The Path to Global Sport Sponsorship Success: an Event History Analysis Modeling Approach
Total Page:16
File Type:pdf, Size:1020Kb
The Path to Global Sport Sponsorship Success: An Event History Analysis Modeling Approach Dissertation Presented in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree Doctor of Philosophy in the Graduate School of The Ohio State University By Jonathan A. Jensen, M.S. Graduate Program in Kinesiology The Ohio State University 2015 Dissertation Committee: Brian A. Turner, Advisor John B. Casterline Richard G. Lomax Donna L. Pastore Copyrighted by Jonathan Arthur Jensen 2015 Abstract With more than $55 billion allocated towards the practice on an annual basis, sponsorship has become an increasingly integral part of the marketing mix for brand marketers (IEG, 2015). Further, sport organizations rely on sponsorship as an important funding mechanism to finance its continued operations. Utilizing the lens of the relationship marketing literature, it is evident that the relationship between the sponsoring firm and a sponsored property is intended to be a long-term, mutually beneficial partnership. However, despite the importance of a sponsorship’s duration to both sides of the relationship, it is not well–understood whether certain factors or conditions can jeopardize these cooperative, business-to-business partnerships. Therefore, this study intended to further understanding of the relationship between sponsorship sellers and buyers by investigating factors that may predict the dissolution of such partnerships. Event history analysis (EHA) modeling approaches were employed to investigate sets of variables representing four distinct factors, including economic conditions, agency conflicts, sponsor-related and property-related factors, utilizing a historical secondary dataset featuring a pooled sample of 68 global Olympic TOP and FIFA World Cup sponsorships. Using a hierarchical (nested) modeling approach, results indicated that the blocks of sponsor-related and property-related variables, as well as variables representing ii economic conditions, predicted a significant amount of incremental variance in the hazard rate for sponsorship dissolution. For example, the presence of an inflationary economy in the home country of the sponsor was found to be a statistically significant predictor, with a 1% increase in the average annual growth rate of the consumer price index during the sponsorship increasing the hazard of sponsorship dissolution by 64.4%. Sponsor-related variables that were found to be significant included whether or not the sponsoring brand was congruent with the property (which decreased the hazard of dissolution by 55.5%) and whether the brand has a high degree of brand equity (which decreased the hazard by 84.2%). Significance among the property-related variables was driven by the influence of a variable representing the amount of clutter in the property’s sponsorship program, with every one additional sponsor of these global properties increasing the hazard of the sponsorship ending by 95.4%. From a theoretical standpoint, the study represents an important extension of the relationship marketing paradigm to better understand the dynamics of the sponsorship business-to-business relationship. For example, the finding that external forces (such as economic conditions) can jeopardize the future of such relationships represents an important theoretical implication. In terms of managerial implications, furthering understanding of which types of sponsors engage in longer-running sponsorships, as well as factors that may predict the end of the partnership, can assist both buyers and sellers by ensuring these conditions are closely monitored throughout the partnership. Future research should expand the use of EHA modeling approaches to other sponsorship contexts, including league, naming rights, and local sponsorships. iii Dedication This work is dedicated to my parents, who encouraged anything I ever wanted to do in life, my unbelievably supportive and caring wife, and my son, who inspires me each and every day. “It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly; who errs, who comes short again and again, because there is no effort without error and shortcoming; but who does actually strive to do the deeds; who knows great enthusiasms, the great devotions; who spends himself in a worthy cause; who at the best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement, and who at the worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who neither know victory nor defeat.” Theodore Roosevelt 26th President of the United States The Sorbonne April 23, 1910 www.theodorerooseveltcenter.org “But why, some say, the moon? Why choose this as our goal? And they may well ask why climb the highest mountain? Why, 35 years ago, fly the Atlantic? Why does Rice play Texas? We choose to go to the moon in this decade and do the other things, not because they are easy, but because they are hard.” John F. Kennedy 38th President of the United States Rice University September 12, 1962 www.jfklibrary.org iv Acknowledgments I would like to thank my advisor, Brian Turner, for his consistent support and assistance throughout this journey. Not once did Dr. Turner discourage me from tackling a research idea, despite how insurmountable the project seemed. For that I am eternally grateful. I would like to acknowledge the decades of experience brought to bear by my committee members, John Casterline, Richard Lomax and Donna Pastore, who provided invaluable support despite many other professional and personal commitments. I would also like to thank my fellow doctoral students, who provided selfless assistance in various research projects during my time at Ohio State. This research was supported by the International Olympic Committee (IOC) Olympic Studies Centre’s PhD Students Research Grant Programme and a Dissertation Fellowship from the Office of Research at The Ohio State University. I am grateful for their support and faith in this research. Thanks go to the curators and staff (particularly George Rugg, Robin Keirstead, and Michael Salmon) of the various libraries who generously provided access to their archives and vast collections of Olympic-related material, including: The Joyce Sports Research Collection and the Department of Rare Books & Special Collections at the University of Notre Dame’s Hesburgh Libraries, the International Centre for Olympic Studies and the Archives and Research Collections v Centre at the D.B. Weldon Library at Western University, and the LA84 Foundation collection at the Paul Ziffren Sports Resource Center. Grateful acknowledgement is made to Springer Science+Business Media, LLC and the Midwest Political Science Association (particularly Executive Director William Morgan) for permission to adapt two figures that originally appeared in their journals, as well as the authors of the studies (Frim Ampaw, Audrey Jaeger, Janet Box-Steffensmeier, and Bradford Jones). Lastly, I would like to thank the numerous faculty members who treated me as one of their own from the moment I transitioned into academia. In particular, thanks go to those who provided valuable input and expertise in the development of this research, including: Janet Box-Steffensmeier, Kevin Bradford, Joe Cobbs, Bettina Cornwell, Steve Dittmore, Mark Groza, Kevin Gwinner, Steve McKelvey, Norm O’Reilly, and Dan Rascher. vi Vita 2014 to 2015 .................................................Office of Research Dissertation Fellow, The Ohio State University 2012 to 2014 .................................................Graduate Teaching Associate, The Ohio State University 1999................................................................M.S. Sport Studies, University of Massachusetts-Amherst 1995................................................................B.A. American Studies, University of Notre Dame Recent Publications Jensen, J. A., & Cobbs, J. (2014). Predicting return on investment in sport sponsorship: Modeling brand exposure, price, and ROI in Formula One automotive competition. Journal of Advertising Research, 54(4), 435-447. Jensen, J. A., Cobbs, J. & Groza, M. D. (2014). The niche portfolio strategy to global expansion: The influence of market resources on demand for Formula One Racing. Journal of Global Marketing, 27(4), 247-261. Jensen, J. A., & Turner, B. A. (2014). What if statisticians ran college football? A re- conceptualization of the Football Bowl Subdivision. Journal of Quantitative Analysis of Sports, 10(1), 37-48. Fields of Study Major Field: Kinesiology Sport Management specialization Graduate Interdisciplinary Specialization in Quantitative Research Methods (GISQRM) vii Table of Contents Abstract .................................................................................................................................. ii Dedication ............................................................................................................................. iv Acknowledgments.................................................................................................................. v Vita ....................................................................................................................................... vii Table of Contents ...............................................................................................................