“Why Can’t We Be Friends”? An Examination of Academic and Industry Alignment in Sport Sponsorship

Introduction

The relationship between academic scholarship and its use within the sport industry is an important topic within the discipline. One of the biggest concerns for sport management is the relevance of academic research to industry professionals (Bowers et al., 2014; Irwin & Ryan, 2013; Mahoney & Pitts, 1998). Within the area of sport marketing, scholarly journals are a major source of information to the academy and offer new knowledge or test existing theories (Peetz & Reams, 2011). However, the impact these theoretical advancements have on sport marketing professionals is not clear. While a number of sport organizations and scholars have encouraged collaboration between the academy and sport industry professionals (King, 2013; North American Society for Sport Management, 2013; Sutton 2012), Fink (2013) acknowledged a disconnect and proffered a solution between those who study sport management and those who work in the industry stating, “professors must step outside their university confines more often if they hope to bridge the gap with industry.” (King, 2013)

One area that has received a lot of academic and industry attention within the context of sport marketing is sponsorship. Sponsorship has been defined as “a series of exchanges between brands, sponsored properties, and consumers for contracted time periods, driven by brands’ use of sponsored properties’ communication assets, to influence consumer thoughts, feelings, and actions toward multiple, dynamic marketing objectives for brands and properties” (Wakefield et al., 2020, p. 323).

Sponsorship research provides direct practical application and is an area of high interest. Scholarly reviews on sponsorship (Cornwell & Kwon, 2020; Cornwell & Maignan, 1998; Johnston & Spais, 2015; Kim et al., 2015; Wakefield et al., 2020; Walliser, 2003), have investigated the evolution of sponsorship research and provided new opportunities for further investigations. These reviews highlight the multitude of scholarship on the topic of sponsorship. Additionally, there are 353 articles related to sponsorship published in Sports Business Journal between 2017 and April 2022. Thus, there is no question both academia and industry see sponsorship as a topic of importance to the field. Yet, it is unknown whether topics of conversation around sponsorship are in alignment or are relevant across these sectors of the market.

Therefore, the purpose of this study is to extend our knowledge of existing content on sponsorship by examining both the academic scholarship and industry publications on this important topic. Scholars suggest a gap between academia and industry, yet it is undetermined how published articles in sponsorship are aligned and why certain topics may overlap in interest where others are independent topics. It has been argued sponsorship research is siloed across disciplines, is disconnected (Cornwell & Kwon, 2020), and lacks a comprehensive rigorous summary (Wakefield et al., 2020).

While various scholars (Cornwell & Kwon, 2020; Cornwell & Maignan, 1998; Johnston & Spais, 2015; Kim et al., 2015; Wakefield et al., 2020; Walliser, 2003) have provided in-depth reviews of the academic sponsorship research, the current study extends this work by examining the scholarly sponsorship literature and published industry articles and identifying themes and alignment between the two sectors. Our intention is to compare the published academic articles and what is written in industry publications to better understand the content that is being discussed across the various channels, and to see if there is a gap between industry and academia. Industry publications are those that are not peer reviewed, but content providers that offer relevant sports news and important sport topics.

Literature Review

Within the academic literature, there have been four broad reviews of sport sponsorship content from academic journals. This review will examine each review chronologically and provide additional context on each of the authors’ findings and conclusions, as well as analyze any overlapping themes among the authors and the evolution of the literature. The first review was performed by Cornwell and Maignan (1998). At that time, sponsorship was widely used among practitioners, but attracted very little interest by academia. Thus, the objective of their paper was to gain an informed understanding of the current state of the management and benefits of sponsorship. By conducting their review, the authors wanted to promote the legitimization of sponsorship in the United States among academia. Performing a worldwide systematic sponsorship review, 80 articles were found between 1983 and 1996. Only articles published in English, French, or German were included in the review, and the authors did not include any regulatory government studies.

The results of the research showed five different research streams: nature of sponsorship (20.51%), managerial aspects of sponsorship (33.33%), measurement of sponsorship effects (24.36%), strategic use of sponsorship (6.41%), and legal and ethical considerations in sponsorship (15.38%).

Given the relative newness of research on sponsorship, the authors said that it was not surprising the literature spent time describing the development of sponsorship or defining its main characteristics in relation to other promotional communications. Within their study several questions were raised surrounding the difference between sponsorship and other communication tools, as well as sponsorship objectives and measurement on consumer and community groups.

