Title: A content analysis of sponsor representation across professional sport websites: extension of attribute typology

Authors: David Berardone; Sheila Nguyen; Paul Turner

Addresses: Sport Management Program, School of Management and Marketing, Deakin University, 221 Burwood Highway Burwood Vic 3125, Australia. ' Sport Management Program, School of Management and Marketing, Deakin University, 221 Burwood Highway Burwood Vic 3125, Australia. ' Sport Management Program, School of Management and Marketing, Deakin University, 221 Burwood Highway Burwood Vic 3125, Australia

Abstract: The sport industry has identified the importance of using the internet as a tool that can benefit the organisation. Much like the purpose of entering into sponsorship of sporting events, corporate partners are also attracted to the opportunities that professional sport team websites offer to fulfil similar objectives. The major purpose of this research is to explore the various ways in which sponsor logos are represented across professional sport websites and to extend previous advertising research, specifically the work developing advertising attribute typologies. The subjects for this research are professional sport websites and a qualitative approach is adopted with a content analysis as the main method of analysis used. To ensure reliability and validity within the coding instruments used, percentage agreement and Cohen's kappa were adopted as indexes to verify this. The findings show sponsors' logos exist on most professional sport websites and are represented in a variety of ways. Furthermore, a typology for sponsor representation and location across sport websites has been established to present a reliable foundation for future research in the area of consumer attitudes, behaviour and response towards sponsors and their presence on sport websites.

Keywords: sponsorship; sport websites; typologies; professional sport; sponsor logos; content analysis; sponsor representation; attribute typology; internet; world wide web; sporting events; corporate partners; sport teams; advertising; coding instruments; percentage agreements; Jacob Cohen; kappa coefficient; consumer attitudes; consumer behaviour; consumer responses; Australia; USA; United States; sport management; sport marketing; emerging technologies.

DOI: 10.1504/IJSMM.2011.044803

International Journal of Sport Management and Marketing, 2011 Vol.10 No.3/4, pp.286 - 305

Received: 09 Mar 2011
Accepted: 05 Dec 2011
Published online: 21 Feb 2015 *

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