Sponsorship sales is not only a sport, but an institutional business as well: evidence from two professional football clubs in Latin-America.

Abstract

<jats:p>The purpose of this paper is to identify the impact of institutionalization, legitimacy, learning behaviors, and other organizational characteristics on the efforts made by sport clubs signing sponsorship contracts. An exploratory comparison of two professional football clubs, playing in the First Division, of Costa Rica and Chile was performed. Using a narrative methodology, the Costa Rican team was analyzed through observation during a two-year collaboration period, and the Chilean team was analyzed through in-depth interviews and an analysis of the historical literature. The analysis revealed that organizational behaviors impact the clubs’ amount of sponsorship contracts and multi-season contracts. It also revealed that institutionalization and legitimacy work as a first latter in the relationship, and that by themselves it should be considered a marketing tool. Additionally, it was observed that both learning behaviors and resource seeking strategies contribute to successfully sign sponsorship contracts, but a baseline level of legitimacy and institutionalization should exist.&#x0D; Drawing on Institutional Theory, Ecology, and Organizational Learning a clear role model was evidenced within the ecosystem of two professional football clubs, each on&#x0D; a different Latin American country. These behaviors, which up to our knowledge has never being analyzed before, yielded and sustained legitimacy, while showing a direct&#x0D; effect on sponsorship single-season and multi-season contracts.</jats:p>

El patrocinio como factor condicionante en el desarrollo de las carreras de los deportistas de élite españoles.

“…Los resultados del presente trabajo determinan que, en la actualidad, gracias a los avances tecnológicos, la evolución en las estrategias de marketing de las compañías y a la amplia implantación del uso de las redes sociales como medio de comunicación, las marcas pueden conseguir que sus productos sean conocidos a nivel global, por lo que existe un gran interés por patrocinar a jugadores profesionales y eventos deportivos. Esta es una práctica que suele ofrecer una contrastada rentabilidad a nivel de notoriedad, influencia sobre los aficionados, imagen y ventas (Miragaia et al, 2017;Breva-Franch et al, 2019;Kim et al, 2019;Navarro-Picado, 2019;Koronios et al, 2020;Zhou et al, 2020;Contreras-Espinosa, 2021). Para las empresas resulta de especial trascendencia, en este sentido, realizar un estudio de diversos factores relativos al deportista o evento a patrocinar que pueden acabar influyendo en su elección.…”

“…Los factores más relevantes para impulsar políticas de patrocinio deportivo dentro de las empresas son la fidelización de clientes, la motivación de los empleados, la reputación y mejora de la imagen, la eficaz combinación con el uso de redes sociales, la innovación, la aparición de una buena oportunidad, la respuesta positiva de los consumidores, la responsabilidad social corporativa y la revalorización de marca (Miragaia et al, 2017;Kim et al, 2019;Navarro-Picado, 2019;Contreras-Espinosa, 2021). Una vez que el patrocinio es puesto en práctica, las empresas tratan de recuperar o rentabilizar su inversión, a través de la involucración de los aficionados y del reconocimiento de marca y las asociaciones positivas de imagen generadas a largo plazo (Smith et al, 2008;Kwon y Shin, 2019;.…”

Strategies of German Bundesliga and English Premier League clubs for the COVID-19 crisis: the case of international broadcasting fans

“…When evaluating an institution, the higher the perceived organizational legitimacy of the organization, the higher its trustworthiness, and the easier it is to justify any decision taken by the same organization (Fan and Wu 2019 ). Within sports, perceived organizational legitimacy can be expected to impact both sponsorship garnering (Navarro-Picado 2019 ) and fans’ consumption intentions (Navarro-Picado et al 2020 ). This relationship needs further understanding, as perceived organizational legitimacy could act through trustworthiness and the justifiability of a specific decision taken.…”