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l APRIL 2010 l VOLUME ELEVEN NUMBER THREE

Sports Marketing & Sponsorship

International Journal of

www.imrpublications.com

Research PapersDoping in elite sport – do the fans care? Public opinion on the consequences of doping scandals 185

Negative sponsor behaviour, team response and how this impacts fan attitudes 200

The inevitability of scandal: lessons for sponsors and administrators 212

A critical mass of corruption: why some footballleagues have more match-fixing than others 221

Insolvency events among English football clubs 236

Case StudyWhen does alcohol sponsorship of sport becomesport sponsorship of alcohol? A case study of developments in sport in Australia 250

Scandal & Corruption Special Edition

11.3 Cover KT3 7/4/10 22:11 Page 1

l APRIL 2010 l International Journal of Sports Marketing & Sponsorship

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International Journal of Sports Marketing & Sponsorship l APRIL 2010 l

11.3 Intro p179-184 KT2 7/4/10 22:24 Page 180

CONTEN

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Contents

Abstracts 182l l l l l l

Editorial board 184l l l l l l

Editorial policy 262l l l l l l

Guest editors

ÒWhat we are now seeing is the confluence of a

number of processes that, when combined in the

context of sport, have created a new way of

viewing scandal.ÓJason Mazanov & James Connor 183

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Research papers

Doping in elite sport Ð do the fans care? Publicopinion on the consequences of doping scandals

Harry Arne Solberg Dag Vidar Hanstad Thor Atle Th¿ring

The bigger the fan, the more they forgive. Research among 925 Norwegian sports consumers 185

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Negative sponsor behaviour, team response and how this impacts fan attitudes

Heidi M. Parker Janet S. Fink

Led by their team: how highly identified fans support the club decision to continue 200

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Research papers

The inevitability of scandal: lessons for sponsors and administrators

James M. Connor Jason Mazanov

Proposal of a sponsor strategy of ÔembracementÕ to mitigate scandal and leverage for market position 212

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A critical mass of corruption: why some footballleagues have more match-fixing than others

Declan Hill

Research included 220 interviews with players,referees, sport/law enforcement individuals, the gambling industry and corruptors 221

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Insolvency events among English football clubs

John Beech Simon Horsman Jamie Magraw

Discussion of the five types of insolvency and what it means for other sports 236

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Case study

When does alcohol sponsorship of sport becomesport sponsorship of alcohol? A case study ofdevelopments in sport in Australia

Sandra C. Jones

The public health and policy implications of alcohol brands creating sporting competitions 250

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l APRIL 2010 l International Journal of Sports Marketing & Sponsorship 181

PsycINFO citation database & Social Science Citation Index

The Journal is indexed in the PsycINFO citation database www.apa.org/psycinfo and theSocial Science Citation Index http://scientifc.thomsonreuters.com/products/ssci

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Doping in elite sport Ð do the fans care? Public opinionon the consequences of doping scandals 185

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Harry Arne Solberg Dag Vidar Hanstad Thor Atle Th¿ring

There are indications that commercial stakeholders arereluctant to associate with sports involved in dopingscandals. A survey of 925 Norwegian sportsconsumers supports this, showing no tolerance for puredoping substances. The majority were in favour oftough responses to athletes and sports involved indoping. Older respondents were more negative towardsdoping. Those who were strongly interested in sportwere more willing than others to accept doping.

Negative sponsor behaviour, team response and how this impacts fan attitudes 200

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Heidi M. Parker Janet S. Fink

This research examines the fan-team-sponsorrelationship. It focuses on how the sports teamÕsresponse to negative sponsor behaviour affects fanattitudes towards the sponsor. Results indicate thathighly identified fans have significantly more positiveattitudes towards a sponsor than fans who are lower inidentification. Highly identified fans informed of anegative action by a team sponsor felt more favourablytowards the sponsor if the team continued, rather thanterminated, their relationship with the sponsor.

The inevitability of scandal: lessons for sponsors and administrators 212

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James M. Connor Jason Mazanov

Why has the reporting of scandal in sport beenincreasing? This paper focuses on the commercialisationof sport and changes in the media landscape. A casestudy of the Australian Rugby League competition and itslong-running series of scandals concludes that scandal isinevitable in sport, and that marketing strategies mustincorporate this. The authors propose a strategy ofÔembracementÕ as an effective way of mitigating scandaland leveraging for sponsor market position.

A critical mass of corruption: why some footballleagues have more match-fixing than others 221

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Declan Hill

This paper examines what drives match fixing infootball and why some leagues collapse fromcorruption. Based on more than 220 interviews withplayers, referees, sports officials and law enforcementofficers, the gambling industry and corruptors, threefactors presented when high levels of match-fixingwere observed: strong illegal gambling networks, highlevels of relative exploitation of players, and perceivedcorrupt officials. Leagues collapsed if the publicbecame aware of high-level corruption and analternative market competitor was introduced.

