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City branding has become a very popular activity all over the globe. In this paper the authors aim to show the importance of sports events in city re‐branding strategies, and how businesses take advantage of such opportunities to increase their incomes.

A new framework is presented that is based on four different alternatives for city re‐branding strategies based on sport events. These four re‐branding strategies are derived from two main dimensions: the locus of the sports event (local vs international) and the longevity of the sports event (one‐off vs continual).

Prospective hosts of mega or international sports events must ensure that people all over the world see their city as a leisure, tourism and consumption center and not just a sports arena. Conversely, when hosting medium or minor sports events, planners must aim for these sport events to increase residents' civic pride.

This conceptual paper demonstrates how city planners and decision makers can leverage their city image and its business sector's potential to earn from this event directly and indirectly, based on the aforesaid four re‐branding strategies: Mega sports events, International sports events, Medium sport events, and Minor sport events.

This article deals with four types of sports event strategies at the same time, whereas other investigations tend to deal with only a single type.

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.

Event sponsorship has been recognised as an effective means through which companies can communicate with target markets and attendees of sports events. This study investigates the interrelationship between satisfaction with event sponsors, goodwill and fan identification and their influence on purchase intentions at a state sports festival held in Lakeland, Florida. Results indicate that satisfaction with event sponsors mediated goodwill and purchase intentions while controlling for the effects of fan identification. In addition, results differed between competitors and spectators of the event.

Using the context of Rio Olympic games, the purpose of this paper is to investigate attitude toward sponsorship outcome as it relates to purchase behavior, gender, sponsor patronage, sports enthusiasm, and social media consumption.

Data were collected using an online survey of 265 participants. Questions regarding demographics, viewing habits, sports participation, enthusiasm, attitude toward Olympic events were included in the survey. The four sub-scales were sponsorship attitude, sponsor patronage, social media consumption, and sports enthusiasm.

The findings of the study showed that social media consumption is positively related to attitude toward event and sports patronage. There was a significant gender difference on attitude toward event, social media consumption, and sports enthusiasm. Predictors for making a purchase as a result of seeing a social media advertisement were gender, playing competitive sport, and social media consumption.

This study will add to the body of academic and practitioner research on sponsorship outcomes, and provides an opportunity for marketers to leverage social media networks for sponsorship communication.

As the use of social media networks has increased over the past few years, no previous study has investigated association of sports enthusiasm, gender, or social media consumption toward sponsor patronage which relates to consumers seeking out sponsors and being influenced to make a purchase as a result of marketing communication of sponsors.

Sports events are tourist attractions and their image components can relate to the destination image concept and structure. This study examined sports event images held by active and passive sports tourists at four marathon races in Germany. Some differences in the perception of event images were found for active and passive sports tourists as well as for different types of destinations. For active sports tourists, emotional, physical and organisational image associations were clustered closer. For passive sports tourists, social and historical image associations were clustered closer. The type of destination elicited different event images among active and passive sports tourists.

This study aims at understanding how professional sports events compete with each other to attract spectators, sponsors and media coverage, by referring to the resource-based view (RBV) theory, which interprets firms as a bundle of idiosyncratic resources and capabilities. Specifically, the authors aim to identify the value-creating resources that support event success in the long run.

The authors conducted a literature review on RBV and sports events, which provided the analytic categories used for on a cross-case analysis of popular cycling events held in Italy.

Each event has different value-creating resources, depending on its governance model. Specifically, organisational knowledge accumulated over time by a stable event promoter/organiser enables an understanding of stakeholders’ needs and leads to a competitive advantage. As for events with temporary organising committees, event reputation is decisive to their long-term success. Here, event promoters play a key role in managing reputation over time, i.e., properly selecting host countries, balancing their cultural differences and supporting their capacity to produce long-term benefits.

Sports events may be leveraged within place-branding strategies to increase the attractiveness and level of socio-economic development of a destination. It is thus important to understand the competitive dynamics among sports events. The existing studies have focused on event organisers while underestimating the contribution of sports organisations and/or private companies that promote sport events. This study adopts a broad perspective that takes account of both promoters and organisers in order to verify whether and how the governance model affects the resources relevant to the event’s success.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate the relationships among brand experience, sports event image and loyalty in the Jeju International Ultramarathon Race.

Data were collected from 313 ultramarathon runners during the 16th Jeju International Ultramarathon Race. Statistical analyses were carried out using confirmatory factor analysis and structural equation modeling.

An analysis of the relationship between brand experience and sports event image revealed that affective experience is the most influential dimension, followed by sensory and behavioral experiences. However, intellectual experience showed insignificant relationship. Sports event image indicated a positive effect on word-of-mouth and revisit intention.

