses this gap by examining the relationship between doping scandals in professional cycling and the daily stock return of the involved team’s primary sponsor.

The purpose of this paper is to assess how sponsorships affect firm values in professional cycling. Both the effect of entering a sponsorship contract and reactions to good or bad news during the contract period are investigated. Doping scandals are used as examples of bad news and race wins as examples of good news.

The well-known event-study methodology of analyzing stock prices is used. In order to avoid unnecessary noise, the main emphasis is on short-term stock market effects.

The main original finding is a significant negative reaction to doping scandals within the sponsored team, indicating that the outcome of sponsoring agreements is important for investors. There are no significant stock market reactions to the announcement of sponsorships, hence sponsoring cycling teams in general are perceived as value neutral to the sponsor.

The paper encourages sponsors and cycling teams to focus on anti-doping measures as doping scandals are perceived as value destructive. This contradicts previous studies with smaller data samples. The negative impact of doping scandals outweighs the potential positive effects of winning cycling races.

Professional road cycling has the capacity to be a major worldwide spectator sport, but has yet, in the eyes of many, failed to realize its full potential. There is a growing awareness that profound reforms are crucial for the sport’s future success. The purpose of this paper is to explore the conditions which the sport must address, and define a new business model for professional road cycling.

The paper uses qualitative data to screen professional road cycling’s current business model, and to present a coherent vision on the changes needed to reform the sport. Information was gathered from archival material and from talks with stakeholders.

The paper presents a blueprint for the future of professional cycling. It identifies 6 vital building blocks and 25 specific action points, beginning with the idea that professional road cycling needs a stable business model that produces a valuable core product.

Professional road cycling is is conservative by nature and changes are extremely difficult to implement. This contribution presents a glimpse of one possible future for professional cycling, if cycling’s policy makers acknowledge the need for profound reforms of the sport and are willing to make the necessary changes.

The purpose of this paper is show how sponsors in a major sponsored event may react when facing a potential doping affair. The Tour de France cycling competition is a premier global sporting event – broadcast worldwide – and thus attracts very significant sponsorship. Cycling teams are named after their team sponsors. Recent global news has, however, shown that there are doping scandals involved in this event which impact both teams and team sponsors. When a doping scandal occurs in a team, the sponsors have to react rapidly and expeditiously to protect their brand reputation.

To ascertain potential reactions, team sponsors are interviewed in depth and their reactions to a doping affair assessed. The sponsors represent different brands and their commitment as team sponsors also varies.

Research shows that sponsors react similarly when a doping scandal occurs in their team and adopt similar communication strategies in that situation. While best practice is apparent, doping policies put into place by sponsors nevertheless differ. These practices are more than just preventative in nature, i.e. they anticipate and try to prevent doping affairs.

The teams and sponsors are engaged in a long-term relationship to build brand heritage. Undoubtedly, doping is taken very seriously, as consequences can be severe. In this sense, the sport, the teams and the sponsors share the same vision and objectives.

Team sponsors reactions while facing a potential doping affair have not yet been assessed. Best practices become visible which might serve as guidelines in other global sporting events, also generating significant sponsorships.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate the effects of a crisis situation in a sports team on the credibility of their sponsor and how the sponsor’s use of various crises response strategies may repair the damage done to their credibility.

A scenario experiment was conducted with a 2 (pre-/post-crisis) × 4 (sponsor response strategy: denial/distancing/rebuild/no response) mixed factor design. Respondents (n=191) were recruited from a research panel.

The results confirmed the existence of a spill-over effect: the sponsor’s credibility dropped as a result of the crisis. More interestingly, the effects of the crisis on sponsor credibility were moderated by the response strategy of the sponsor: the harm that the crisis did to the sponsor credibility was aggravated by a denial strategy, but somewhat weakened by a diminishing strategy. A rebuild response unexpectedly improved the credibility of the sponsor.

While partnerships in sports can be risky, because crises can be contagious, such partners can also help one another to protect their credibility. Therefore, this study advocates an integral approach of crisis communication. Sponsors may improve their credibility when they frame their contribution to the solution to the problems as an authentic effort to do good.

