Sports Sponsorship Case Study

Introduction In this day and age sports sponsorship is a strategic relationship between businesses (b2b) where both sides seek a mutual benefit. Through this each business’s brand is equally crucial to the success of the relationship and is commonly described as a partnership through co-branding (Farrelly and Quester 2005a). However, each side of the relationship tends to place emphasis on two specific gains, from the perspective of the sponsee they seek to gain the greatest benefits/compensations for the sponsorship while the sponsor seeks to enhance their corporate brand image (Javalgi et al 1994). Furthermore the sponsor’s use sports events and organizations in order to enhance the customers and stakeholders perception of their brand in

A brand can be severely impacted negatively through illegal or inappropriate behavior by various sports entities’ contracted players for example and consequentially the sponsor’s relationship can be damaged or strained in numerous ways (Farrelly et al 2006). As an example, in recent years as electronic sports (video games) have become plunged into the limelight, several organizations faced issues with sponsorship relationships as they had contracted players that lacked professionalism and placed a bad view on these sponsoring company’s and the sponsee organizations as a result. As a result they are released from their contract and both the sponsor and sponsee must work to reprimand the mistake and regain the customers

Furthermore he defines a degenerative action is defined a decrease in the trust, joint benefits, cooperation, and mutual understanding in the sponsorship relationship as a result of an action of either party. This can end up concluding the relationship or severely diminishing the positive effects that the sponsorship once held. Given the intensity of emotion that is expressed in sports and the potential that certain meanings or images are transferred between the sponsor/sponsee organizations, actions which damage brands from either party has the opportunity to effect the overall relationship negatively (Gwinner and Eaton 1999). This paper will therefore examine how negative actions effect B2B sponsorship relationships thought an investigation that explores these negative actions in order to further expand the understand of the effect they have on the existing relationships quality. In addition, this paper will explore delve into variables that may negative effect the lure of sponsorship. Brand management and enhancements have been essential in the B2C market but has received less attention when examining B2B relationships. In order to fulfill this gap and the research purpose the following two research questions have been