ASSOCIATING CORPORATIONS WITH COLLEGIATE ATHLETICS THROUGH FACILITY NAMING RIGHTS SPONSORSHIP: MEASURING THE EFFECTS ON CONSUMERS ATTITUDE AND PURCHASE INTENTION By KUAN-CHOU CHEN A THESIS PRESENTED TO THE GRADUATE SCHOOL OF THE UNIVERSITY OF FLORIDA IN PARTIAL FULFILLMENT OF THE REQUIREMENTS FOR THE DEGREE OF MASTER OF SCIENCE UNIVERSITY OF FLORIDA 2009 1 © 2009 Kuan-Chou Chen 2 To my family and friends 3 ACKNOWLEDGMENTS I thank the chair and members of my supervisory committee for their mentoring, especially my advisor, Dr. James Zhang. Thanks for his support and inspiring, without him, this thesis would not be finished. I also thank my parent and my wife for their loving encouragement and support. 4 TABLE OF CONTENTS page ACKNOWLEDGMENTS ...............................................................................................................4 LIST OF TABLES ...........................................................................................................................7 LIST OF FIGURES .........................................................................................................................8 LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS ..........................................................................................................9 ABSTRACT ...................................................................................................................................10 CHAPTER 1 INTRODUCTION ...................................................................................................................11 Statement of Problem .............................................................................................................14 Purpose of Study .....................................................................................................................18 Research Questions .................................................................................................................18 Research Hypotheses ..............................................................................................................19 Research Delimitations ...........................................................................................................19 Research Limitations ..............................................................................................................20 Significance of Study ..............................................................................................................20 2 REVIEW OF LITERATURE ..................................................................................................23 Financial Situations of Intercollegiate Athletics .....................................................................23 Importance of Sponsorship to Collegiate Sport ......................................................................27 Types of Sponsorships ............................................................................................................32 Athletes ............................................................................................................................33 Teams ..............................................................................................................................33 Sport Organization or League .........................................................................................34 Event ................................................................................................................................35 Contemporary Trends of Sponsorship ....................................................................................36 Mechanism of Naming Rights ................................................................................................39 Controversies in Stadium Naming Rights Sponsorship..........................................................46 Commercialization in College Sports ..............................................................................47 Issues in Corporate Naming Rights Sponsorship ............................................................49 Studying Sponsorship Effectiveness .......................................................................................55 Beliefs about Sponsorship ...............................................................................................57 Attitude towards Commercialization ...............................................................................60 Psychological Attachment ...............................................................................................62 Team Identification ..................................................................................................63 Stadium Identification ..............................................................................................65 Balance Theory ................................................................................................................65 Attribution Theory ...........................................................................................................67 5 Perception of Financial Status .........................................................................................70 Measuring Sponsorship Effectiveness ....................................................................................71 Affective Response – Attitude toward Sponsor ..............................................................74 Conative Response ..........................................................................................................75 3 METHOD ...............................................................................................................................78 Participants .............................................................................................................................78 Instrument ...............................................................................................................................79 Beliefs about Naming Rights (BF) ..................................................................................79 Attitude toward Commercialization (ATC) .....................................................................80 Team Identification (TI) ..................................................................................................81 Stadium Identification (SI) ..............................................................................................81 Perception of Financial Status (POF) ..............................................................................82 Attitude toward Sponsor (ATS) .......................................................................................82 Conative Response ..........................................................................................................83 Demographic Variables ...................................................................................................84 Procedures ...............................................................................................................................85 Data Analyses .........................................................................................................................86 4 RESULTS ................................................................................................................................87 Descriptive Statistics ..............................................................................................................87 Intercorrelations ......................................................................................................................88 Hierarchical Regression Analyses ..........................................................................................89 5 DISCUSSION ........................................................................................................................100 APPENDIX A SAMPLE OF QUESTIONNAIRE........................................................................................105 LIST OF REFERENCES .............................................................................................................110 BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH .......................................................................................................122 6 LIST OF TABLES Table page 4-1 Descriptive Statistics for Demographic Variables.............................................................92 4-2 Descriptive Statistics for Variables of Beliefs about Naming Rights Sponsorship, Attitude toward Commercialization, Team Identification, Stadium Identification, Perception of Financial Status, Attitude toward Naming Rights Sponsor, Purchase Intentions of Sponsor‟s Products, and Purchase Intentions (Events). ...............................93 4-3 Descriptive Statistics for the Factors of Beliefs about Naming Rights Sponsorship (BE), Attitude toward Commercialization (ATC), Team Identification (TI), Stadium Identification (SI), Perception of Financial Status (POF), Attitude toward Naming Rights Sponsor (ATS), Purchase Intentions (Sponsor‟s Products) (PIP), Purchase Intentions (Events) (PIE). ..................................................................................................95 4-4 Zero-order Correlation among the Factors. .......................................................................96 4-5 Hierarchical Regression analysis examining the relationship of Beliefs about Naming Rights Sponsorship (BE), Attitude toward Commercialization (ATC), Team Identification (TI), Stadium Identification (SI), and Perception