CC BY
14
Институциональный анализ
УДК 336 + 796 JEL Z23
DOI 10.25205/2542-0429-2020-20-1-154-171
Sports Sponsorship: Evolution, Content Analysis, Problems, Trends
Y. W. Nader
Novosibirsk State University Novosibirsk, Russian Federation
Abstract
The paper examines the foundations of sponsorship research in order to better understand the conceptual and theoretical foundations that have underpinned the development of sponsorship to date. It tackles this field of study from a historical perspective and analyses available scholarly research, traces its development back to its early origins, highlights, tries to highlight the gaps found in academic literature and cite problems concerning the sponsorship application. Our study reveals the research in the field of sponsorship has been growing steadily over the last years. Our conclusion, which is deduced from our content analysis of publications, confirms the findings of similar previous studies in this sector. However, the problems are still various and diverse, some are of evaluation nature, others purely academic or related to function. When it comes to the Russian market, the lack of scholarly research is notable. In this context, sports sponsorship should not be seen and limited to sports economics or marketing. There are broader geopolitical and strategic dimensions at play, where sports sponsorship plays the role of a soft power tool. Therefore, There is a need for the development of this field, not only in Russia but also globally. Keywords
sports economics, sponsorship, new research, bibliometrics, content analysis
For citation
Nader Y. W. Sports Sponsorship: Evolution, Content Analysis, Problems, Trends. World of Economics and Management, 2020, vol. 20, no. 1, p. 154-171. DOI 10.25205/2542-0429-2020-20-1-154-171
Спонсорство в спорте: эволюция, контент-анализ, проблемы, тренды
Ю. В. Надер
Новосибирский национальный исследовательский государственный университет Новосибирск, Россия
Аннотация
Статья посвящена экономике спорта, главным образом в области спонсорства. Кратко рассматривается происхождение и дается историческая справка о спонсорстве. Затем исследование проливает свет на две гипотезы, относящиеся к области спонсорства вообще и спортивного спонсорства в частности. Во-первых, подъем этого сектора, который происходит в наше время, а во-вторых, необходимость поиска новых подходов к вопросам спонсорства во всех областях. Чтобы проверить
© Ю. В. Надер, 2020
гипотезы, о которых идет речь, мы проверяем эволюцию научных исследований в области спортивного спонсорства, проводя аналитическое исследование научной литературы с использованием электронной библиографии EconLit и базы данных Scopus. Наш анализ основан на инновационном библиометрическом анализе, представленном в «Атласе новых исследований» на основе EconLit. Этот анализ включает в себя сочетание следующих методов: анализ публикационной активности, лексический и терминологический анализ, структурный и морфологический анализ. Кроме того, с помощью обширного анализа содержимого мы проверяем пересечение EconLit JEL для связанных макро- и микрокатегорий. Этот углубленный анализ позволяет нам проследить эволюцию современных тенденций в области спонсорства и, таким образом, предсказать будущие. Кроме того, мы даем краткое описание наиболее интересных публикаций в этой области исследований. Мы разоблачаем проблемы спонсорства, найденные в научной литературе. Эти проблемы заключаются в «спонсорском беспорядке» и оценке финансовой эффективности спонсорства. Наше исследование подтверждает быстрый рост спонсорского и спортивного спонсорского секторов, наряду с увеличением научных исследований, а также признает необходимость применения новых методов. Это может быть индикатором для будущих исследований в этой области, а также полезным руководством для спортивных предпринимателей. Ключевые слова
экономика спорта, спонсор, спонсорство, библиометрия, контент-анализ, EconLit, Scopus, новые исследования, тренды
Для цитирования
Nader Y. W. Sports Sponsorship: Evolution, Content Analysis, Problems, Trends. World of Economies and Management, 2020, vol. 20, no. 1, p. 154-171. DOI 10.25205/2542-0429-2020-20-1-154-171
Introduction
Many sources contain notes about the ancient origin of sponsorship. The ancient Greek philosopher and historian Xenophon in "Memoirs of Socrates" tells us about the choregia that was the honorable duty of wealthy citizens to equip a choir for dramatic performance or musical competition. W. Baumol in [1] estimates the costs involved with these festivals. The history of ancient Rome brought us information about public games, which were divided into circus, gladiatorial and theatrical performances. Circus games were organized and funded by the Aediles (Magistrates of Rome), who, in order to gain the support of the population, tried to outdo each other in the luxury and scale of the games. Sponsorship played a vital role in the revival and early success of the modern Olympic Games in Greece in the 19th century thanks to the financial support of Evagelos Zappas. The first Olympia was held in 1859 and was followed by a few subsequent ones [2].
