PurposeThe purpose of this paper is to demonstrate how companies activate their sponsorship of Formula E (for Electric) championship races to influence consumers' opinion of them as sustainable businesses.Design/methodology/approachDrawing on an original combination of promotional outputs (YouTube spots, social media releases and sustainability reports) from Formula E race title sponsors in the 2017–2019 seasons, the paper is a qualitative analysis of how these sponsors solve the value clash between traditional motorsport imagery and environmentalism to achieve “narrative authenticity”.FindingsFindings show that sponsors do not address this clash directly. Instead, the conflict itself is reframed as a question of what sponsors do to improve the environment, not what they ndo not do. Second, the timeframe for action is redefined, which means that the future is what counts, not the situation today or given aims like the UN 2030 Sustainable Development Goals.Originality/valueSponsorship activation through Formula E as way of generating green brand equity would come across as more credible if companies improved the use of cross-platform synergies to convey narrative authenticity. To qualitative researchers on sport sponsorship, the findings strengthen the understanding of brands as “cultural narrators”.

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Sociology and human rights are sometimes perceived as Western liberal constructs. To do sociological studies of human rights in locations where both discipline and topic are contested, therefore, necessitates a sophisticated treatment of the relation between them if trustworthy results are to be generated. In order to do so, this article speculates on the potential of disciplinary development by assessing the conditions for doing sociological ethnography of mega-sport events. More specifically, it explores the ramifications of the International Olympic Committee’s Host City Contract from 2024 onwards. This contract requires the event bidder to actively engage in the protection of human rights. But how can we explore ethnographically the execution of this requirement? Rather than resuming ideas on a ‘syncretised’ sociology as a response to the burdens of methodological nationalism and Eurocentrism, this article uses the IOC contract as an example and lessons from the Fédération de Internationale de Football Association’s (FIFA) work on human rights to argue that there is an unexplored potential in improving sociological ethnographic research by adapting it to the specifics of a topic.

Calls for research and practices with regard to sport management innovation are plenty. In this chapter we introduce why the electric racing world championship Formula E can be a relevant case study for a model of sport management innovation. Besides introducing our fivefold perspective on innovation (organizational, technological, commercial, social and community-based), the basics of Formula E and our approach to theoretical modelling, the chapter explains how the rest of the book is structured.

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