FiT Publishing

This study surveyed fans of a college football team and found that nonprofit organizations are positioned to benefit from sponsorship through increased positive word of mouth and donations by fans of the team. Specifically, fan identification, favorability toward the sponsorship, and perception of quality of the nonprofit organization were all predictive of higher levels of positive word of mouth. Cumulatively, these variables led to respondents selecting the sponsoring nonprofit versus a similar non-sponsoring nonprofit in the donation choice phase of the study. This article also examines...Read more

One of the benefits of being an official sponsor is the right to use the term “official sponsor” to differentiate a company’s association with a property from other companies (non-sponsors). Official sponsors may pay a premium for those designations; however, there is uncertainty as to whether or not those designations are effective. This study utilizes scenarios simulating official Major League Baseball (MLB) team sponsorship, official MLB sponsorship, and no official association with MLB or the team to assess the effect of these statuses on purchase intentions. Results from a sample of...Read more

Today, sponsorship is a widely-used marketing communications tool. While consumers’ responses to sponsorship have been extensively studied, little research has been conducted on employees’ responses to a sponsorship. Based in social identity theory, this study addresses this gap by examining sponsorship from the perspective of employees of an organization that sponsors a National Football League (NFL) team. A structural model was developed and tested to examine the relationship between team identification, sponsorship related factors (i.e., perceived fit, sincerity, and benefits to the...Read more

Determining the impact of sport sponsorship by alcohol companies has been identified as a priority research concern (World Health Organization, 2014). Despite the vast investment and potential risks, there is almost no sport sponsorship-specific research examining how the choice and behavior of one sponsorship partner affects consumer attitude toward the other partner. We test this relationship, focusing upon the controversial alcohol-sport sponsorship pairing, given its importance to sport management and policy. The findings of these robust experimental results provide the first evidence...Read more

This paper examines the role of league-cause fit, perceived sincerity, and intentions to support campaigns of league-wide cause-related sport marketing (CRSM). Using the context of the National Football League (NFL) and the tenets of schema theory and social identity theory, we demonstrate potential backlash effects of featuring “hometown” team imagery in league-wide CRSM campaigns. The results of three experiments suggest that while a cause perceived as high fit to the league (Wounded Warrior Project) may facilitate better overall response, fans exposed to campaign imagery featuring their...Read more

An interview with Nicholas Horbaczewski, CEO and founder of the Drone Racing League.Read more

This study examined the effectiveness of sportswear companies’ sponsorship of intercollegiate athletic departments, and the subsequent effects on the students of the university. The value of these sponsorship contracts has grown exponentially, with new contracts averaging $6 million a year per institution (Kish, 2014). However, little research has been devoted to the impact of the relationship between sportswear brands and university students, and it is uncertain what the return on investment of these sponsorships are to the apparel companies, other than media exposure. To examine how...Read more

An interview with Joyce Caron-Mercier, vice president of The Specialized Marketing Group.Read more

An interview with Grant Jostol, Business Data Analyst for the Seattle Mariners.Read more

Using event study methodology, this paper analyzes the capital market behavior related to shares of companies that sponsored the London 2012 Summer Olympic Games. We investigate the existence of abnormal returns and changes in trading volumes on announcement dates for companies at two sponsorship levels—Official Olympic Partners and Official Olympic Supporters. We also test for differential responses between British and non-British firms. We find that London 2012 Olympic sponsorships are associated with statistically significant increased share values for Official Partners as well as for...Read more