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Many voluntary sports clubs face financial difficulties and consequently turn to external funding sources. Recent developments suggest that sports clubs have been successful in significantly increasing sponsorship income by professionalizing their sponsorship activities. However, not much is known about how voluntary sports clubs professionalize their sponsorship management (e.g. sponsorship staff). This study seeks to gain a deeper understanding of the components addressed and the practices used by voluntary sports clubs to professionalize their sponsorship.

An exploratory case study was conducted to gain in-depth insights into voluntary sports clubs’ organizational developments in the context of sponsorship management. Data were collected from six sports clubs through document analyses and problem-centered interviews with decision makers. The data were analyzed using a qualitative content analysis approach, which included both deductive and complementary inductive coding of the data.

The results show that the components addressed in the professionalization of sponsorship management are reflected in three dimensions: “people and positions” (e.g. sponsorship staff), “structures and processes” (e.g. differentiation of responsibilities), and “strategies and activities” (e.g. sponsorship rights orientation). It was also found that clubs, which have diverse characteristics and levels of professionalization, pursue distinct approaches.

In contrast to studies on professional sports organizations that focus primarily on the sponsor’s perspective, this study sheds light on sponsorship management in sports clubs in the non-profit sector. The findings can help voluntary sports clubs to transform their sponsorship management strategically and increase sponsorship income in the long term.

The purpose of this study is to evaluate how Qatar Airways’ sponsorship of FC Barcelona affects Qatar’s sports diplomacy and brand awareness. It focuses on the sponsorship’s demand strategy and takes into account the opinions and attitudes of Spanish nationals toward Qatar and Qatar Airways.

To assess this, a survey of 434 Spanish nationals from 17 different regions from four zones (North, South, Center, and East) in Spain between November 3, 2022 and November 21, 2022 was conducted using a strata sampling method.

We argue that Qatar Airways’ sponsorship of FC Barcelona serves to improve Qatar’s recognition and national reputation in Spain. We also found that there is a need for consistent sponsorship and marketing efforts in sports diplomacy to better fulfill public diplomacy aims. Overall, this paper concludes that Qatar Airways’ sponsorship of FC Barcelona positively contributes to the country’s sports diplomacy despite significant challenges.

The major contribution of this study to the literature is the discussion of the role of sports sponsorships in the recognition of the sponsor, which was assessed through conducting a quantitative analysis of public opinion in the sponsored team’s host country.

Despite the fact this is already known over how sports spectators interpret sponsorship content, less is known about participants’ sentiments toward sponsors, which are sometimes crucial to the survival of participation sporting events. Various researchers have examined at how spectators recognize or recall sponsors, but very few have explored it from the viewpoint of sport participants. This research portrays a shift in focus from spectator-based to participant-based marketing by studying the differences over how participants and spectators perceive sport sponsorship, recognizing the current knowledge gap regarding the process of sponsorship in participant-based sports. Sponsorship previous research has focused on the effectiveness of sport sponsorships utilizing variables such sponsor recognition, desire to sponsors’ products and anticipated sponsorship advantages (Koronios and Dimitropoulos, 2020). The examination of sport sponsorship from the standpoint of the sport spectator is something that many of the past studies have in common. The application of past research analysing sport sponsorship from a distinct perspective: that of the sport participant, distinguishes the present study. In addition, the present study explores the distinctions in sponsorship effectiveness between spectators and participants, a topic which hasn't been addressed at before in sponsorship literature.

This study depicts a move away from spectator-based to participant-based marketing, utilizing contemporary implicit physiological variables to measure participants’ and spectators’ awareness of and attitude toward sponsors, and it proposes a model of their purchase intentions toward real sponsors of a martial event. A total of 1,332 questionnaires were collected and analysed.

Factors such as sport involvement, social media use, sincerity and beliefs of sponsorship were found to have a significant effect on purchase intention of spectators and participants. And crucial differences in the significance of various antecedent factors between spectators and participants were detected in the formation of positive purchase and word-of-mouth intentions.

