Sports Branding and Sponsorship

Sports Branding and Sponsorship

1. What is Sports Branding? Discuss the link between the brand image and athlete.
All across the world it has been seen that people connect with sports in the best possible manner
and hence, many organisations have emphasised on creating a recognizable name in the market
through sports that not only helped the organisations to earn money but also popularise the
organisation as a brand. Sports Brand could be defined as the images and associations that the
fans or the supporters directly have with a particular sport organisation. Branding in sports have
emerged to be one of the most important aspects of business in the modern day market because
sports market is the only market that has grown exponentially over the years (Arai et al. 122).
Hence, organisations involved in sporting activities wanted to promote themselves as brands
which would help them to get recognised in the market. Recognition comes with significant
financial and other social perks which would not only help the organisation grow with time but
also help to sustain the competitive advantage for a long period of time. Hence, sports branding
could be defined as the process of creating a brand out of a sport or an organisation related with
it (Ginesta, Xavier, and Jordi de San Eugenio. 21).
Sports are of different kinds and could be played by a group of players of individuals and hence
the branding strategy for teams tend to be different in sports and this is why in the last few
decades sports marketing has become so important to some organisations. Sports are the events
that rapidly come to global attention and this largely helps sporting organisations to gain
recognition and promote the brand. In the modern day market organisations emphasise on
creating “brand religion” where the organisation promote the brand in such a way that consumers
stay loyal to it generation after generation. For instance, in English Premier League clubs like
Manchester United, Chelsea, Liverpool, Arsenal all have long football legacy and supports have
stayed with them for long time and there’s no change to their passion and interest even when
these organisations have suffered rough patch on the pitch (Olympics. 56). Hence, the strategy of
creating brand religion is not new and has been extremely effective for organisations.

Fig 1: Brand Religion Graph (Shank, Matthew and Mark R. Lyberger. 89)
In sports branding brand loyalty is considered highly important i.e. if a person is loyal to the
brand then he or she will continuously talk about the brand which would help to create
significant awareness in the market. The main focus of branding is to create awareness of the
brand and hence different branding strategies are availed. In some cases fans are the best way to
create an effective brand for an organisation because of their immense brand loyalty which helps
the organisations to create awareness in new markets. For instance, the clubs of Spanish football
league like Barcelona and Real Madrid are followed by fans from all across the world because
their existing fans have been extremely vocal about the legacy and effect of these football houses
on the game (Parris et al. 39). Branding has been extremely effective strategy for organisations
like Manchester United, Barcelona, Real Madrid et cetera because they have established an
effective branding strategy. Manchester United is considered one of the diversified football
teams for its excellent strategic alliances with companies like AON, Airtel, and Chevrolet and
has been able to promote its core activity of quality football and increasing football affinity
(Shank, Matthew and Mark R. Lyberger. 89).
Apart from that it has diverse players from different parts of the world establishing cross cultural
impact on the game. Similarly Real Madrid and Barcelona have the same impact on the game
being effective for having global presence. Apart from that the logo designing and jersey
designing strategies have been extremely effective for these clubs that has helped them to reach
people in a better manner increasing awareness. They have constant communication with the
people and ask for their advice on significant matters like logo design concepts and jersey design
concept et cetera which makes the bond stronger. One of the most successful stories of logo
rebranding is WWE. For a long time till the mid 90s the WWE (then WWF) clashed with
Wildlife concern about using the abbreviation and then wrestling experienced complete change