Sponsorship, including sponsorship of sports, is playing an increasingly important role in the modern world. To confirm this hypothesis, we type the word "sponsorship" in the Google.ru search engine. At the beginning of January 2020, this search gave 409 million links.
Among these results is the interpretation of the term in Cambridge dictionary: "Money that is given, usually by a company, to support a person, organization or activity" (https://dictionary.cambridge.org). The site www.sponsorship.com provides insightful data and analytical reviews. It is operated by International Events Group (IEG), and has been providing sponsorship decisions for about 40 years. The section "Insights" includes 1786 examples, which indicate an increase in both sponsorship costs and revenue. "Sponsorship revenue continues to grow exponentially for the NHL and its 31 teams. Spending was up 6.6 % to $597M for the 2018-19 season". "Sponsorship revenue for
the NBA and its 30 teams grew by 8.0 % for the 2018-19 season, with total revenue eclipsing $1.2B". The section "IEG Services & Resources" comprises the following statement: "Today, the traditional sponsorship model is broken. We live in a $60 billion industry with fractured consumer attention yet remain hyper-connected". Therefore, according to the authors of the source in question, it is necessary to look for new approaches to sponsorship issues in all areas.
A study of the scientific literature of sponsorship in sports, which was presented in the electronic bibliography EconLit, in the Scopus citation system and in other authoritative electronic resources, showed a lack of proper systematization both in formulating problems in this area and in presenting possible approaches to solving them. Therefore in this article, we propose on the one hand to give arguments in support of this hypothesis. On the other hand, we substantiate author's vision of a more suitable approach to the study of sports sponsorship. .
Research methodology
Our research methodology is based on an innovative bibliometric analysis, presented in [3] and in the other sources to study the scientific literature. This analysis contains a combination of the following methods: the analysis of publication activity, lexical and terminological analysis, structural and morphological analysis.
One year as the basic time span and the number of publications in the certain year (NP(T)) are the initial measures in the analysis of publication activity. In addition to the one-year period, we study the periods of five and ten years.
One scientific term (for instance, "sponsor" or "sport") is the basic measure in the terminological analysis. In addition, we consider the combinations of a few terms in the framework of the lexical analysis. Our basic combinations are "sport" + "sponsor" and "sport" + "sponsorship". We analyse articles' titles, abstracts and keywords for the occurrence of our chosen set of words.
We use two indexes to measure word frequency. The first index is the number of the records in the database with selected term or combinations of the terms. The bibliographic record may include a few selected terms. The second index is the total number of the selected terms in all the selected in our case titles, abstracts and keywords.
We also use both indexes in the analysis of publication activity as they reflect frequencies according to a set of database records or a set of time spans.
The first innovative aspect of our bibliometric analysis concerns the first appearance of the term X or the word-combination XY in publication ABC in year PY. In other words, there were no previous publications with the term X or the word-combination XY before the year PY.
The second innovative aspect of our bibliometric analysis concerns the first appearance of the JEL subject code S or the combination of JEL codes in publication ABC in year PY.
We may name the publication with the record ABC in both innovative aspects as "point of growth", "point of new research" or "seed of new knowledge".
In necessary cases, we use a content analysis of individual works.
An unified electronic database that would cover all scientific publications does not exist yet. Therefore, we distinguish two interrelated research stages: 1) conducting
a starting analysis based on the EconLit electronic bibliography; 2) deepening and expanding analysis based on Scopus data. At each stage, a more detailed description of the methodological techniques accompanies the results.
Bibliometric analysis results based on EconLit
Table 1 contains the results of bibliometric analysis for three periods: form 1886 the year of EconLit emergence until 2000, from 2001 to 2010, and from 2011 till January 2020. The symbol "NP" denotes "Number of Publications" or the total number of EconLit records for the corresponding period.
