The Rise of Social Expectations in Sports: How the Notion of Fairness Can Affect Sports Sponsorships

Abstract

Sports sponsorship is a worldwide acknowledged concept for brands to obtain customer-based brand equity. Thus, a marketing activity with highly lucrative potential, exposing the brand to a wide audience and making it subject to associations through platforms that generate high levels of engagement and positive feelings. As equality has become an important construct in social discussions, this has also affected the world of sports. This thesis firstly aims to explore how the valence of media coverage can affect what consumers perceive as fair in relation to how sponsorship funds are allocated between male and female athletes/teams. Secondly, this thesis addresses how the same valence of media coverage and consumers’ perception of fairness of presented equality principles relates to a sponsor’s obtained customer-based brand equity. Results illustrate how there is a basis for further research on the subject, although this thesis was not able to provide substantial evidence that valence of media coverage has an effect on consumers perceived fairness in regard to equality constructs for allocating sponsorship funds. However, exposure to a certain valence of media coverage can affect a sponsor’s obtained customer-based brand equity. In line with existing theory on sports sponsorships coherence with social expectation, this thesis provides support to the notion that consumers’ perceived fairness of allocation of sponsorship funds can affect a sponsor’s customer-based brand equity.