Insolvency events among English football clubs 236l l l l l l

John Beech Simon Horsman Jamie Magraw

This paper identifies five types of insolvency: clubs thathave failed to cope with relegation; failed to paymonies due to the UK government; seen Ôsoft debtsÕbecome Ôhard debtsÕ; lost the ownership of theirstadium, or have been Ôrepeat offendersÕ. As the secondof a three-phase project, the paper concludes with anindication of the final phase research and implicationsof the findings so far for other professional sports.

When does alcohol sponsorship of sport become sport sponsorship of alcohol? 250

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Sandra C. Jones

Alcohol sponsorship of sport is common in Australia,with much debate about the appropriateness of linkingsport with alcohol advertising and promotion. Thispaper provides examples of such sponsorships toappreciate the extent and nature of the complexrelationship between sport and alcohol sponsors. Thepublic health and policy implications of alcoholsponsorship of sport extending to creating a sportingcompetition purely to promote an alcohol brand areconsidered.

Abstracts

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183l APRIL 2010 l International Journal of Sports Marketing & Sponsorship

EDITORIAL

The role of scandal and corruption in sports marketing and sponsorship

The media and their audiences have salacious appetitesfor scandal, be it sex, drugs, cheating or spying. Onemight expect that the apparent ubiquity of scandal andcorruption in sport would see advertisers and sponsorsfearful of linking their brands to fallen heroes. Indeed, thethreat of mass abandonment by commercial partners hasbeen linked to the large sums of money invested in antidoping (Carstairs, 2003). However, this negativeassumption about scandal and corruption in sport maybe unnecessarily bleak. With some notable exceptions(including the cycling Tour of Germany and, morerecently, golfer Tiger Woods), evidence that sponsorsabandon sport because of scandal or corruption is at bestpatchy. Advertisers still clamour for space in the SuperBowl, for example, despite NFL players being arrested formurder, drug trafficking and sexual assault.Internationally, the Salt Lake City Olympics showed thatsport can thrive in the presence of scandal and corruptionand, indeed, scandalous corruption. Perhaps, the oldadage that Ôany publicity is good publicityÕ applies.

As editors of this special edition, we asked a very basicquestion of our contributors: what relationship doesscandal and corruption have with the marketing andsponsorship of sport? If there is a relationship, whatopportunities and drawbacks exist for marketers? Whatlessons can be learned from past scandals and theresponse to them, and what does this mean for sport?

The effect of scandal in sport is a remarkably topicalfield of study. Several other journals have devoted specialissues to the problem of scandal, with the 2008 issue ofPublic Relations Review focusing particularly well onpublic relations and sport. What is curious is the questionas to why there is currently so much interest in this area,especially given that scandal and sport have always gone together Ð as far back as the original GreekOlympics. Further, there has certainly been no shortage of

scandal during the past hundred years of semi-professional and professional sport.

What we are now seeing is the confluence of a numberof processes that, when combined in the context of sport,have created a new way of viewing scandal. While waryof employing an overused and analytically dubiousconcept like ÔglobalisationÕ, we think the explanation forthe sudden focus on scandal is a result of processescommonly subsumed within that term. This subsumingcomes from the increasing commercialisation of sport, theradical and rapid advancement of marketing techniques,the advent of truly global media and sports markets, andtechnology.

HarveyÕs (1989) concept of the Ôannihilation of spacethrough timeÕ, coupled with an ability to access andunderstand the world as a whole, provides a theoreticalframework that helps to explain why scandal is now somuch more visible. Scandal is an instantaneous,borderless and language-less phenomenon, and anaspect of human frailty that we love to consume. Whencoupled with sporting endeavours Ð suffused with money,identification, fandom and nationalism Ð it is not in theleast surprising that scandal is ubiquitous.

Scandal and corruption do influence marketing andsponsorship in sport, and this collection of paperssuggests that the relationship is by no means negative.Indeed, it is far more complex than the popularconception of Ôscandal equals badÕ. Morality aside,scandal and corruption in sport provide opportunities formarketing and sponsorship Ð from protecting brandintegrity to developing ways to protect marketinginvestments by the corruption-proofing of sport toleveraging scandalous behaviour for brand identity. It isalso clear that sports marketers and sponsors need toincorporate the possibility of scandal and corruption intheir strategies, to maximise the return on investment.

