Articles in this issue:

  • Natasha T. Brison

    Social media provides brands with “personal, trusted, and direct” connectivity to consumers (Drury, 2008, p. 277). Through social media, brands are able to target specific consumer demographics about new and existing products, thereby increasing the likelihood of purchase of those products. With more than 1 billion active users (“Facebook Newsroom,” 2012), Facebook has become a leader in social media and an important vehicle through which sport marketers connect their brands with consumers. From the London 2012 Olympics alone, brands saw significant growth in fan interaction on Facebook....Read more

  • Chen-Yueh Chen
    Yi-Hsiu Lin
    Wen-Mei Chang

    The present research was conducted to explore the impact of social influence (type of reference, group cohesiveness, and susceptibility to influence) on impulsive purchasing behavior of sports team-licensed merchandise. Two experimental studies were conducted. It was concluded from the results that peers’ presence stimulated higher impulsive purchasing behavior of sports team-licensed merchandise than family members’ presence. In addition, high group cohesiveness activated a greater impulsive purchasing tendency of sports team-licensed merchandise compared to low group cohesiveness. High...Read more

  • Angeline G. Close
    Russell Lacey

    This sport marketing study establishes a clearer demarcation between an event sponsor and a sponsored event in relation to investigating the potential value of congruity. Based on 1,615 field surveys, we uncover the asymmetrical impact of event-sponsor fit on the title sponsor and sponsored professional cycling event. Specifically, the study reveals how consumers’ positive perceptions of the sponsor rise when they perceive greater fit with the event; yet, congruity does not influence consumers’ attitudes toward the event. That is, even when the event and sponsor are perceived as a mismatch...Read more

  • Michael Cottingham
    Brian Gearity
    Kevin K. Byon

    While research exists on the marketing of disability sport (Byon, Carroll, Cottingham, Grady, & Allen, 2011), researchers have not yet examined disability sport executives’ perspectives on marketing, promotion, and sponsorship. The purpose of this study was to examine three disability sport (i.e., International Wheelchair Rugby Federation, International Tennis Federation, and United States Tennis Association) executives’ perspectives of sport marketability and the acquisition of sponsors. Key findings include executives’ mixed-support for webcasting, television coverage, and the need...Read more

  • Greg Greenhalgh
    T. Christopher Greenwell

    Sponsorship funding often represents a significant portion of a niche sport property’s operating capital. Considering professional niche sport properties often solicit the same corporations as mainstream professional sport properties, intercollegiate athletic departments, even arts or music festivals, professional niche sports must understand how their properties can effectively help potential partners achieve their corporate objectives. Therefore, the purpose of the current study was to identify the objectives sponsors deem important when evaluating professional niche sport sponsorship...Read more