Table 1
Results of bibliometric analysis of the EconLit publications on sports sponsorship
Periods 1886 2001 2011 1986 2001 2011
2000 2010 2020 2000 2010 2020
Number of records In ratio of NP per thousand
NP 652,115 524,331 483,657 100 100 100
Sport (Sp) 1,882 5,884 8,464 2.89 11.22 17.50
sponsor 118 322 364 0.18 0.61 0.75
sponsoring 45 99 71 0.07 0.19 0.15
sponsorship 59 146 139 0.09 0.28 0.29
SponsorS 222 567 574 0.34 1.08 1.19
Sport + sponsor 2 22 39 0.003 0.042 0.081
Sport + sponsoring 1 2 9 0.002 0.004 0.019
Sport + sponsorship 1 22 41 0.002 0.042 0.085
Sport + sponsorS (SpSp) 4 46 89 0.006 0.088 0.184
brand 1,080 1,904 2,987 1.66 3.63 6.18
Brand + sport 2 87 297 0.003 0.166 0.614
Brand + sponsorS 4 9 28 0.006 0.017 0.058
Brand + SpSp 0 3 17 0.000 0.006 0.035
effect (ef) 60,741 118,036 135,298 93 225 280
Effect + sport 196 1,213 2,078 0.301 2.313 4.296
Effect + sponsorS 42 132 154 0.064 0.252 0.318
Effect + SpSp 1 8 23 0.002 0.015 0.048
value 31,452 56,074 74,114 48 107 153
valuation 4,493 9,845 8,047 6.9 18.8 16.6
evaluation 9,876 13,439 14,355 15.1 25.6 29.7
Periods 188б 2001 2011 198б 2001 2011
2000 2010 2020 2000 2010 2020
assessment б8,0б 10,925 12,838 10.4 20.8 2б.5
appraisal 1,778 1,175 1,137 2.7 2.2 2.4
estimate 1б,37б 34,391 38,735 25.1 б5.б 80.1
estimation 12,б08 19,9б2 23,03б 19.3 38.1 47.б
rating 1,б48 5,785 б,720 2.5 11.0 13.9
value S 85,037 151,59б 178,982 130 289 370
valueS + sport 30б 1377 2302 0.4б9 2.б2б 4.7б0
valueS + sponsorS 52 185 231 0.080 0.353 0.478
valueS + SpSp 1 12 25 0.002 0.023 0.052
model 111,1б9 137,815 143,842 170.5 2б2.8 297.4
modeling б,82б 10,8бб 13,490 10.5 20.7 27.9
modelling 4,044 5,бб8 7,710 б.2 10.8 15.9
ModelS 122,039 154,349 1б5,042 187 294 341
ModelS + sport 317 1351 2213 0.49 2.58 4.58
ModelS + sponsorS 4б 140 114 0.071 0.2б7 0.236
ModelS + SpSp 0 11 12 0.000 0.021 0.025
market (MR) 137,4б0 1б7,111 178,485 211 319 3б9
market + sport 4б7 1,795 2,853 0.71б 3.423 5.899
market + sponsorS б7 215 199 0.103 0.410 0.411
market + SpSp 0 1б 27 0.000 0.031 0.05б
Marketing 14,090 11,438 1б,017 21.б 21.8 33.1
Marketing + sport 100 510 1217 0.153 0.973 2.51б
Marketing + sponsorS 1б 42 б4 0.025 0.080 0.132
Marketing + SpSp 0 10 35 0.000 0.019 0.072
The first column in table 1 includes the terms and combinations of the these, that are related to sport . The next three columns present the numbers of EconLit records with the chosen term in all fields of the record. For instance, the number "1882" which is shown in the line "sport" and under the column "1896-2000" is the result of the search query Sport yearmin: 1886 yearmax: 2000. The figure 1 illustrates this search.
Fig. 1. The result of the search for the term "sport" under the first period
We get the search answer on the right side of the screen "Results about 1882", as well as the word "sports" in the titles of and abstracts of our search query. The first publication with the word "sport" is the paper "The revolution in sport" [4].
The search query sponsor yearmin: 1886 yearmax: 2000 gives us "118" in the line "sponsor", those results include the pioneer paper [5]. Following the same method, we are able to get the numbers for the terms "sponsoring" and "sponsorship" in 1886-2000, and these include the papers of Daley [6] and of Gratton and Taylor with the notable title "The Economics of Sports Sponsorship" [7].
The data of Table 1 show a noticeable increase in the interest of researchers in sponsorship of sports since 2001.
A study of titles and abstracts of the publications in question shows that the problems of sports sponsorship are increasingly associated with the issues that we took as keywords in table 1. It is necessary to state that the numbers in the column "value" take into account the usage of the terms evaluation, valuation, assessment, appraisal, estimate, estimation, and rating. The numbers in the column "model" include the occurrence of the words "modeling" and "modelling". The few exceptions to this mentioned increase are marked by a bold font in the table.
With the help of structural-morphological analysis and subject classification of JEL, EconLit electronic bibliography makes it possible to track how publications of sponsorship in sports penetrate yearly and intersect with JEL micro categories.
The existing variant of JEL classification appeared in 1991. The paper [8] in 1994 "provides estimates on the determinants of the per capita demand for membership in the United States Chess Federation (USCF) from 1946-1990. The USCF is the principal body in this country, which promotes and sponsors chess activities". This publication concerns two JEL micro categories. The first category is L83 Sports; Gambling; Restau-
rants; Recreation; Tourism. This micro category indicates 92 records from 106 that we noted as "SpSp". The second category is Z10 Cultural Economics; Economic Sociology; Economic Anthropology: General. There are no other records with the code Z10 in our set "SpSp".