Jason MazanovSenior Lecturer, School of Business, University of New South Wales at Australian Defence Force Academy

James ConnorLecturer, School of Business, University of New South Wales at Australian Defence Force Academy

ReferenceCarstairs, C. (2003) The wide world of doping: drug scandals, natural bodies and the business of sports entertainment. Addiction Research and Theory 11(4), 263-281. Harvey, D. (1989) The Condition of Postmodernity: An Enquiry into the Origins of Cultural Change. Oxford: Basil Blackwell.

11.3 Intro p179-184 KT2 7/4/10 22:24 Page 183

DEPUTY EDITOR

Paul KitchinUniversity of [email protected]

CASE STUDY EDITORS

Professor Stephen GreyserHarvard Business School, [email protected]

Dr Frank PonsUniversitŽ Laval, [email protected]

INTERVIEWS EDITOR

Professor David SnyderState University of New York, [email protected]

BOOKS EDITOR

Dr John BeechCoventry University, [email protected]

EDITORIAL PANEL

Dr Carlos BarrosInstituto Superior de Economia e Gestao, [email protected]

Dr Cheri BradishBrock University, [email protected]

Dr Sue BridgewaterWarwick Business School, [email protected]

Professor Simon ChadwickCoventry University, [email protected]

Dr Laurence ChalipUniversity of Texas, [email protected]

Professor Dae Ryun ChangYonsei University, South [email protected]

Professor Bettina CornwellUniversity of Michigan, [email protected]

Nigel CurrieChairman, European Sponsorship Association (ESA), [email protected]

Dr Geoff DicksonAuckland University of TechnologyNew [email protected]

Professor Harald DollesGGS-Heilbronn, GermanyUniversity of Gothenburg, [email protected]

Svend ElkjaerSport Marketing Network, [email protected]

Dr Francis FarrellyMonash University, [email protected]

Nigel GeachSports Marketing Surveys, [email protected]

Dr Paolo GuenziBocconi University, [email protected]

Adrian HitchenSponsorMetrix Ltd, [email protected]

Martin HornDDB Needham, [email protected]

Professor Hooi Den HuanNanyang Technological University, [email protected]

Professor Frank GoErasmus University, [email protected]

Dr Jorg HenselerNijmegen University, [email protected]

Professor Thierry LardinoitESSEC, [email protected]

Jamie MagrawSweat the Assets, [email protected]

Dr Heath McDonaldDeakin University, [email protected]

Professor Tony MeenaghanUniversity College Dublin, [email protected]

Charles NixonCambridge Marketing Colleges/Chartered Institute of Marketing, [email protected]

Dr Francesc PujolUniversity of Navarra, [email protected]

Dr Pascale QuesterUniversity of Adelaide, [email protected]

Mike ReynoldsSportsmatch, [email protected]

Dr AndrŽ RichelieuLaval University, [email protected]

Professor James SantomierSacred Heart University, [email protected]

Dr Nicola Stokburger-SauerUniversity of Mannheim, [email protected]

Professor Trevor SlackUniversity of Alberta, [email protected]

Professor Sten SšdermanUniversity of Stockholm, [email protected]

Dr David StotlarUniversity of Northern Colorado, [email protected]

Professor Alan TappUniversity of the West of England, [email protected]

Dr Linda TrenberthBirkbeck College, University of London, [email protected]

Dr Des ThwaitesUniversity of Leeds, [email protected]

Ignacio Urrutia de HoyosIESE Business School, [email protected]

Professor Herbert WoratschekUniversity of Bayreuth, [email protected]

Editor Professor Michel Desbordes

ISC School of Management, Paris, France & University Paris Sud 11, FranceTel: +33 (0)1 69 15 61 57 Fax: +33 (0)1 69 15 62 37 Email: [email protected]

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Editorial board

11.3 Intro p179-184 KT2 7/4/10 22:24 Page 184

Doping in elite sport – do the fans care?Public opinion on the consequences of doping scandals

Keywordsdopingdemand for sportempirical surveybeliefacceptance of substances

Executive summary

For decades, athletes’ use of doping seemed to haveno influence on the willingness of commercial actors(i.e. sponsors and TV broadcasters) to be involved insport. During the past few years, for some sports thispattern has changed. In cycling, for example, severalsponsors have withdrawn their support due to themany doping scandals. Similar reactions have beenidentified among TV broadcasters. In 2008, ARD and

ZDF, the two German public service broadcasters,decided to pull out of the Tour de France because ofthe many doping incidents. Such reactions fromsponsors and TV stations have had seriousconsequences, among them, the cancellation of the2009 Tour de Germany.

