Understanding What Can Make Companies Enter into Sponsorship Partnership with A Sports Team Or Event

You're excited about your sports event and you think it will be a big bang, but the challenge is how to finance it? How can you convince a brand or a company to dough out money... a huge amount of their promotional budget to sponsor your event?

The big question is...
Why should a company sponsor your sports team or event?

This is the most important question you have to answer convincely in your proposal as well as subsequent presentations and interrogations with a company you seek Sponsorship from.

It is not just about how many people you can reach (demographic match up) or how much media appealing your event or team gain free mention on television programs, newspapers articles and online social media blast. There are more to it

Sports organizers are most likely to succeed in soliciting sponsorship partners if a marketing approach is adopted, which means that they look at their sponsorship opportunities through the eyes of the businesses or companies from which they seek to attract investment. Just like the well known marketing aphorism: "To sell Jack Jones what Jack Jones buys, you have to see Jack Jones through Jack Jones' eyes."

There are four major concerns companies are likely to have when considering sports sponsorship:
1. The first concern is likely to be the benefits sought in terms of specific communication objectives that will lead to such as increased brand awareness, goodwill among customers in their business environment, increased sales...


2. Their second concern will be the time period required to achieve the specified objectives. Can the objectives be achieved in measurable time, say in the next 2 - 3 years or so?

3. Their third concern is the sport event potential for providing a ''hook' or unifying theme, upon which other marketing vehicles can be focussed to communicate the company's  desired message. As we all know, sponsorship is more likely to be effective only when integrated with other marketing communication vehicles. Sponsorship goals have to fit within the broader goals of a company's. overall communication strategy.


4. Their fourth concern is the extent to which the sport organizers can offer protection from ambushing. Sponsorship ambushing occurs when a company that is not an official sponsor promotes around a sports event to give the false impression that it is a sponsor.

Meeting Sponsorship Objectives
Many times Sponsors objectives indicate only what the sponsor would like an investment in a sports event to accomplish in general terms.  It usually fail to meet the key criteria for effective objectives. Therefore, sponsors never feel satisfied at the end.

Sponsorship objectives should be specific, measurable and prioritized.
Specific means that there should be deloneated target markets, quantity of impact and timing.

There is a big difference between when the objective of a sport sponsorship is to increase consumer awareness of product X (in general terms) and when the objective is to increase awareness of product X by 15% among working class male aged 18 and 45 in Lagos metropolitan area in the next 3 months (Specific, measurable terms).

Specific, measurable objectives achieve two things: First, it facilitates evaluation and accountability. Second, it serve to crystalize brand managers thinking, to overcome such limitations they see in sports sponsorship. They can clearly evaluate how successful a sponsorship investment have been or not.

The Complexity of Ambushing a Sponsor of a Sport Event
There one major reason competitors want to ambush a sponsor of a sports event. It is not to gain exposure per se, because this could be achieved by regular advertising independent of the sport event. Rather the intent is to create misconception in the consumer's. mind about who the actual sponsor is and therefore gain benefits associated with being a sponsor or weaken the impact of a main competitor bei,g the exclusive sponsor of an event. So ambush marketing is a well planned effort.

Sometimes, it is difficult to stop a well planned ambush, because it is so cleverly done, you cannot sue the erring company.

Therr are two popular ambushing method sports event owners cannot stop nor sue in court. First, a company's sponsorship may be ambushed by a major competitor paying for advertisements within a television program covering the sport event.

Second method of ambushing is when companies negotiate directly with individual teams, athletes or star players and use them in advertisements within the period the sports event is taking place.

How the sport event organizers can assure potential sponsors or show how they intent to peotect their investment will be a major point of conviction.