The next emerging new of JEL codes was in 1998. The author of the paper [9] tries to respond to the question "How can one explain the growing success of sponsoring as a communications tool?". He underlines "the interactive, or social, nature of sponsoring and corporate contributing". We notice the new JEL micro category M37 Advertising (28 units during 1998-2018).
The paper [10] in 2002 "reports the results of an analysis of prize structures among competing firms paying tournament wages. In motorcycle racing, sponsors compete in an auction for riders using tournament prizes as bids". The increase of JEL micro categories includes J31 Wage Level and Structure; Wage Differentials, J33 Compensation Packages; Payment Methods, J44 Professional Labor Markets; Occupational Licensing, and M52 Compensation and Compensation Methods and Their Effects.
The publication [11] in the same year informs about "the results of the external social responsibility research done among Slovenian SMEs indicate their involvement in solving social issues, and their support for external environment. Donations and sponsoring are the main forms of sport and cultural activities, followed by education and training activities". We see two new JEL micro categories: L25 Firm Performance: Size, Diversification, and Scope, and M14 Corporate Culture; Diversity; Social Responsibility.
The year 2003 brings two publications with three new micro categories. The paper [12] "attempts to explain the variation in the price for naming rights across professional sport facilities in North America. The market for naming rights is modeled as a market for advertising space where sponsors attempt to allocate advertising expenditures efficiently and facility owners maximize revenue from ticket sales and sponsorship". The book [13] "teachers the skills critical to the successful promotion of a sport and incorporates examples from around the world". We see among the topics how to attract and implement sponsorship; measuring the effectiveness of sponsorship. It is possible to divide the new micro categories in two groups. The first group includes the growing M31 Marketing (39 units). The second group includes two micro categories with small number of unit: R58 Regional Development Planning and Policy (4 units), and H43 Project Evaluation; Social Discount Rate (single unit).
The paper [14] in 2005 "examines the impact of sponsorship announcements on the stock prices of sponsoring firms by using event study analysis". The new micro categories are G12 Asset Pricing; Trading Volume; Bond Interest Rates, G14 Information and Market Efficiency; Event Studies; Insider Trading. The both categories contain 11 publications in 2005-2018. The abstract points out "the application of multiple regression models". However, we do not see the corresponding codes that belong to the macro category С Mathematical and Quantitative Methods.
There are else three new micro categories, which concern 10 or more publications from the year of publication to 2018. We present them in chronological order: 2009 -Z21 Sports Economics: Industry Studies (31 units), 2011 - D12 Consumer Economics: Empirical Analysis (10 units), 2012 - Z23 Sports Economics: Finance (10 units).
It is necessary to mention also the following "points of growth": O14 Industrialization; Manufacturing and Service Industries; Choice of Technology (6), G32 Financing
Policy; Financial Risk and Risk Management; Capital and Ownership Structure; Value of Firms; Goodwill (4), D22 Firm Behavior: Empirical Analysis (3), K42 Illegal Behavior and the Enforcement of Law (3), L66 Food; Beverages; Cosmetics; Tobacco; Wine and Spirits (3).
In total, publications on sports sponsorship covered 92 JEL micro categories out of 859 possible ones. Table 2 shows this coverage across 20 JEL macro categories. Denotations in table 2 are the following: DE - the JEL codes of macro categories, N10 - the nonzero numbers of records in EconLit for 1991-2010 for each code shown in the column DE. N18 - the same index as N10 but for 1991-2018. D = N18 - N10 -the increase of publications in 2010-2018. DN10 and DN18 - the shares (in percent) according to numbers in columns N10 and N18. The bold font marks the cases, when DN18 > DN10.