Sponsors and TV broadcasters represent the deriveddemand for sport. These stakeholders commit

Abstract

There are indications that commercial stakeholders arereluctant to associate with sports involved in dopingscandals. A survey of 925 Norwegian sportsconsumers supports this reluctance, showing notolerance for pure doping substances. The majoritywere in favour of tough responses to athletes andsports involved in doping. Older respondents weremore negative towards doping. Those who werestrongly interested in sport were more willing thanothers to accept doping.

Harry Arne SolbergSør-Trøndelag University CollegeTrondheim, [email protected]

Dag Vidar HanstadNorwegian School of Sport SciencesOslo, Norway [email protected]

Thor Atle ThøringSør-Trøndelag University CollegeTrondheim, [email protected]

Peer reviewed


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resources to sport because of direct demand, i.e. fromthe general public. Therefore, the views and attitudesof sports spectators towards doping is of greatimportance in determining in which sports sponsorsand TV broadcasters will become involved.

A survey (N=925) conducted in Norwayinvestigated opinions and attitudes towards doping. Itrevealed no tolerance of pure doping substances, suchas EPO, amphetamines and anabolic steroids. Theresults were mixed with regard to so-called‘supplements’ and methods that can be categorised asbelonging to a ‘grey zone’, including high-altitudechambers.

An overwhelming majority of respondents supportedtough reactions from sponsors towards theathletes/teams involved in doping scandals, forexample a reduction in sponsor support. The sameapplied to the idea that athletes caught doping shouldpay back financial support to their sponsors. A largeproportion agreed that commercial actors whocontinued their involvements in sports associated withdoping were accomplices in doping.

Regression analyses revealed that the older therespondent, the more negative they were towardsdoping. A similar pattern applied to those who highlyemphasised the uncertainty of outcome and thecalculative motive. Contrary to this, people who werevery interested in sport expressed more liberal attitudes.They disagreed with the idea of punishing the athletes,and did not blame the commercial actors whocontinued being involved in doping-associated sports.The regression analyses did not uncover specificdifferences in attitudes towards doping among thosewho strongly identified themselves with teams/athletesand others.

However, the regression models displayed lowvalues on obtained R-squares, which is an indicationof a low model fit. Due to significant differencesbetween genders, the regression analyses presented inthis paper only cover men. The general model,including both genders, displayed significantly lowerexplanatory power than the ‘pure male model’. Hence,it is correct to say that the regression analyses

provided some explanation of men’s attitudes towardsdoping in elite sport, but not those of women. Thisindicates that future research should consideralternative theoretical and empirical perspectives tobetter analyse what influences women’s attitudestowards doping in elite sport.

Introduction

Elite athletes have used performance-enhancingstimulants since the ancient games (Finley & Pleket,1976; Donohoe & Johnson, 1986), but it was notuntil the middle of the 20th century that doping wastreated as a problem. One reason for this was thatnew substances such as anabolic steroids andamphetamine led to several deaths during sportsperformances (Houlihan, 2002). Doping controls wereintroduced in main events, such as the 1966 WorldCup soccer finals and the 1968 Olympic Games(Dimeo, 2007). However, during the followingdecades, doping became widespread. Thisdevelopment ran parallel to other processes in elitesport, such as professionalisation, politicisation andcommercialisation (Waddington & Smith, 2009). Thefact that athletes used drugs did not have any negativeeffect on the commercialisation of elite sport. In recentyears, however, the picture seems to have changed.

This paper investigates attitudes and opinions ofsports consumers around doping. It raises questionssuch as:

• Which substances and instruments do peopleaccept that elite sports athletes use to improvetheir performances?

• What opinions do they have about the use ofdoping by elite sports athletes?

• What is their view and attitude towardscommercial actors such as TV broadcasters andsponsors involved in ’doping sports’?

• What do they regard as appropriate actions bythemselves and from commercial actors towardsathletes involved in doping?

Doping in elite sport



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Commercial stakeholders such as TV broadcastersand sponsors involve themselves in sport because ofthe demand from these groups. If doping scandalsinfluence people’s interest in sport, this can in turnaffect how much time and money the commercialstakeholders are willing to spend on sport. This makesit interesting to analyse to what degree doping in elitesport actually affects people’s interest in the sport.

People are attracted to sport for different reasons.Some identify strongly with specific teams. Some arefascinated by the uncertainty of outcome, acharacteristic that makes sport different from othercommodities. Others involve themselves in sportbecause of betting. This makes it interesting toinvestigate whether people with different motives reactdifferently to doping scandals. Do some fans havemore or less liberal attitudes towards doping?

The following section gives an overview of howcommercial stakeholders have reacted towards dopingscandals in sport over the years. The theoreticalsection discusses factors that have been documentedto influence the demand for sport, and whether theyare likely to affect peoples’ motives for watching sport.The empirical section presents the results from asurvey of 925 Norwegian respondents focusing on theissues mentioned above, followed by a discussion ofthe findings.

