Sports sponsorship: scientific coverage in academic journals
| Published date | 11 March 2019 |
| Date | 11 March 2019 |
| Pages | 163-186 |
| DOI | https://doi.org/10.1108/JEPP-03-2019-106 |
| Author | Claudia Patricia Maldonado-Erazo,Amador Durán-Sánchez,José Álvarez-García,María de la Cruz Del Río-Rama |
| Subject Matter | Strategy,Entrepreneurship,Business climate/policy |
Sports sponsorship: scientific
coverage in academic journals
Claudia Patricia Maldonado-Erazo
Facultad de Recursos Naturales,
Escuela de Ecoturismo de la Escuela Superior Politécnica de Chimborazo (ESPOCH),
Riobamba, Ecuador
Amador Durán-Sánchez
Economy Department, Faculty of Economics and Business,
University of Extremadura, Badajoz, Spain
José Álvarez-García
Financial Economy and Accounting Department, Faculty of Business,
Finance and Tourism, University of Extremadura, Cáceres, Spain, and
María de la Cruz Del Río-Rama
Business Organisation and Marketing Department,
Faculty of Business Administration and Tourism, University of Vigo, Ourense, Spain
Abstract
Purpose –Sports sponsorship is considered a business strategy that allows for the mutual benefit of both
parties; the sponsor achieves to position and make its brand known and those sponsored obtain the income
required to finance their corporate, marketing and communication objectives. The purposeof this paper is to
identify the scientific production on this subject indexed in Scopus.
Design/methodology/approach –In order to fulfill the proposed objective, it is studied and analyzed
scientific activity by means of the “Bibliometric Analysis”methodology, using indicators of productivity,
dispersion, collaboration and citation. These indicators are applied to a database composed of 484 articles on
sports sponsorship.
Findings –The most relevant researchers are identified by using two different criteria, the production and
citations received, as well as providing information on which approaches or lines of research on the subject
have not been followed or have not been studied in-depth sufficiently.
Originality/value –This is a novel study, since it provides a global view of research carried out in this field
at international level.
Keywords Bibliometrics, Sports sponsorship, Academic journals, Scientific production
Paper type Literature review
1. Introduction
In the beginning, sports was a social expression clearly focused on enjoyment and
recreation, which allowed to satisfy a personal need. Over the years, sports has become a
social phenomenon characterized by its enormous capacity for mobilization and mass
appeal, becoming “a good, whose production, consumption, financing and management
respond to economic rationality criteria”(Castellanos, 2001, p. 181). This is how the so-called
“Sports Economy,”that refers to the relationship between “the economy and sports”arises.
In this sense, Heinemann (1998) states that sports becomes an economic activity that is
integrated into the market economy of modern societies. This integration is made through
accessory products that it supplies and that are considered sporting opportunities (sports
facilities, infrastructures, sports environments and organization), sports equipment,
provision of services (learning the sports discipline, training, promotion of talents, etc.) and
complementary products such as sports entertainment shows, advertising and sponsorship,
lottery and betting, etc. (see table in Heinemann, 1998, pp. 30-31). The monetary flows of
sports usually come from three different sources: first, the spectators: income from tickets,
Journal of Entrepreneurship and
Public Policy
Vol. 8 No. 1, 2019
pp. 163-186
© Emerald PublishingLimited
2045-2101
DOI 10.1108/JEPP-03-2019-106
Received 21 November 2018
Accepted 4 January 2019
The current issue and full text archive of this journal is available on Emerald Insight at:
www.emeraldinsight.com/2045-2101.htm
163
Sports
sponsorship
merchandising purchases, payments to televisions, etc. (Mullin et al., 2007); second, from the
sponsors, that finance diverse activities; third, from sport inputs such as clubs, federations,
referees, players, elite sportspeople, etc. (Aragonés, 2013).
Sports sponsorship as a marketing communication tool for organizations is found as one
of the complementary products (O’Reilly and Harrison, 2005) and as an extra-sports area
of business. Sports sponsorship was first defined by Abratt and Grobler (1989) as a trade
agreement between the sponsor (company) and the sponsored party (event or sports entity)
to achieve explicitly defined objectives, and the agreement is by all means mutually
beneficial. In that same year, Hermanns (1989) proposes one of the definitions that are most
taken into account in research on this area of study. For this author, it is a lucrative
bidirectional transaction between the sponsor and sponsored parties, in which the
contractual conditions between the two are well defined. Sponsorship is one of the most used
marketing strategies (Lamont et al., 2011).
Taking into account the definitions seen, the sponsoring organization of a sporting
event assumes total or partial costs with a triple objective (Chadwick and Thwaites, 2005,
pp. 328-338; Schlesinger et al., 2012,pp. 59-76): first, objectiveat company level such as adding
value to the company’simage (Stipp and Schiavone, 1996), improving it and reaching greater
public notoriety inthe media, allowing to build brand image (Armstrong, 1988; Tapan, 1993;
Cliffe and Motion, 2005)and positioning of the organization (Cornwell, 1995); second,product
objectives, notoriety, improvement of consumer attitudes toward the product and sales
increase (Meenaghan, 1983; Calvo, 2007); third, public relations objectives such as improving
business and trade relations, increasing employee motivation and promoting community
involvement (Meenaghan, 1983; Gardner and Shuman, 1987; Bigné, 1998).
The study of sports sponsorship within the sports economy as such has become a subject
of great interest in recent years (Lacey et al., 2010; Deitz et al., 2013), largely due to the
increased role played by different sponsors during the events. It is important to mention that
sports sponsorship includes two very different forms, first, sponsorship of events and,
second, sponsorship of teams and sportspeople, that according to Mancebo (2010), their
greatest danger stems from the fact that sponsorship effectiveness is linked to the sports
results of the team or sportsperson.
According to the data generated by the IEG Sponsorship Report, sports sponsorship is a
promising sector, with constant growth. For 2017, the data established a global sponsorship
expense of $62.7bn, a value that stood 4.5 percent above the planned expenditure for 2016
(IEG Sponsorship, 2017). The outlook for 2018 is even more encouraging, with an increase of
4.9 percent with respect to the predecessor (Statista, 2018). There has been a steady growth
of sports sponsorship in the last ten years, making it one of the most important revenue
items for sports. At the same time, as already mentioned, it becomes a form of
communication for the sponsoring company. Thus, Sponsorship becomes integrated into its
commercial marketing policies.
In this context, bibliometrics is applied in order to identify and examine the scientific
production developed around the “sports sponsorship”concept. The development of this
type of studies is considered the most appropriate mechanism for the organization of
academic information; at the same time, they become a very detailed guide that provides
useful information for researchers and academics, enabling to appreciate the wide range of
existing bibliographic material. This study is novel in the sense that there are no similar
works and since the literature is very fragmented it is necessary to provide a structured and
systematic perspective of the scientific literature existing in this area of study.
This paper is structured into four sections. After a brief introduction about the state of
the sports sponsorship industry, the work methodology used for the development of the
study is presented. The third section shows the results achieved. Finally, in the last section,
the conclusions and limitations of the research are discussed.
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