Table 2
The publications on sports sponsorship across JEL macro categories at the end of 2010 and 2018
DE N10 N18 D DN10 DN18 Name of JEL Macro Category
A 2 3 1 1.89 0.80 General Economics and Teaching
B 0 0 0 0.00 0.00 History of Economic Thought, Methodology, and Heterodox Approaches
C 0 4 4 0.00 1.07 Mathematical and Quantitative Methods
D 6 24 18 5.66 6.43 Microeconomics
E 0 0 0 0.00 0.00 Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics
F 0 2 2 0.00 0.54 International Economics
G 9 32 23 8.49 8.58 Financial Economics
H 3 3 0 2.83 0.80 Public Economics
I 2 5 3 1.89 1.34 Health, Education, and Welfare
J 6 13 7 5.66 3.49 Labor and Demographic Economics
K 0 4 4 0.00 1.07 Law and Economics
L 48 127 79 45.28 34.05 Industrial Organization
M 16 72 56 15.09 19.30 Business Administration and Business Economics • Marketing • Accounting
N 0 0 0 0.00 0.00 Economic History
O 0 11 11 0.00 2.95 Economic Development, Technological Change, and Growth
P 4 4 0 3.77 1.07 Economic Systems
Q 0 4 4 0.00 1.07 Agricultural and Natural Resource Economics • Environmental and Ecological Economics
R 5 11 6 4.72 2.95 Urban, Rural, Regional, Real Estate, and Transportation Economics
Y 0 0 0 0.00 0.00 Miscellaneous Categories
Z 5 54 49 4.72 14.48 Other Special Topics
Sum 106 373 267 100 100 Sums
The data in table 2 show that based on EconLit, there have been significant changes in the subject structure of research on sports sponsorship from 2010 to 2018. There are no studies related to macro categories as B History of Economic Thought, Methodology, and Heterodox Approaches, E Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics, Economic History, Y Miscellaneous Categories. The sharp increase in the share of the macro category Z is due to the introduction of the meso categories Z2 Sports Economics and Z3 Tourism Economics.
Bibliometric analysis results based on Scopus
The search method for the Scopus database was similar to the EconLit search. We used queries for the terms' inclusion in titles, abstracts and keywords
TITLE-ABS-KEY (sport AND sponsor) OR TITLE-ABS-KEY (sport AND sponsorship)
The search result was 1351 records. We exported the information of these records and then elaborated this information with MS Word and MS Excel. Then we repeated the extraction for the same word combination as in the EconLit analysis. Table 3 which is an analog of table 1 shows the results of Scopus database.
Table 3
Results of bibliometric analysis of Scopus publications on sports sponsorship
SpSp Brand Effect Value Model Market Marketing
Periods Number of publications
195б 1980 11 0 1 1 0 0 0
1981 1990 35 3 2 4 0 2 4
1991 2000 108 9 22 2б 11 10 29
2001 2010 339 73 б4 95 43 57 118
2011 2020 858 2б3 199 2б9 180 119 315
Итого Sum 1351 348 288 395 234 188 4бб
Share of period in total, %
195б 1980 0.81 0.00 0.35 0.25 0.00 0.00 0.00
1981 1990 2.59 0.8б 0.б9 1.01 0.00 1.0б 0.8б
1991 2000 7.99 2.59 7.б4 б.58 4.70 5.32 б.22
2001 2010 25.1 21.0 22.2 24.1 18.4 30.3 25.3
2011 2020 б3.5 75.б б9.1 б8.1 7б.9 б3.3 б7.б
100 100 100 100 100 100 100
The ration according to SpSp, %
195б 1980 100 0 9.09 9.09 0 0 0
SpSp Brand Effect Value Model Market Marketing
1981 1990 100 8.57 5.71 11.43 0.00 5.71 11.43
1991 2000 100 8.33 20.37 24.07 10.19 9.26 26.85
2001 2010 100 21.53 18.88 28.02 12.68 16.81 34.81
2011 2020 100 30.65 23.19 31.35 20.98 13.87 36.71
100 25.76 21.32 29.24 17.32 13.92 34.49
Growth rate compared to the previous period
1981 1990 3.18 2 4
1991 2000 3.09 3 11 6.5 5 7.25
2001 2010 3.14 8.11 2.91 3.65 3.91 5.70 4.07
2011 2020 2.53 3.60 3.11 2.83 4.19 2.09 2.67
The data in Table 3 also show the increasing interest of researchers in the problems of sponsorship of sports (or sports sponsorship), in both general and selected areas.
The next stage of analysis includes the creation of the frequency dictionary based on the extracted information from titles, abstracts and keywords. Here is a fragment of this dictionary with the frequencies in parentheses:
sport (6761), sponsor (6054), sponsorship (3727), brand (1728), research (1179), use (1143), management (1067), effect (915), consumer (538), right (503), relationship (497), impact (456), Product (430), finding (428), model (410), fans (318), increase (297), sports marketing (256), suggest (251), culture (230), literature (230), name (199), effectiveness (190), sporting event (166), perception (162), theory (162), gambling (144), build (142), knowledge (142), theoretical (135), congruence (126), quality (123), brand equity (109), star (107), naming (92), appropriate (65), mediate (52), facility (39), Measuring (36), modelling (29), global brand (21), consumer culture (18), attractiveness (17), expertise (13), structural equation modelling (13), personal brand (11), brand love (10), broaden (10), theoretical model (6), triple helix (4), mediation model (3), empirical model (2), stimulus-organism-response model (2).
Content analysis of publications
The extent of our paper presents the opportunity only for a brief description of the most interesting publications on sport sponsorship among the 1453 that were found in EconLit and Scopus.