Historical development: the use of dopingand reactions from sponsors

For many years doping incidents did not affect therelationship between sport and the commercialstakeholders involved in sport, such as sponsors andTV companies. Cycling can be used as an example.Investigations during the 1998 Tour de Francerevealed that doping was widespread, systematic andhighly organised in professional cycling, later namedthe “Festina scandal” after the sponsor of the Frenchcycling team (Vest Christiansen, 2005). The watchmanufacturer Festina became caught in the middle ofthe scandal after the team’s masseur was arrested by

French police, who found 250 batches of anabolicsteroids and 400 ampoules of EPO in his car (Voet,2001). In the following months, both the sponsor andthe team carrying its name were the subjects ofsubstantial negative publicity in the media. During thiscrisis, Miguel Rodriguez, the owner of Festina,declared that if an intention to use illegal drugs wasproved, Festina would cease sponsorship of the team(Abt, 1998). Despite this, Festina maintained theircontract with the team until its expiration in 2001.

Since Festina, doping scandals have continued incycling, despite promises from cyclists, teams andrace organisers to solve the problem. Cyclistscontinued to test positive, and evidence has shownthat the misuse has been organised. Shortly before the2006 Tour de France, the Guardia Civil military andcivilian police force in Spain raided clinics and severalapartments in Madrid. They seized steroids,hormones, the endurance-boosting hormone EPO andnearly 100 bags of frozen blood and equipment forblood boosting. More than 200 leading athletes wereinvolved in this doping network. As a consequence,nine leading cyclists were prohibited from starting the2006 Tour de France (Abt & Macur, 2006).

Over the years, attitudes among sponsors and TVbroadcasters have changed – a development that alsohas affected cycling. In 2006, the Spanish insurancecompany Liberty Seguros ceased sponsoring its cyclingteam. The German tool company Würth announced itwould withdraw from sponsoring Astana, the team ofAlexander Vinokourov (a Kazhakstani cyclist whotested positive to blood doping in the 2007 Tour deFrance). Both based their decisions on dopingincidents (Tremlett, 2008; Fotheringham, 2006).Since then sponsors including Quick Step,Gerolsteiner, T-Mobile and Credit Agricole have allwithdrawn from cycling. Some have explained theirdecisions as reactions towards the doping problem(Waddington & Smith, 2009).

In 2007, the annual Championship of Zurich andthe Tour of Utah were cancelled due to lack ofsponsors (Carvajal, 2007). In 2009, the Tour deGermany was cancelled due to lack of sponsors. This




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was related to the ARD and ZDF (German publicservice broadcasters) decisions to not cover the Tourde France. According to ARD Chairman Fritz Raff, thedoping cases had greatly reduced the sporting value ofthis premier event (USA Today, 2008).

This development in Germany, the biggestcommercial sports market in Europe, was of particularimportance. ARD was the key broadcaster of the Tourde France in Germany, and its withdrawal representeda major financial blow, because Germany hadprovided almost 40% of the Tour’s TV revenue inprevious years (Waddington & Smith, 2009). TheARD/ZDF decision was also a blow to the UnionCycliste Internationale (UCI) hopes of achievingCHF12 million (£6 million/€8 million) a year in itsnew deal with the European Broadcasting Union,commencing in 2009 (TV Sports Markets, 2008).

IFM, a German-based sports research companywhich measures sponsorship impact, argued in 2007that cycling had plunged as a marketing investment.Reductions in live audience were registered during theearly season, pro-tour events. As an example, theRonde van Vlaanderen race in Belgium saw a 77%decline in TV ratings compared to the previous year.This drop reduced the value of cycling sponsorships,according to Jens Seeberger, spokesman for IFM(Carvajal, 2007). Professional cycling is a highlycommercialised sport and it would not continue in itspresent form without the continued large-scale financialbacking of sponsors (Waddington & Smith, 2009).

Other sports have been through similar scandals,with severe consequences, among them cross-countryskiing. During the 2001 Nordic World SkiChampionship in Lahti, Finland, a total of six Finnishcross-country skiers were sanctioned for violations ofthe doping regulations (Laine, 2006). Thischampionship was memorably described as a “blood-freezing” event by Virtapohja (2002). The scandalreduced the commercial value of cross-country skiingin Finland: one year after the scandal, financial lossesof the Finnish Ski Association (FSA) exceeded €3 million (Helsingin Sanomat, 2002). Support fromsponsorship and corporate partners for the cross-

country skiing branch of the Finnish Skiing Associationdid not reach pre-2001 Championship levels until2005 (Helsingin Sanomat, 2005).