Based on the authors’ review, they identified four gaps. First, there was no classification scheme that distinguished sponsorship from other communication and promotional techniques. Second, the understanding of the relationship between the objectives and the achieved results from sponsorship was poor. Third, no measures on the impact of sponsorship among the consumers and public had been established or defined. Finally, theories and conceptual foundations for scholarly inquiry were absent.

In 2003, Walliser extended and updated the research findings of Cornwell and Maignan (1998). Walliser (2003) felt it important to include international studies on sponsorship, as the topic was being researched more heavily in areas outside of North America. Therefore, sources including conference proceedings and journals with a more European focus were included in the review. To be consistent, the same article selection criteria was adopted to a large extent and English, French, and German language studies over the same period were included. Then, articles from 1996 to 2001 were examined to analyze the evolution of sponsorship research, including adherence to Cornwell and Maignan’s (1998) suggestions, and gaps that needed to be addressed. After accounting for the previous 80 articles, 153 additional articles were examined: 66 articles were published between 1985 and 1996 while 87 articles were published between 1996 and 2001.

Initially, the author used the same five research streams from Cornwell and Maignan (1998), but removed legal and ethical considerations due to the large number of studies identified in other streams. Therefore, this study included: nature of sponsorship (16.34%), managerial aspects of sponsorship (20.92%), measurement of sponsorship effects (54.25%), and strategic use of sponsorship (8.50%). Walliser (2003) provided the number of articles in each research stream for both reviews, detailing the number of articles in the 2003 study that appeared after 1995.

As a whole, the literature on sponsorship was in a growth stage. The nature of sponsorship appeared to have reached maturity at that time and was declining. The area that received the most attention was measurement of sponsorship. In particular, there were many studies about awareness and image transfer. Through in-depth examination, the review provides notable cross-cultural differences in how sponsorship is defined by the academy as the definition varies from country to country and from researcher to researcher. However, there is much agreement from “corporate philanthropy, patronage, corporate giving and product placement” (Walliser, 2013, p. 18).

Some of Cornwell & Maignan’s (1998) suggestions for the direction of the research have been addressed. However, the “research is still too focused on consumer goods and services companies” and marginal advances have occurred in an organizations functional affiliation with sponsorship, personnel requirements, and in budgeting. Performed by Johnston and Spais (2015), the third study was a content analysis examining key themes and concepts in the abstracts of peer-reviewed marketing and advertising journals published between 1980 and 2012. They identified 841 articles written by over 1,000 authors and published in over 150 academic journals. The purpose of their review focused on the semantic relationships among sponsorship-specific content and themes. Not only did the authors extend the timeframe of studies, they widened the type of academic journals.

Supported by computer-assisted text analysis (CATA), the authors were able to visualize the semantic foundations of sponsorship-linked research over four distinct time periods: 1980–1989 [22 articles, 16 journals], 1990–1999 [149 articles, 48 journals], 2000–2009 [435 articles, 96 journals], 2010–2012 [235 articles, 61 journals]. Corresponding to the time periods, four foundational pillars that supported the advancement and development of sponsorship research were identified: intellectual, strategic, behavioral, and relational. The authors called the timeframe of the 1980s the Intellectual Foundations. Published content from this period focused on the function and managerial focus of sponsorship and was consistent with previous research conducted by Cornwell & Maignan (1998) and Walliser (2003). The 1990s are considered the strategic foundations time span. During this period there was a focus on the strategic role sponsorship plays and brand image (Gwinner & Eaton, 1999).

The 2000s are known as the behavioral foundations and focused on better understanding consumer responses to product purchase (Madrigal, 2001), sponsor identification bias and brand image congruence. The authors also found new concepts such as products, consumers, analysis and results. The 2010s are known as relational foundations, with the most prominent concepts being: professional, team, relationship, social and value. There are still several distinct research themes found in the academic literature such as: business to business (B2B), corporate social responsibility (CSR), and measurement and impact on shareholder wealth. Most recently, Cornwell and Kwon (2020) completed a review of 409 sponsorship-linked marketing studies from the period between 1996 and 2017. The purpose of this study was to first, introduce the topic and map current research within the sponsorship process. Second, provide theoretically grounded questions to prompt under-researched topics.

The first broad analysis of this study grouped the publications into three (3) areas: reviews and trends in sponsorship (6.36%, 26 articles), management and strategy in the sponsorship process (24.69%, 101 articles), and measurement and effectiveness related to target audience response (68.95%, 282 articles). The model consists of six (6) columns that represent a generalized sponsoring process including: initial decision, target audiences, objectives, engagement, measurement and evaluation, and subsequent decisions.

