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This study examines the mediating role of Overall Service Quality in the service quality-customer satisfaction relationship in the context of professional football. Quantitative data were collected from a survey of 415 spectators attending a professional football game in Greece. A confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) was employed to examine the validity of the scale. Multiple regression analyses was used to assess the mediation effect of Overall Service Quality. Results of the CFA and alpha test supported the psychometric property of the scale. Overall Service Quality was shown to mediate the relationship between the five dimensions of service quality and fans' satisfaction.

Concerns about a slowdown in the sports marketing business have recently been expressed. A major conference, SportBusiness 2001, included a session asking if the boom was over. Assuming that the level of sponsorship activity is a key indicator of the real state of the industry, we conducted an analysis of the amount spent worldwide on acquiring sponsorship rights in 2000. This confirms that the recent spectacular growth has halved to a still-robust seven per cent. Further analysis undertaken of sponsorship agreements reported in the European press in 2000 provides evidence that the sponsorship medium is still fundamentally valid.

Selecting the most effective leveraging methods is crucial for national Olympic sponsors, who have limited time to achieve their sponsorship objectives. This paper presents the Optimal Leveraging Activity (OLA) model, which suggests that leveraging activities for high involvement products/services should primarily focus on enhancing brand image, knowledge and involvement, while for low involvement products/services a more sales-oriented approach is favourable. The leveraging activities of four Grand National Sponsors of the Athens Olympic Games illustrate the differences.

Using multi-wave survey data, the authors quantified the financial impact of a sponsorship. The purpose of this paper is to predict the number of new buyers based upon changed brand attitudes, consistent with a hierarchy of effects model. The authors then established the financial return on the sponsorship spending by estimating the customer lifetime value (CLV) of these new buyers.

The authors collected the data around a major college football bowl game. Six phases of data collection were used to determine purchasing behavior and brand attitudes of attendees before and after the sponsored event, in comparison to television viewers of the event and the general public. The authors applied Lavidge and Elrick’s (1961) attitudinal constructs as the independent variables in a logistic regression to predict future purchase. The final data collection was used to validate the model’s prediction.

The findings show that the model accurately predicted the number of new customers after one buying cycle for the sponsor’s products. The authors also quantified the positive impact of the sponsorship on the CLV of existing customers within the same time frame.

The managerial implications of this study are significant. Sponsorships are highly risky, with fixed outlays up front, and unclear benefits to be realized in the future. The authors provide a methodology that not only allows sponsors to measure the effectiveness of the sponsorship, but to determine the return on their sponsorship investment. The authors have taken consumer behavior theory from marketing communications research and combined it with CLV tools, thus allowing marketers to determine the number of new customers that a sponsorship generates, as well as how it influences the buying patterns that drive CLV.

New media has emerged as a significant dimension of branding and global sports sponsorship because it provides the capability to communicate with consumers worldwide via a multitude of digital platforms. This paper discusses the results of a systematic review of the development of global sports sponsorship and the importance of new media integration to the sector for the future. Results indicate that a new paradigm is emerging which involves thematically linked, integrated, strategic global marketing initiatives driven by new media applications, which have enhanced the value of sports sponsorship.

While sports sponsorship has attracted strong interest and increasing investment from marketing professionals, the literature seldom investigates empirically the process by which sports sponsorship decisions are made. Using a survey of sponsorship decision makers in North America and Australia, presents a number of interesting differences with respect to the sponsorship practices of the two samples. Examines the manner in which corporations integrate sponsorship into the broader marketing function at different levels of the organizational structure, and their inclination to do so. Considers managerial implications and the directions which future research in this area should take.

This paper aims to examine event sponsorship decision making by the Indian drinks industry, comparing the non‐alcoholic and alcoholic drinks sectors.

Data regarding event sponsorship activity, perceptions of event sponsorship, motives to sponsor, form of investment and structure of sponsorship was obtained from a sample of 61 drinks producers in India through a questionnaire. Mann‐Whitney and logistic regression were employed to compare the alcoholic and the non‐alcoholic sectors.

The results suggest that the alcohol and non‐alcohol drinks sectors sponsored a similar level of events, but in investment volume terms, sponsorship from the non‐alcoholic sector is far greater than that of the alcoholic sector. While the two sectors are similar in many ways, the emphasis placed on certain motives for sponsoring events was different, with alcoholic drinks businesses placing greater importance on reaching niche audiences and increasing media coverage than non‐alcoholic ones.

A limited number of areas of the sponsorship decision‐making were covered, yet the study provides insights into the decision making of one of the key sponsoring industries: the drinks industry.

Securing sponsorship is becoming more difficult and complex. By understanding how sponsors make decisions, including potential variations between companies within an industry, event organisers will be in a better position to tailor sponsorship proposals, enhancing the likelihood of obtaining the desired sponsorship contracts.

Most sponsor decision‐making research focuses on how sponsorship decisions can be improved so that they work better for the sponsor. This paper, in contrast, emphasises that by understanding how clients make decisions (i.e. sponsors), sellers (i.e. the sponsored) will be in a better position to win over competition and secure the desired sponsorship deals.