These examples illustrate that doping can affectsports negatively. The next section discusses some ofthe factors that have been documented to influencethe demand for sport, and to what degree they can beaffected by doping exposures.

Theoretical background

Demand for watching sports contestsThe literature has split the demand for sport into twosubcategories, direct demand and derived demand(Borland & McDonald, 2003).

Types of direct demand are:

• Demand for live attendance at sporting contests• Demand for watching sporting contests on a pay-

per-view basis.

Derived demand comes from commercial stakeholderswilling to spend resources on elite sports because ofthe direct demand from sports fans and sportsspectators. Positive promotion of the stakeholder andtheir products are the main objectives.

Types of derived demand can be:

• Television, radio and Internet broadcasters seekinginputs to the production of a programming content,to sell to advertisers and/or to sell on asubscription or pay-per-view basis to individualsand organisations

• Organisations seeking input to marketingcampaigns, to establish or enhance the brandname and reputation of their products throughadvertising and/or sponsorship

• Organisations selling merchandise with an identitythat is associated with sporting teams, leagues,events or individual athletes



• Stadium/venue owners seeking input to theproduction of an entertainment package, to sellseats at their stadia to individuals andorganisations, and to sell marketing opportunitiesto advertisers/sponsors.

The introduction presented several examples wheredoping scandals had influenced the derived demand,both from TV broadcasters and from sponsors,because doping scandals are seen to affect directdemand, i.e. from the general public. Sponsors maybe afraid of the reaction from their current andpotential customers, clients and the public. Dopingscandals do not correspond with values the sponsorswish to be associated with. Doped athletes representnegative media attention, which in turn can promotethe companies’ image negatively. This, of course, isthe opposite of a sponsor’s intentions in becominginvolved in a high-profile elite sport.

Commercial broadcasters give priority to sports thatattract interest from viewers. If doping reducespeople’s interest in sport, this will influence how muchtime and money TV broadcasters are willing to spend.

The following section focuses on some of thevariables that have been documented to influence thedirect demand for sport, and which we consider to beof special interest in relation to doping. (See Wann etal, 2001, and Borland & McDonald, 2003, for acomplete overview.) For this research, weconcentrated on the following variables:

• Uncertainty of outcome• Identification with teams/athletes motive• Calculative motive

Uncertainty of outcomeUncertainty of outcome is a key characteristic ofsports competitions that distinguishes them from othergoods and services (Gratton & Taylor, 2000).Spectators prefer some degree of uncertainty as to theoutcome of a competition (Neal, 1964). According toNoll (1974), the stronger the uncertainty, the higherthe public demand will be. This phenomenon has

received substantial attention in the literature,particularly from sport economists. (For an overview,see Borland & McDonald, 2003.) It applies to bothindividual sports and team sports, and has to do withthe joint nature of production in professional sport(Gerrard, 2000).

Doping may influence the uncertainty of outcome inseveral ways. Let us imagine that doping is not beingused by anyone initially. If so, it is the underdogs thatwill benefit most from taking up doping. This in turnmay narrow the gap between the competitors at thetop and the bottom, and hence improve theuncertainty of outcome. However, if doping becomescommon among the underdogs, the best athletes willfind themselves forced to adopt the same behaviour.As a result, the majority of the athletes might take up doping, which could then reflect the initial relative strengths of competitors, assuming that doping had the equivalent effect on all athletes.However, it has been documented that dopingsubstances will have different effects on differentathletes (Bahrke & Yesalis, 2002).

Another problem with transferring such approachesto reality is that we know neither which athletes dopenor when they started to use dope. This makes usunable to identify those who, initially, were the bestperformers, i.e. before they took up doping. Thosewho everybody regards to be the best and mosttalented athletes may have used doping from thebeginning of their career.

Other factors further complicate the effects dopingcan have regarding the ranking order of athletes. Some will not use doping because of ethical scruples. Furthermore, the risk of being exposed willbe emphasised differently. Hence, it is complicated to predict how doping will affect the uncertainty ofoutcome. However, the fact that the uncertainty ofoutcome is a key characteristic that makes sportscompetitions different from other commodities makesit interesting to investigate the correlation between itsimportance and attitudes towards doping amongspectators.


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Identification with teams/athletesSome sports spectators feel psychologically connectedto a team or a specific player/athlete (Guttmann,1986; Wann, 1997). Among fans with a high level ofidentification, the role of team follower is a centralcomponent of their identity. The team becomes anextension of the individual; the team’s successesbecome the fan’s successes, and the team’s failuresbecome the fan’s failures. Such fans are usually veryfaithful towards their heroes, and hence also towardsthe sport. This makes it interesting to investigate theirattitudes towards doping. It cannot be taken forgranted that they will continue to cultivate theirheroes. Some fans might be willing to forgive theirheroes. Accusations against the teams/athletes theysupport can be regarded as accusations againstthemselves. Therefore, some fans may simply dismissthe accusations, no matter how well they are proved.Others might react differently and disassociatethemselves from the athletes/teams.