The authors propose a number of research areas to focus. For example, minimal research on sponsorship asset pricing, deal characteristics, contract price setting, and the examination of price negotiation. Also, research on sponsorship pricing is limited, and “no study has tried to understand how geographic ecosystem boundaries limit the number and nature of available relationships” (Cornwell & Kwon, 2020, p. 612). Furthermore, the academic literature is replete with the measurement outcomes recall and recognition (Wakefield et al., 2007), attitudes, brand image and brand equity, purchase intention (Bachleda et al. 2016), and behavior (Zaharia & Kaburakis, 2016), but sponsorship researchers “have not forged new measures focused on sponsorship” (Cornwell & Kwon, 2020, p. 617). Additionally, there lacks organizational models-level models for evaluation of return on investment (ROI), return on objectives (ROO), or return on purpose (ROP). The authors state, “in no other areas is there a larger gap between academic inquiry and business need” (Cornwell & Kwon, 2020, p. 618).

In terms of objectives, target audiences, and engagement, consumer audiences have been the focal point of research often to the exclusion of other audiences for sponsorships. Due to a failure to consider the sponsorship process as a whole, the authors conclude that there remains ‘a shortage of research that examines marketing management of the sponsorship process.’ These findings show a shortage in sponsorship management and a surplus in audience response. A table of the sponsorship scoping reviews is provided in Table 1.

Although not a scoping review of the literature, but to better understand the conceptual framework of sponsorship, Wakefield et al. (2020) describe a comprehensive sponsorship model that highlights the sequence of antecedents, mediators, and consequences for sponsorship. Wakefield et al. (2020) goes beyond the sponsorship reviews by exploring the wide range of mechanisms at work within the sponsorship ecosystem. The authors focus on a consumer-centric model of sponsorship effects that considers the consequences of interactions among brands, properties and consumers. The goal is to synthesize the source factors and interactions identified in previous research as affecting sponsorship outcomes to make sense of what has been found and to provide paths towards new future research. Their review is comprehensive in terms of relevant constructs, not necessarily towards all relevant citations (Wakefield et al., 2020, p. 325).

Sponsorship can be a complex model with many sponsorship-linked components that involves stakeholders, brands, consumers, and properties. The authors conceptualize a three-step model that involves antecedents (brand, property, and consumers), mediators (consumer thoughts, feelings, and actions), and potential consequences of sponsorships (consumers and brands). The authors propose 10 new research streams to consider: brand-property factors, consumer-brand factors, consumer-property factors, property characteristics, brand characteristics, consumer characteristics, mediators for brand sponsorship, consequences of brand sponsorship, consumer-focused outcomes, brand-focused outcomes. The systematic review of the sponsorship literature has shown how the theoretical and conceptual foundations of sponsorship has evolved. It has provided new definitions and research trends in the sponsorship field. As sponsorship research continues to accelerate, discrepancies still exist among discussed topics between industry and practice.

Methods

Results

Analyzing the articles was a three-step process. Step One was to identify categories based on topics and the percentage each topic makes of the whole. Step Two was to examine academic and industry articles individually to determine the number of articles and percentage of the total relative to itself. Step Three of the process was then to compare the difference of the percentages between industry and academia for each of the categories.

For Step One, each article was first placed into one category according to its main topic. Upon completion of this process, 15 categories were identified. Because this review is examining trends, one category “Scandal” was removed as it was related to a singular event. In this case, the event was the 2014 FIFA World Cup corruption scandal. The remaining 14 topics are listed alphabetically in Table 2. with a brief description.

Following the categorical placing of articles, the total number of articles within each category was calculated and divided by the total number of articles to determine the percentage each topic contributed to the total. Table 3. shows the most written about categories in rank order with Identification as the most written about topic, accounting for 23.18% of all articles. Followed by Activation at 19.74%, Digital & Social at 14.59%, and Measurement at 12.66%. Rounding out the top 5 was the category of Gambling which accounted for 10.30% of all articles written.

