Profiling Contemporary Sports Sponsorship Objectives

Abstract

The study aims to identify the objectives most commonly pursued by sports sponsors and explores whether these differ by sport, sponsorship type and sponsor product category. Press releases/articles relating to 402 recent sponsorship deals were content analysed, with imagebuilding
being the most commonly cited objective, followed by brand awareness. Using chi-square tests, significant differences were found between the objectives pursued by sport,
sponsorship type and sponsor product category. As press releases represent a corporate, and thus potentially biased, public relations tool, this research forms part of a wider study exploring sponsorship objectives and evaluation, using interview and survey methodologies.