FiT Publishing

The primary purpose of this study was to explore how professional runners form attitudes toward sponsors. The secondary purpose was to understand perceived relationships of professional runners with sponsors. This study was guided by the relationship marketing theory, and the conceptual background on sponsorship relationships was presented in detail. The research was conducted with a USA Track & Field certified professional running team, using semi-structured interviews with eight of 12 team members. The results were categorized into three common themes: (1) relational benefits, (2)...Read more

The purpose of this study was to identify segments within the social media networks of major professional sport organizations. Relational data were collected from the Twitter accounts of four major professional sport organizations based in Toronto, Canada. Users within these networks were subsequently parsed based upon their Twitter behavior (e.g., likes, retweets, and follows) and their demographic information using an automated cluster analysis. After revealing characteristics of each segment, the findings highlight both sport focused (e.g., hockey, basketball) and non-sport focused (e.g...Read more

The value and benefits of relationship marketing to sport practitioners have been observed in the literature for more than a decade. In spite of this, little empirical research has been reported to examine the uptake of this approach or the means by which it is implemented. This paper reports the findings of qualitative, case study research into the uptake and application of relationship marketing principles by sport organizations. The findings are couched in terms of the Shani model, which is extended into an Australian context. Results indicate that while practitioners are cognizant of...Read more