This paper gives prominence to contemporary methodological advances in the field of implicit social cognition and their relevance to sponsorship. This is the first sponsorship research which examines the effectiveness of sponsorship variables under the implicit–explicit variables dichotomy.

The purpose of this study is to investigate the effects of sport scandals on consumer perceptions of the associated sponsors and sport and to provide a typology of sport celebrity scandals to guide management response tactics.

The study conducted four focus groups that were followed by social media data mining. A total of 8,289 consumer comments were collected from 147 websites, and a total of 224 comments were analyzed in terms of themes and frequency.

The research found the impact of sport scandals on consumer perceptions of sponsorship evaluations depended on whether the scandal was gender related scandal, recreational drug use, gender violence, unplanned and planned on-field scandals. Gender violence and planned on-field scandals can have an overwhelmingly negative impact on sponsorship evaluations, while unplanned on-field scandals may result in positive effects. Consumer empathy may influence the impact of recreational drug use, and the gender of the sport celebrity can influence the impact of unplanned on-field scandals.

This study contributes to sponsorship theory by indicating the type of scandal affects consumer perceptions of associated sponsors and sport.

The findings may guide management to develop response tactics to sport scandals. The response tactics may be based on consumer perceptions of the impact of the scandal on the associated sponsors and sport. Sponsor and sport management response tactics may be perceived as a differentiation of the sponsor and sport brands. It may be necessary that sponsorship agreements included pre-determined response tactics that contribute to value formation in the local community.

This study contributes to sponsorship theory by indicating the type of scandal affects consumer perceptions of sponsorship evaluations. Two additional factors may impact these influences: consumer empathy and the gender of the sport celebrity.

This study explores the motives and objectives of sports sponsorship in China, taking into account the sports, social and cultural contexts. It also adopts a comparative approach to examine the sponsorship of elite and grassroots sports events in China.

This study adopts a qualitative approach, employing semi-structured interviews with representatives of nine companies sponsoring elite and/or grassroots sports events in Western China. The data were analyzed through reflexive thematic analysis.

In China, sponsors are frequently driven to sponsor elite sport events by a sense of obligation and responsibility to the country, whereas their motives to sponsor grassroots sport events is primarily influenced by sincerity and goodwill. Chinese companies consider brand awareness, exposure and the relationship with the government and authorities as key factors for sponsorship, and use sponsorship to achieve market-related objectives.

Companies’ sponsorship motives and objectives have received significant attention in the literature, but mainly in Western countries. In the context of China, this study identifies how sponsors utilize social networks to shape their motives and objectives. It also reveals certain patterns common with the current literature, as well as specificities such as how the roles of the government and authorities are linked to the contingent economic and social context of the country. Furthermore, the differences between elite and grassroots sports events sponsorship are explained.

Drawing upon the Social Identity Theory, this research aims to investigate the effectiveness of Qatar’s soft power sponsorships among the Indian Premier League (IPL) fans in India. We explore the relationship between team identification, team-sponsor fit, and purchase intention of sports fans, while also examining the moderating effect of sponsor brand awareness in the context of the IPL.

Using a quantitative research design, we conducted both offline and online surveys from sports fans. The proposed model was examined using Confirmatory Factor Analysis and Partial Least Square-Structural Equation Modelling to test the study’s hypotheses.

The results reveal a positive and significant association between team identification and team-sponsor fit, and team-sponsor fit and purchase intention of sponsor brands. Further, brand awareness moderates the relationship between team-sponsor fit and purchase intention of sponsor brands, but not on the team identification and team-sponsor fit relationship.

This research adds to the paradigm of social identity theory and soft power sponsorship research. By providing insights into fans’ predisposition towards the team sponsors, the study will help managers design effective brand promotion strategies.

This research is the first to explore the effectiveness of soft-power sponsorships in the Indian mega-sports landscap. It is also the first to explore the moderating effect of sponsor brand awareness on sponsorship effectiveness, which is determined through the purchase intentions of the sponsor brand.

The aim of this research was to investigate fans’ responses toward a sponsor that has had a long-standing sponsorship deal with a club and decided also to sponsor the club’s rival.