Step Two was to examine academic and industry articles individually to determine the number of articles and percentage of the total relative to itself. As noted in Table 4., when comparing the rankings for both audience types, Activation and Digital & Social were in the top five for both groups; however, Activation comprised 18.41% of all industry articles while only comprising 11.69% of academic articles. Digital & Social comprised 14.16% of the industry total while only comprising 7.79% of the academic total. Both categories were ranked higher in industry than academia. Activation was ranked first in the industry and third in the academic literature, while Digital & Social was ranked second in the industry and fourth in academia. Within the bottom five, Women’s Sports and Termination appeared in both groups. Women’s Sports ranked tenth in industry, comprising 2.27% of all industry articles and fourteenth in academia which had zero articles on the topic. Comparatively, Termination ranked eleventh in both industry (1.42%) and academia (1.3%). The two categories in the top five in industry that appeared in the bottom five of academia were eSports and Jersey Sponsorship. eSports comprised 12.46% of all industry articles while only comprising 0.43% of academic articles. Likewise, Jersey Sponsorship comprised 11.33% of all industry articles while only comprising 0.43% of academic articles. Conversely, Identification was ranked first in academia comprising 39.39% of all academic articles, but was ninth in industry comprising only 4.82% of industry articles.

Finally, Step Three of the process, because the number of academic articles (N=231) was not equal to the number of industry articles (N=353), was to compare the difference of the percentages between industry and academia for each of the categories. The comparison was made using the percentage that each topic was discussed within industry articles versus the percent that each topic was discussed within academic articles. For each category, the degree of positive difference indicated the amount that the topic was identified more in industry versus academia. On the other hand, the degree of negative difference is the amount that the topic was discussed more in academia versus industry. Then, the categories were divided into three groups: industry heavy, academic heavy, and balanced.

Categories considered balanced were those that had less than a four percent difference, whether positive or negative, between the percentage of articles that discussed the topic within the industry and the percentage of articles that discussed the topic within academia. Table 5 displays the difference of the percentages between industry and academia for each of the categories and whether the categories are industry heavy, academic heavy, and balanced. Table 5. displays the difference of the percentages between industry and academia for each of the categories.

The industry heavy categories are those which had the most positive differences greater than four percent, which included eSports (12.03%), Jersey Sponsorship (10.90%), Gambling (10.02%), Activation (6.73%), and Digital & Social (6.37%), and Naming Rights (4.22%). The academic heavy categories, which had negative differences greater than negative four percent in order from largest amount of difference to least were: Identification (−34.58%), Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) (−5.93%), Measurement (−4.77%), and Ambush Marketing (−4.06%). In order of the least to most amount of difference in percentages, the balanced categories were: Termination (0.12%), Endorsement (0.15%), Women’s Sports (2.27%), and Rivalry (−3.46%).

Discussion

The results from this study shows topical gaps do exist between the academy and the industry. Of the 14 themes discovered, only seven, or 50%, showed a percentage point differential of five points or less, and therefore, could be classified as balanced for the purpose of this study. However, in two of the seven cases, “rivalry” and “women’s sports,” showed a result of zero. For example, 3.27% of all academic sponsorship articles were thematically classified as “rivalry” whereas none of the industry sponsorship articles were classified as such. Conversely, 2.11% of all industry sponsorship articles were thematically classified as “women’s sports” while none of the academic sponsorship articles were classified as that thematic. Excluding then those two themes from the balanced category, only 5 of the 14, or 35.7%, can be considered balanced while 28.5% of the thematics were academic focused, and 35.7% were industry focused.

Analyzing research trends in a specific discipline can improve and provide greater knowledge, in this case about sport sponsorship. This review compared the amount of academic and industry articles that discussed various sponsorship and found a misalignment of academic research with industry needs. Academics focused on certain categories while industry focused on others. Within some categories there was a clear distinction in how differently they discussed certain topics. However, some categories did demonstrate balance. The following section will discuss these relationships, suggest methods to improve alignment, and provide direction for future research. The industry focused categories were eSports, Jersey Sponsorship, Gambling, Activation, Digital & Social, and Naming Rights. The reasons these topics are industry focused is because they are current and newsworthy topics of discussion.

There is a discrepancy between academia and industry when it comes to publishing content. So what if gaps do exist? Some would argue that when it comes to article publication, the academy and industry have different purposes or priorities. The priority for industry is simply news production. The primary responsibility of industry professionals is to have news in order to make immediate decisions. One example of this would be the Sports Business Journal (SBJ). This outlet is a guide for sport industry professionals as it provides great reporting, authoritative voices and expert opinions. The content is updated constantly, and it covers every aspect of the sport industry. “We provide our high-end readers – consisting of team owners; top TV network, league and marketing executives; attorneys; corporate sponsors and other Fortune 500 companies – with the essential information they need to perform their jobs effectively. We provide not only the substance of today’s news, but also the spin, while original features from our experienced staff provide in-depth analysis of the industry’s latest trends” (Sports Business Journal, n.d.).

