Articles in this issue:

• SMQ 27.1 Podcast

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• Industry Insider: Tim Clark

  Mark Nagel

  An interview with Tim Clark. Managing Director, Digital Platform at NASCARRead more

• How I Perform is Not Enough: Exploring Branding Barriers Faced by Elite Female Athletes

  Jami Lobpries

  Gregg Bennett

  Natasha Brison

  The purpose of this investigation was to examine the perceived barriers elite female athletes face attempting to create a personal brand. Utilizing a criterion purposive sample of elite female athletes and agents who represent elite female athletes, the authors employed a qualitative analysis to obtain a rich understanding of the barriers elite female athletes grapple with regarding branding initiatives. Two central categories, with five broad themes, emerged from the literature review, theoretical underpinning, subsequent research questions, and data analysis on perceived barriers in the...Read more

• The Evolution of Media Reporting of Ambush Marketing

  Nicholas Burton

  Kevin Snyder

  and Steve McKelvey

  This study examines the representation of ambush marketing in news media in an eff ort to determine how ambush marketing discourse has evolved as practices have grown in sophistication, strategy, and acceptance. Historically, much of the discussion and debate surrounding ambushing has been led by commercial rights holders who have engendered a fundamentally parasitic, pejorative view of ambushing–a bias that has informed and influenced both practitioner and academic perspectives of ambush marketing. The findings of this study shed new light on a progressive evolution in ambush marketing...Read more

• An Experimental Examination of Activist Type and Effort on Brand Image and Purchase Intentions

  Samuel H. Schmidt

  Megan B. Shreffler

  Marion E. Hambrick

  and Brian S. Gordon

  In 2016, several prominent athletes kneeled or sat during the national anthem of their games to protest social injustice in America. For their activism, these athletes inconsistently experienced both positive and negative consequences from their sponsors and fans. Therefore, the purpose of this study was to investigate this phenomenon more closely by examining the effect of activism type and activism eff ort on a sponsor’s brand image and purchase intention of a product the athlete endorses, when controlling for brand familiarity. Participants (N = 384) were randomly assigned into groups...Read more

• Worth the Price of Admission? The Mediating Effect of Perceived Value on Ticket Purchase Intention

  Joris Drayer

  Stephen L. Shapiro

  and Brendan Dwyer

  Despite the high levels of team identification associated with many sport fans, previous research has established that even these consumers must be enticed with offers that are perceived to be good values before making a purchase. The current study examined three key areas related to perceived value in a spectator sport setting. First, we tested and confirmed the mediating effect of perceived value on the relationship between team identification and purchase intention in the context of sport event tickets. Second, we examined search intention as a behavioral outcome in an environment (i.e...Read more

• Breaking Up Is Hard To Do: Half-Baked Sponsorship Yields Valuable Lessons

  Jonathan A. Jensen and Barbara Osborne

  Nature’s Bakery (NB), a company that had never invested in sport sponsorship before, signed a three year, $45.63 million sponsorship agreement with Stewart-Haas Racing (SHR) in 2015. Despite initial optimism between the new partners, by June 2016, the relationship began to erode. In January 2017, NB sent a letter of termination to SHR for violating the agreement. SHR responded by filing a lawsuit against NB for breach of contract, and NB fought back with counterclaims of their own. After airing their diff- erences in the press and in court documents, the parties eventually settled the case...Read more