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Abstract
Despite its acknowledged contribution to local, national, and global economies, there is no consensus as to exactly what is meant by the term sports marketing. This conceptual paper attempts to address this deficiency via the development of a new framework that is based upon two key dimensions: type of product and level of sports integration. By categorizing goods and services as either sports products or nonsports products and by differentiating between traditional strategies and sponsorship-based strategies, four sports marketing domains are identified. They are the themebased, product-based, alignment-based, and sportsbased strategic domains. The underlying principles for developing the framework are delineated in this article, and many examples for each strategic domain are provided as a means of illustrating their conceptual differences and how they are implemented.
Introduction to Sports Marketing
The concept of "sports marketing" is ambiguous in its meaning for both practitioners and academicians. Discussions about its application in the popular press and in many textbooks include categories ranging from tickets to spectator sports to sport-related wagers in legal gambling establishments (Shannon, 1999). Some tend to take a narrow view about what the discipline of sports marketing encompasses. To them, the primary task is one of selling tickets and putting fans in the seats at organized sports events (Sports Marketing Surveys, 2002), thereby equating the sports product to tickets for spectator sports. This definition, broadly applied, may include the sale of tickets for minor events such as high school sports and minor league ice hockey, but the prevailing thinking focuses on major sports properties such as an NCAA Division I-A (FBS) college football game, a NASCAR event, the Super Bowl, and the Olympics. Undoubtedly, this perspective reflects the vast marketing expenditures for these major properties.
With the 2008 Summer Olympics fast approaching, Du Wei, the Vice Chairman of the Institute of Beijing Olympic Economy, recently stated in comments directed to Chinese companies that "sports marketing has become one of the most effective of all marketing strategies" (Anonymous, 2006). However, Wei was not narrowly referring to the tasks associated with the selling of tickets to Olympic events. Rather he was using a broader definition by suggesting that marketers of nonsports products can benefit by becoming more involved with the 2008 Olympic Games. But...