Starting from an issue arena perspective, this contribution shows how crises in sports teams also affect sponsors and how sponsors can contribute to the restoration of the damaged credibility with suitable responses to the crisis situation.

Women's sport is said to be experiencing a moment of progress exemplified by the ‘professionalising’ of teams, leagues and events (McLachlan, 2019; Pavlidis, 2020; Taylor et al., 2020). The current ‘professionalising’ moment is celebrated as a measure of incremental change that demonstrates that women's sport is progressing in the right direction (Sherry & Taylor, 2019; Taylor, 2020). In this chapter, we pursue critical questions of progress in relation to professionalisation in women's road cycling. Cycling as a sport commenced in the late 1800s, and women were able to earn money from riding and racing their bicycle. However, the evolution of women's cycling has not been a linear process, (McLachlan, 2016) and despite increased ‘professionalisation’ of women's road cycling, women cyclists lack proper wages, safe working conditions, significant prize money, and suitable economic and career opportunities. Our work draws from data of 15 semi-structured interviews with riders and from extensive fieldwork of elite women's road cycling races in seven different countries in 2019. Our findings illustrate that despite the general perceptions of progress of women's professional road cycling, the cyclists' experiences and rationalisations of their conditions reflect deeper struggles. We argue that struggles over rewards, resources, and recognition are all evidence of the ‘unimpeded sexism’ in sport (Fink, 2016, p. 3), and as such, the professionalising of women's sport does not guarantee transformation of the gender order.

Given the strong interest among services marketing practitioners in sponsoring events, this study illustrates how events and sponsorships synergistically facilitate and deepen consumer relationships by connecting service brands with consumers' passions. Structural equation modeling is used to test a congruity theory-based framework via a field study conducted at a professional cycling event. The tested model holds for two service brands operating at different levels of sponsorship. The results demonstrate how the combination of consumers' attitudes toward the event, knowledge of the sponsor brand and their level of activity in the event domain influence their assessments of event-sponsor fit. Interestingly, the findings indicate that, in the context of a community-based sports event, the title sponsor did not experience any discernable advantage of sponsorship, despite its elevated position as a sponsor and higher brand equity.

This study aims to examine the outcomes of consumer perceptions of event social responsibility (ESR) for a sponsored community event and its sponsor portfolio (i.e. group of sponsoring companies). It integrates a new antecedent and new moderators of ESR with extant findings to provide a comprehensive model that is theoretically grounded in social identity theory, congruency theory and image and affect transfer.

The authors test the theoretical framework via a field study of attendees (n = 879) at a sponsored, large-scale sporting event that provided ESR through health and wellness education and activities. A field study is especially appropriate because of the experiential nature of sponsored events and ESR.

Fan identification with the sport is an antecedent of ESR, and motivation to attend the event’s supporting activities moderates the relationship between fan identification and ESR. High event-sponsor fit strengthens the relationship between ESR and word-of-mouth and between ESR and sponsor patronage.

This study illuminates the role of ESR as a key driver of outcomes for events and for their sponsor portfolio. Future research should investigate ESR in contexts other than sport and use longitudinal data that include actual purchases. It should further examine the construct of sponsor portfolio because so many events have multiple sponsors

Event sponsorship offers an attractive platform for brands to demonstrate good corporate citizenship; therefore, marketers should consider ESR as a key criterion when selecting events to sponsor. Marketers should sponsor events with high event-sponsor portfolio fit to enhance the outcomes related to ESR for both sponsors and events. This research generally underscores the importance of creating auxiliary, interactive experiences for event attendees.

ESR entails that events should contribute or give back to the local communities and organizations in a charitable way to both help give back socially and to maximize success as measured by electronic word-of-mouth (eWOM) and sponsor patronage toward brands sponsoring the event.

This research identifies a new antecedent and new moderators of ESR and integrates them with extant findings to create a comprehensive, theoretically grounded model. It investigates outcomes for both the event and its sponsor portfolio, in contrast to the scholarship that tends to focus on the (title) sponsor.