Ultramarathon races are sporting events with few participants, even though it is becoming more popular. The attitude, motivation and personality of people participating in these races may be different in terms of the extreme characteristic and endurance level of sports activity. If the results of this study need to be generalized with other sports event images, a comparative study may help to understand the personality traits of people participating in ultramarathon races and other sports.

As ultramarathon races are not yet popular sports, to target more people, behavioral experience has an influential role because it is action oriented and actively engages the body. Enriching consumer life by facilitating and creating opportunities to physically experience as well as showing them alternate ways of doing things may attract them to substitute lifestyle and interactions (Pine and Gilmore, 1999). Few other popular endurance race events organize short-distance races and kid races for fun (e.g. Lavaredo Ultra trail race), to engage friends and family members before the start of the main event. Doing so may provide an opportunity to attract more runners, and they may engage in running activities and participate in these kinds of events later, after having this sort of casual experience.

Social networking sites may be used to maintain continuous interaction with the runners and followers. Supporting a social cause is another measure to generate the intellectual experience of sports events. The result of this study shows no significant relationship between intellectual experience and the sports event image. To increase the worldwide popularity of this race and to attract more international runners, a judicious use of web platforms may be an option to maintain regular contact with a wider group of audience.

This study is the first to examine the relationship between brand experience and sports event image in an ultramarathon event context. Findings contribute to an understanding of the impact of brand experience on sports event image, thereby influencing the loyalty of runners participating in an ultramarathon event.

The purpose of this paper is to review the development and potential applications of emerging information and communication technologies (ICTs) in sports. The case studies are presented in details: computer system for tracking and visualisation in TV broadcasting and players/teams performance analysis in football. The paper concludes with the authors’ opinion that future implementation of digital technologies, in the first instance, goal-line technologies, to support accurate, practical and reliable decision making in sports is highly needed and represent a basis for further increase in the commercial value of the pre-eminent global sport.

The research utilised an exploratory approach to data gathering due to the fact that the topic is new and data are difficult to collect. The topic is analysed using case study method.

The research found that there is an emerging market to extend the reach of digital technologies adapted for sports industry and sports events. Increasingly, developers are exploring and exploiting the vast potential of the ICTs to create value in the field of sports events. The development of emerging technologies create new opportunities that sports industry demands a growing range of innovative solutions for the purposes of decision making to be tested and accepted in the near future.

The research is based on data limitations related to the innovative ICT solutions, the rules of the game which significantly limit the scope for product innovation and a need to make a decision on application of an adequate solution within a short time period. In order to develop the extensive research results in the future, more information will be available after the termination of ongoing testing procedure.

It is evident that digital video processing has found many applications in sports content analysis and TV broadcasting of competitive sports. The governing bodies should be aware of their role to support successful innovation which requires the coordinated action of all the actors who play vastly different roles in its commercialisation process.

The paper emphasises how much technology has added to communication and economic potential of sports events, underlying that issue of video technology application to ease decision making in football is currently one of the most pressing matters due to constant arrival of new cases concerning “incorrect” decisions that add fuel to the controversy. The football authorities have finally recognised that the game has to be responsive to the concerns and suggestions of its customers.

Although logistics management is a crucial part of local and global sports events, there is no research-driven characterization of “sports logistics management”. The purpose of this paper is to conceptualize a framework that allows for a more structured recognition of logistics in sports, in general, and sport event management, in particular. In addition, we conduct a systematic literature review of sports logistics management and locate opportunities for future research both for sports management and logistics management scholars.

Guided by Durach et al.’s (2017) systematic literature review approach, we identify key attributes and characteristics of sports logistics management. These are based on studies featuring at least partial aspects of logistics management in sports and sport events, and that were published between 2000 and mid-2019.

The study reveals that sports logistics management – meaning logistics activities in sports and sport event management – is a heavily under-researched area that provides an abundance of scientific opportunities. Based on the three sport event types of local/regional sport events, major sport events and mega sport events, the authors propose four sports logistics management pillars that are central to the proposed Sport Logistics Framework: venue logistics management, sports equipment logistics management, athletes logistics management, and fan and spectators logistics management.

By providing a conceptual framework for sports logistics, the authors progress towards informing the sport sector on relevant strategic and operational levels of logistics management and set the stage for empirical studies that are likely to advance sport logistics planning and management.

This is the first study that builds on a systematic review of literature specifically focused on the logistics aspect in sports and sport event management. It provides a conceptual framework of sports logistics management and offers an agenda of future research opportunities.