T. B. Cornwell and I. Maignan in "An international review of sponsorship research" [15, p. 2] use 80 articles published in a variety of journals and conference proceedings in many countries. They separated out "five streams of research, each pertaining to a specific aspect of sponsorship activity" with the detailing: nature of sponsorship (describing development, defining sponsorship, differentiating from other promotional communication), managerial aspects of sponsorship (objectives and motivations, constituency and audience, organization structure, personnel requirements, budgeting), measurement of
sponsorship effects (exposure-based methods, tracking measures, experiments), strategic use of sponsorship, legal and ethical considerations in sponsorship. The authors highlight the importance of examining congruence theory in future works, the research on the structure of memory, brand equity, integrated marketing communications, and relationship marketing [15, p. 3-18].
B. Walliser, in [16], develops the five streams of research presented in paper [15].
In 2004, paper [17] underlines the steadily increase of Sport sponsorship spending in South Africa. It "discusses the findings of an exploratory study into key sponsorship decision-areas, namely the setting of sponsorship objectives, the integration of marketing communication variables into sponsorship to create a leverage effect, and the measurement of sponsorship success". The authors recommend that sponsors should use not only media-related measurement tools, but also "develop alternative methods to measure the effectiveness of their sponsorships".
The book "Golfonomics" [18] "uses economics to illustrate things about golf, and golf to illustrate things about economics. Demonstrates regression analysis through a study of the relationship between a golfer's weight and how far he can drive the golf ball". The book is based on empirical data from forty-six golf courses in San Francisco, contains many interest cases and findings, including the problem of "the tournament sponsor or promoter".
In 2004 "Congruence effects in sponsorship" is published [19]. The following citation supports the result of our bibliometric analysis: "Sponsorship is an important part of the marketing mix that only recently has received academic attention" [19, p. 29]. In the literature review, the authors show that "Sponsorships are intended to create short- and long-term benefits to the sponsoring company" [19, p. 30]. Using the links with the publications, the paper reminds its reader that sponsorships influence consumer recall, awareness and identification of sponsors, sponsor image, attitude toward the sponsor, and purchase intentions. The effectiveness of corporate sponsorship has been proposed to be a function of the link between the sponsor and an event that the target consumer values, resulting in the transfer of the consumer's positive perception of the event to the sponsoring brand, company, or organization. The paper consists of the theoretical background (schema and attribution theories), econometric model for congruence effects assessment and results of testing. It presents two figures that illustrate the relationships between congruence, sponsor altruism attribution, sponsor credibility, and sponsor attitudes [19, p. 34-37].
It is possible to consider the cited works as mainstream of concepts and approaches. Starting 2005, we add the "branches" of directions marked with concepts in the columns of Table 3. The examples above as well as the next ones show the repeated intersections of "branches". Bold font identifies terms for the basic terms as "sport" and "sponsor" as well as the terms in the "branches" (brand, value, model, etc).
Brand, branding and co-branding. There are three papers in our Scopus subset with the combinations "Brand personality".
The purpose of the paper [20] is "to explore the role of perceived fit and brand personality as means of building the brand equity of the sponsor in a basketball sponsorship setting both for team fans (fans) and fans of a rival team (rivals)". The source of empirical data is self-administered questionnaires from 222 fans and 271 rivals. "Structural equation modeling was run to test the research hypotheses". "Results provided
evidence that brand personality mediates the effect of fans' perceived fit evaluations on brand equity variables".
The study [21] "suggests a structural validation procedure of Aaker (1997)'s brand personality scale (BPS) to evaluate the congruence effects of sport sponsorship". The congruence theory forms the theoretical background of this research [21, p. 352-353]. The current study implements a five-stage procedure: (1) model assessment; (2) model respecification for each brand; (3) congenerity test; (4) congruence test; and (5) latent mean difference test [21, p. 355-359].
Objective of the paper [22] is "to explore children's responses to sponsorship of community junior sport by unhealthy food brands and investigate the utility of alternative, pro-health sponsorship options". The authors consider "sponsorship conditions: A, non-food branding (control); B, unhealthy food branding; C, healthier food branding; D, obesity prevention campaign branding".
The book chapter [23] titled "Branding through sponsorship-linked marketing" examines "the impacts of sponsorship-linked marketing activities on perceived consumer-based brand equity elements (i.e., brand loyalty, perceived quality, and brand awareness/associations) of the sponsor". Results show that the "branding effectiveness of sponsorship directly depends on event quality, perceived event-brand congruency, and brand experience, but not level of sports involvement".
The purpose of the paper [23] is "to analyse co-branding as leverage for both teams and equipment manufacturers in their internationalization endeavours". The originality includes "The global brand strategy, which refers to a new market and an existing co-brand name, would be the most appropriate for sports teams and equipment manufacturers".
