Sponsorship Evaluation: Does it Match the Motive and the Mechanism?

Abstract

This article examines evaluation of corporate sports sponsorship. The sample consisted of 16 sponsors of motor sport in Australia and established the length of agreements, the sponsorship mechanisms used, the objectives set, and the forms of evaluation employed. Respondents also were asked to identify their original intentions for entering sponsorship agreements. Results indicate that longer agreements occur with an undertaking of some form of evaluation, a delineation of which sponsorship mechanisms to use, and a belief in sales increases resulting from the sponsorship activity. Questions arc raised, however, as to the justification for the belief in sales increases and the composition of the best mix of sponsorship mechanisms. The findings also indicate that rather than objectives' determining the sponsorship mechanism to be used and the form of evaluation to be employed, the opposite is happening, and the original motive for entering sponsorship agreements is often ignored.