Understanding sport sponsorship decision-making – an exploration of the roles and power bases in the sponsors’ buying center

Abstract

ABSTRACT Research question: Despite increasing global sponsorship expenditures, research on sponsorship decision-making remains limited. Sponsors are considered holistically as organisations that make sponsorship decisions. However, sponsorship decisions are usually group decisions on which several individuals collaborate. Although the industrial marketing literature introduced the concept of buying centres for analysing group decisions, sponsorship decision-making as group decision-making is underresearched. The purpose of the study is to address this gap in the sport management literature by examining the roles of individuals involved in sponsorship decision-making and their power bases. Research methods: The study uses a qualitative Delphi technique with three rounds and two samples of sponsorship managers (N1=18, N2=13) from Germany and Austria. Results and Findings: The results show that the sponsors’ buying centre (SBC) comprises eight different roles: deciders, users, coordinators, experts, signatories, negotiators, initiators, and networkers. The findings also reveal that individuals occupying the various roles fulfil different tasks and rely on different power bases. The SBC is influenced by organisational and environmental factors. The study further demonstrates that sponsors can outsource roles to external partners. Implications: This study is the first to investigate the SBC empirically by taking the characteristics of the sponsorship context into account. This article, thereby, contributes to our theoretical understanding of sponsorship decision-making by examining the individuals’ roles in the SBC, the external and internal influences, and the involvement of external partners. Finally, the results have managerial implications for both sponsors and sponsees.