The paper [24] reports "a case study that investigates corporate image transfer and bad image management in a corporate co-branded sports team".
Effect. The study [25] indicates with the help of regression analyses (type of modeling) that "the effect of sponsorship announcements on stock returns of sponsee differs based on the foreign/local origin of sponsor and form of sponsorship".
The research [26] examines "the impact of brand awareness, image, and perceived quality on the consumer-brand relationship by using survey data collected from 560 sports fans to compare their attitudes towards a corporate sponsor prior to and following the 2018 FIFA World Cup Russia soccer event". The aim of this study is "to illustrate the manner in which brand awareness, image, and perceived quality of a sponsor's brand would have positive effects on consumer-brand relationship satisfaction and brand commitment, and how that brand commitment and satisfaction would positively affect brand loyalty".
The purpose of the paper [27] is to examine a possible negative spillover effect in sports sponsorship to answer whether the sponsored team's poor performance will have a negative effect on audiences' trust in its sponsor's brand.
Value, assessment and similar terms. The title of the paper [28] contains many of our terms: "Assessing market value of event sponsoring: Corporate olympic sponsorships". We may read about the problem background: "While the use of event sponsoring, particularly in the form of sports-related sponsorships, is growing at an increasing rate, marketers have had difficulties assessing the value of such advertising strategies".
The authors address "this valuation dilemma by employing event study analysis, a technique common to the finance discipline".
Paper [29] titled: "Value cocreation at sport events". Presents an intriguing abstract: "Sport events by themselves do not create value. Yet, sport events can serve as platforms and provide resources that actor-networks integrate to cocreate value. The present study views sport events as an assemblage of diverse brands like event, athlete, sponsor, and place brands, and sheds light on the question of how their heterogeneous actor-networks cocreate value at sport events". The authors develop these thoughts in paper's introduction and other sections [29, p. 69-72]. The most interesting parts are figure 1 that illustrates a framework for value cocreation [29, p. 73] and table 2 with definitions and examples of resources, practices and values [29, p. 81]. The row of resources: comprise raw materials, physical products, and services, human (skills, experience, knowledge), organizational (routines, cultures, competencies), informational (knowledge about markets, competitors, and technology), relational (with other actors). Creation practices include welcoming, empathizing, governing, staking, and other. There are five values: cultural, hedonic, social, status and economic.
The authors of the paper [30] titled "Evaluating sponsorship through the lens of the resource-based view" point out that "the resource-based view (RBV) of the firm has become a prominent management theory that firms can use to analyze resources as potential sources of competitive advantage". The sponsorship is one of these resources; because of this, a conceptual model based on the RBV is capable to identify the key characteristics of sponsored properties capable of assisting the sponsoring firm in achieving a sustained competitive advantage.
Model and modeling. The paper [31] contains the term "model" in the title. However, the study of the full text shows that the model in question depicts a statistical illustration. Social Return on Investment (SROI) is a framework used for understanding, measuring and valuing net social impacts of an activity, organization or intervention [31, p. 586]. The seven SROI principles are: involve stakeholders; understand what changes; value things that matter; only include what is material; do not over-claim; be transparent; and verify the result [31, p. 591].
Paper [32] highlights a model of corporate sponsorship effect on employees. This model contains the following interrelated blocks: corporate sponsorship as a signal, Employees' attitude towards their firm's sponsorship, employees' pre-existing beliefs and attitudes towards sponsorship in general, Improved service quality, external audiences (customers, general public, intermediaries), customer satisfaction and customer loyalty, Corporate Profits, and corporate sponsorship as a signal again [32, p. 192].
A critical review of methods for assessing value creation through investment in sport and active recreation [33] embraces a wide range of methods and models: Cost/Benefit Analysis, Financial Accounting, Tourism Models, Sport Satellite Accounts, Input-Output Tables, Estimating Market Valuation, Computable General Equilibrium Modelling, Surveillance augmented value estimation, Health modelling, and Social Return on Investment Modelling.
Marketing. Table 3 shows the presence of 466 publications in Scopus, which are devoted to the relationship of marketing and sponsorship in sports. Several dozens among them discuss "ambush marketing". As J.L. Crompton writes "Ambushing occurs when a company that has no formal rights as an official sponsor, associates its own
brand with a sport event with the intention of communicating the false impression that it is a sponsor" [34].
G. Nefer considers "ambush marketing" as the "interdisciplinary phenomenon" and suggests A four-field matrix emerges from the combination of a legal-statutory consideration on one hand and an ethical-moral assessment on the other [35].
Summarizing the opinions of different authors, we can write the following.