Calculative motiveSome individuals are attracted to sport because of thepotential economic gains from sports gambling. Manysports gamblers see sport fandom as an opportunity toacquire financial gains, and they are driven toconsume sport through an economic motive. They are,by definition, not sports fans but persons whoparticipate simply for the potential monetary reward.In the literature, this is known as the calculativemotive (Wann et. al., 2001).

In recent years, technological innovations haverevolutionised the opportunities to bet on sport.Compared to a few years ago, it is now possible to betnot only until shortly before the start of a contest butalso during the contest. This development can attractto a sport more people with the calculative motive.Doping, however, may affect this. Although initially itmay reduce the gap between underdogs and the bestathletes, a number of other effects can work indifferent directions, as discussed above; some increasethe uncertainty of outcome, while others reduce it.

Those who are attracted to sport mainly for bettingwill make efforts that maximise their ability to predictthe outcome of the contests. Their aim is to handlethe uncertainty of outcome better than others. This iswhat brings them the (extra) rewards.

The fact that doping has an element of secrecy canmake this job more difficult compared to a situationwhere there is no doping. The doping adds an extra‘lottery dimension’ to the contest. Those who bet willalso have to predict whether athletes use dope and theeffect this may have on the results. Furthermore, thereis also a risk that some of the winners may beexposed and therefore disqualified.

For these reasons we think it likely that people whoare attracted to sport mainly through the calculativemotive will be more negative towards doping thanother groups. This assumes that they are risk averse.Consequently, sports that are burdened by a numberof doping incidents will risk losing the fans that arefirst and foremost driven by this motive.

The empirical section below presents regressionanalysis to investigate the correlation between thevariables discussed in this section and the attitudestowards doping. Additionally, it takes into accountpeople’s age and their interest in sport.

Methodology

The data were collected by Norfakta MarkedsanalyseAS (a Norwegian research marketing company). Thecompany has about 70 interviewers and specialises indata collection by telephone interview. The targetgroup for this survey was people that were interestedin sport, i.e. those who graded their interest at 3 ormore on a scale from 1 to 10. People who grade theirinterest in a sport at 1 or 2 are unlikely to spendmuch time and money watching, either on TV or atarenas. This group was therefore not included.

The survey was conducted by telephone interviews,30% of which were via mobile. A total of 20,889calls were conducted and 7,744 persons contacted.


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Of these, 1,057 satisfied the target group definitionand were willing to be interviewed. In total, 925persons completed the interview, with an averageinterview duration of 14.8 minutes. This constituted aresponse rate of 16%, which is normal for the generalpopulation. Of the 925 respondents who completedthe interview, 50.9% were men and 49.1% women.This does not correspond with the pattern of samplethat first picked up the phone, where womenrepresented the majority. The most likely reason forthis is that men in general are more interested in sportthan women. It is well documented that the moreinterested people are in a topic, the more willing theyare to be interviewed about it (Ringdal, 2007). Amongthe 925 respondents, the average sports interestamong men was 7.28 and among women it was6.26. We regard the sample to be representative forthe Norwegian population aged 15 or older who areinterested in sport.

The empirical section first presents an overview ofrespondent attitudes and opinions about doping inelite sports, including what they regarded asappropriate reactions from commercial actors such asTV broadcasters and sponsors. This is followed byregression analyses, which investigated factors thatinfluenced people’s attitudes towards doping.

The explanatory power of the regressions was

moderate – as the low adjusted R squared valuesindicate. Therefore, one has to be careful about thestrength of conclusions. It is also important to notethat these regressions (Tables 4–8) only involve men.The adjusted R squared values were significantly lowerwhen both genders were included in the regressions.Therefore, it is correct to say that the model presentedin this paper provided some insight into men’sattitudes towards doping, while further research,based on different theoretical and empiricalapproaches, is necessary to explain the factors thatinfluence women’s attitudes. The Durbin Watsonstatistics and the VIF indexes show that the data wereunaffected by autocorrelation or multicollinearity.

Results

Table 1 provides an overview of which performance-enhancing substances and stimulants the respondentsaccepted. This involves pure doping products as wellas traditional food supplements, vitamins andminerals, which are legal. In addition it also involvedso-called ‘grey zone’ products, such as foodsupplements containing substances that improve theability to recover quickly after hard training, and theuse of high-altitude chambers.