A long-term sponsorship deal between a retsina wine company and a popular football club and a newly established deal between the company and the main rival club were selected as the research setting. Data were collected from a total sample of 302 participants, fans of the two teams, using an online survey and PLS-SEM was employed to test the relationships of the proposed structural model.

The results provided evidence for the importance of the inclusion of perceptions of fit for both teams to the model as it impacted the responses in the joint sponsorship. Team identification emerged significant for improving fans perceptions of fit between the sponsor and their favorite club but also led fans of the long-term sponsored club to feel betrayed from the sponsor. The sense of betrayal impacted the level of fit, the rejection of sponsorship but did not emerge significant for driving negative responses toward the sponsor’s brand. The same held for the rejection of the joint sponsorship.

This is the very first study that incorporated the effects of the perceptions of fit of two rival clubs to test the effect of sponsorship for a sponsor brand of a deal that includes a longtime sponsored football club and its rival as a newly sponsored one. It is also one of the first attempts that explores relationships between perceptions of fit, sense of betrayal and rejection of a joint sport sponsorship in a rivalry context, highlighting the importance of preventing fans' betrayal.

This study aims to develop and validate an accurate machine learning model to categorize NBA fans into meaningful clusters based on their perceptions of sport sponsorship. Additionally, by predicting the intensity of NBA fans’ attitudes toward sponsors, the authors intend to identify the specific features that influence prediction, discuss these findings and offer implications for academics and practitioners in sport sponsorship.

This study used a sample of 1,142 NBA fans who were recruited through Amazon Mechanical Turk (MTurk). Fans identification, sponsorship fit, behavioral intentions, sponsor altruistic motive, sponsor normative motive, sponsor egoistic motive were surveyed as predictors, whereas fans’ attitudes toward sponsors was collected as the dependent variable. The LASSO regression, SVM, KNN, RF and XGboost were used to develop and validate the prediction model after verifying the measurement model by the Exploratory Factor Analysis (EFA) and Confirmatory Factor Analysis (CFA).

The RF model had the best accurate in predicting the intensity of fans’ attitudes toward sponsors, achieving an AUC of 0.919 with a sensitivity of 0.872, a specificity of 0.828, a PPV of 0.873, a NPV of 0.828 and an accuracy of 0.848. The most influential feature in the model was “the fit of 0.301”. “Fans’ perceptions of sponsor’s normative motive”, “behavioral intentions supporting sponsors”, “fans’ identification with their favorite team”, “fans’ perceptions of sponsor’s altruistic motive” and “fans’ perceptions of sponsor’s egoistic motive” were exhibited in descending order.

This study is the first in sport sponsorship to accurately classify the intensity of fans’ attitudes toward sponsors as either high or low using machine learning models, and to formulate how fans’ attitudes formed toward sponsors from their perceptions of sponsorship process.

As artificial intelligence (AI) continues to influence sports league and team operations, the brands providing these services are sponsoring sports properties to demonstrate and communicate their performance capabilities. This article examines Amazon Web Services (AWS) sponsorship with the National Football League (NFL). This sponsorship features functional congruence, which is when a sponsor has a participatory role in performing services for the property.

The AWS sponsorship with the NFL is captured by examining specially created websites, in-game sponsored elements, and television commercials aired during the broadcast of NFL games. The AWS website focuses on the services profiled in this article.

AWS provides the NFL with performance-based (on-the-field) and business-based (off-the-field) services. Of particular note, AWS capabilities help the NFL create the game schedule and address the issue of player health and safety. Demonstrating functional congruence appears to be especially valuable in business-to-business marketing where purchase decisions are more focused on brand reliability. AWS television commercials feature the tagline, “if AWS can do this for the NFL, imagine what it can do for your business.”

With the role of AI in sports in its relative infancy, it is imperative to document what services AI brands are performing for a professional sports league. Examining AWS sponsorship with the NFL provides a timely, practical example of how an AI brand communicates and positions itself using sponsorship as a marketing strategy.

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.