Contrary to industry publications, the role of the academy is to pursue more theory-based research than applied research. One way to showcase and disseminate scholarly work is by submitting work in peer-reviewed publications. Publishing in top-tier journals is important and essential in the academy. Not only does it play a role in the sharing of ideas, but it also influences the career advancement of individual scholars (Baruch & Hall, 2004) and is necessary for tenue and promotion (Glick et al., 2007). Knowledge contribution and career advancement are the main reasons to publish and validate research trends yet there is a time lag in completing rigorous studies that are submitted for peer review.

One reason these topics may not be discussed as frequently in academia is because of the review cycle for publication and some of these topics are somewhat new. During this review, the top sports leagues in North America have been making decisions to begin or expand jersey sponsorship deals. Additionally, midway through this review timeline (May 14, 2018), the U.S. Supreme Court struck down the Professional and Amateur Sports Protection Act (PASPA) which has opened a door for each state to legalize sports betting. Both eSports and digital and social media although still in their infancy, are becoming more accepted and prominent in academic literature and we expect to see more on these topics in the near future.

Though there are tools like Google Scholar that can help one gain access to conference papers and versions of academic articles before they are actually published, a major barrier is that unless one has a current affiliation with a university library, it is extremely difficult and sometimes impossible to have or be given access to academic journals. It is also costly for anyone outside of academia to access content. This is a huge loss to both industry and academia as these barriers don’t allow opportunities for growth and innovation.

One way to for the academy to provide details on upcoming articles beyond the review cycle, may be to write a white paper or post more content in popular sport journals, or other publications that are not peer reviewed. Writing a white paper can allow scholars to remain thought leaders and experts in their field, while attracting attention to upcoming journal publications. This should be considered as an effective platform to provide relevant communication between industry and academy. It may even open doors allowing for further collaboration on ideas and topics of interest. Additionally, doing some kind of public relations across social media to promote one’s research may expand audience coverage.

In contrast, the academic focused categories were Identification, Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR), Measurement, and Ambush Marketing. These topics are related to the psychology of consumer behavior and require the rigor and time to develop methodologies. The analysis of research shows the most frequently studied topic was Identification, which is quite robust with more than 40% of articles related to this topic.

The ongoing debate about sport management as a research field consists of papers from academic journals including Zeigler (1987, 2007), Slack (1991, 1996, 1998) Boucher (1998), Pitts (2001), Frisby (2005), Amis and Silk (2005), Chalip (2006), Thibault (2009), Hums (2010), Ciomaga (2013), Newman (2014), and Stewart (2014). Stotlar (2004) argued their view on this debate and said “Those who propose theory without a connection to practice are as misguided as practitioners who disregard relevant theory” (Stotlar, 2004, p. 63). It is obvious sport management theories or concepts are important and allow a more in-depth discussion towards certain phenomena, but specifically in this paper we are calling for more intentional engagement using theoretical frameworks to help align topics among industry and academia.

The finding that these topics are heavily discussed in academic research is consistent with Cornwell and Kwon’s (2020) systematic review of the sponsorship literature which found, “publications considering consumers (236) dominated all other topics (173)” (Cornwell & Kwon, 2020, p. 609). When speaking of the reason for the frequency of these articles, they mentioned Kim et al. (2015) meta-analytic review of the literature about the factors influencing sponsorship effectiveness which found fit to be consistent in its ability to impact sponsorship outcomes. Cornwell and Kwon (2020) state, “It has less to do with the profundity of fit (which has not been challenged by the use of control variables, e.g., length of relationship, overlapping values, in most studies), and more to do with the attractiveness of this empirical regularity in producing statistical significance” (Cornwell & Kwon, 2020, p. 608).

Those topics with a similar amount of interest in both industry and academia were Termination, Endorsement, Women’s Sports, and Rivalry. Other than Endorsement, these categories may be considered balanced because they are not being discussed very often by both industry and academia. In fact, Rivalry has not been discussed by the industry while Women’s Sports did not appear in this review of the academic literature.

This review builds upon and confirms the research by Cornwell and Kwon (2020). It expands their research by including industry articles and comparing them to the academic literature. The current review confirms their suggestion that there is a “surplus of articles related to consumer behavior” as indicated by the academic focused topics being about the psychology of consumer behavior. Further, the current review’s findings that each of the categories considered industry focused were focused on a strategy or medium for engaging the consumer with the sponsorship which supports Cornwell and Kwon’s (2020) suggestion that there is a “shortage of articles discussing the management process”.