Official sponsors pay sponsorships' amount to get the possibility to appear among the event's audience in commercials and advertisements connected to the event's name. But before and during these events, companies that are not official sponsors might create advertisements with the goal of becoming associated with the occasion. Non-official sponsors market their brand in connection to the event and in that way they become associated with it. This is a common dilemma, which of course is not appreciated by the sponsors who have invested in the event. Ambush marketing activities, where brand owners attempt to associate their products or services with a sponsored event without paying sponsorship rights fees, typically rely on establishing such mental links about brand-event pairings. Sponsorship clutter, defined as a high level of competing communications, has been found to negatively impact on sponsorship effectiveness. In addition to these problems, and although sponsoring is an increasingly important marketing communication tool, one of the most frequent criticisms levelled at the industry has been the lack of attention paid to measuring sponsorship effects relative to the investments made. The return on investment (ROI) of sponsorship presents one of these cases. As such, and despite all of the indicators pointing to the need for a clear understanding of the business value of sponsorships, marketers and financial officers today remain unsure of how sponsorship works and how to properly measure its business value. Marketers see sponsorship as something different from advertising but there has been no general clarification of how sponsorship and advertising differ, what this implies in terms of making sponsorship accountable. There has therefore been a recent groundswell of interest expressed by advertisers and agencies alike in devising new forms of research to measure the business effects of sponsorships in all media including events.
Theory. We examined the content of 1351 Scopus publications on sport sponsorship searching for the term "theory", and came up with the following list of definitions for the theories: global consumer culture, self-expansion, exchange, social identity, congru-ency, self-congruence, stakeholder, attribution, associative network, schema, spreading activation, three-hit, placement, transfer, balance, identity, resource dependence, Mar-kowitz's Portfolio, cognitive dissonance, social capital, gratifications, contingency, linguistic theory of structuralism and poststructuralism, social penetration, image transfer, attribution, actor-network, game, legitimacy, categorization, framing, multilevel framework advances sponsorship theory, classical conditioning, dual coding, deterrence, Foucauldian, ethics, planned behavior, reasoned action, Debord-style spectacle, advanced, Institutional, platform, property rights, small business stages of development theory.
Conclusions
Our study reveals through the content analysis of JEL and publications, is that there has been an increase in the number of publications related to sports sponsorship in line
with the increase of global spending in this sector. Not only has the scholarly research in this field of study grown steadily over the course of the last years, but it has done so in conjunction with other spheres of economic studies as validated by our JEL analysis. We substantiate this conclusion with the figures shown in our study's tables. It shows the increase in the number of publications, and JEL intersections among the different micro-categories of EconLit. However, the problems are still various and diverse, some are of evaluation nature, others purely academic or related to function. Also there is a necessity to approach sponsorship from different yet modern perspectives and methodologies, that could evaluate the exact social or financial value of sponsorship. In fact, there is still not a universally accepted measurement metric to evaluate the effectiveness of sport sponsorship. And while all empirical findings suggest that sponsorship can be regarded effective, its outcomes are not rigorously measured but mainly evaluated based on experience, common sense, and gut feeling. This gap in scientific literature has lead some corporates to moving towards formalized ways of measuring sponsorship. These evaluation methods are based on the expansion in geographic reach of their goods or services, the increase of their sales, its goodwill reputation and enhanced brand image among the community. It is only natural that sponsors acquire new methodologies and metrics to evaluate their investments.
This broadens the spectrum of research in this field, whereas it provides sports entrepreneurs with much needed guidance. On top of these purely academic and research considerations for further interest in this sector, there are broader geopolitical and strategic dimensions at play when it comes to sports sponsorship, where it is often considered a soft power tool. Therefore, there is a need for the development and comprehension of this field by both governmental and private organizations.
Limitations and Suggestions for Future Research
Although the findings of our study have offered some insights into sports economics field, namely sponsorship, we realize the limitations of our paper. The main limitation is that data for our content analysis were retrieved from a limited number of sources, EconLit and Scopus. We suggest that further research could be done in this field following the same approach, but by exploring even more databases. Also, further studies could sort out literature, scholarly research and financial figures by type of sports. Furthermore, a comparative study for sponsorship evolution between several markets could be done.
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Материал поступил в редколлегию 02.02.2020 Принят к печати 18.02.2020
Information about the Author
Youssef W. Nader, 3rd year PhD student, Novosibirsk State University (1 Pirogov Str., Novosibirsk, 630090, Russian Federation)
youssefnader@mail.ru
Сведения об авторе
Юссеф В. Надер, аспирант 3 года обучения, экономический факультет, Новосибирский национальный исследовательский государственный университет (ул. Пирогова, 1, Новосибирск, 630090, Россия)
youssefnader@mail.ru