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FOOD SUPPLEMENT EG. COD-LIVER OIL, VITAMINS AND MINERALS

FOOD SUPPLEMENTS CONTAINING SUBSTANCES THAT IMPROVETHE ABILITY TO QUICKLY RECOVER AFTER HARD TRAINING

HIGH-ALTITUDE CHAMBER

EPO AND OTHER SUBSTANCES THAT IMPROVE ENDURANCE

ANABOLIC STEROIDS, GROWTH HORMONES AND SIMILARSUBSTANCES THAT MAKE IT POSSIBLE TO INCREASE THEQUANTITY OF TRAINING AND MUSCLE STRENGTH

AMPHETAMINE AND SIMILAR DRUGS THAT INCREASE THE ABILITYTO TOLERATE HARD TRAINING AND PAIN DURING CONTESTS

ACCEPTABLE

96.8

30.1

30.0

1.8

0.7

0.4

MAY BE ACCEPTABLE

2.2

37.9

34.4

3.7

0.8

0.9

NOT ACCEPTABLE

1.1

32.1

35.6

94.5

98.6

98.7

TABLE 1 What can be accepted of performance-enhancing substances and stimulants?



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The results clearly indicated no acceptance of ‘pure’doping substances such as EPO, anabolic steroids andamphetamine. On the other hand, the overwhelmingmajority were positive towards the use of traditionalfood supplements, vitamins and minerals. The resultswere mixed with regard to so-called ‘grey zone’stimulants.

Opinions on the use of doping in elite sportTable 2 shows the respondents’ opinions on the use ofdoping among elite athletes in the 14 sports thesurvey investigated – in other words, whether dopingwas common or rare. A scale from 1 to 10 was used,with 1 indicating that doping was very rare, while 10indicated that it was very common. The resultsrevealed that people were more suspicious towardsinternational athletes than towards domestic athletes.These differences were significant (p<0.01) for all the14 sports, according to t-tests. One reason for thismay be that many people have a tendency to think

better of themselves than of others – in other words,chauvinism. However, it is also worth bearing in mindthat the number of Norwegian athletes that have beeninvolved in doping is quite moderate compared tothose of other nations.

Cycling was top of the ‘bad list’, probably due to thenumber of scandals surrounding the Tour de France.Athletics and cross-country skiing have also had theirscandals over the years, which can explain their highpositions on the bad list.

The survey also investigated opinions on howcommercial stakeholders involved in sport should reacttowards athletes and teams exposed in doping. Thesequestions were based on a Likert scale from 1 to 10(1 = totally disagree, 10 = totally agree). Onemotivation behind these questions was to investigatewhether the tendency among sponsors and TVbroadcasters to withdraw from doping sports actuallycorresponds to the views of the general public. Asregards the questions about how broadcasters should

SPORTS

CYCLING

ATHLETICS

BOXING

CROSS-COUNTRY SKIING

ICE HOCKEY

BIATHLON

SKATING

BASKETBALL

ALPINE

SNOWBOARD

FOOTBALL

HANDBALL

SKI JUMPING

MOTOR SPORT

MEAN (SD)

7.27 (2.108)

6.21 (2.014)

6.07 (2.252)

5.34 (2.024)

4.93 (1.936)

4.59 (2.117)

4.51 (2.072)

4.49 (1.964)

3.69 (1.993)

3.72 (2.040)

3.68 (1.806)

3.38 (1.748)

3.17 (1.945)

2.75 (1.810)

95% CONFIDENCE INTERVAL

7.13 - 7.41

6.08 - 6.34

5.92 - 6.22

5.21 - 5,47

4.80 - 5.06

4.45 - 4.73

4.37 - 4.65

4.36 - 4,63

3.95 - 3.71

3.58 - 3.85

3.56 - 3.80

3.27 - 3.50

3.05 - 3.30

2.63 - 2.88

MEAN (SD)

3.89 (2.375)

3.74 (2.094)

4.16 (2.260)

3.04 (2.089)

3.37 (1.897)

2.79 (2.058)

2.88 (1.915)

2.91 (1.819)

2.61 (1.831)

2.70 (1.863

2.51 (1.701)

2.35 (1.630)

2.30 (1.743)

2.19 (1.613)

DOMESTIC ATHLETESINTERNATIONAL ATHLETES

95% CONFIDENCE INTERVAL

3.74 - 4.05

3.60 - 3.88

4.01 - 4.32

2.91 - 3.18

3.24 - 3.49

2.65 - 2.92

2.75 - 3.00

2.79 - 3.04

2.49 - 2.73

2.58 - 2.83

2.40 - 2.62

2.24 - 2.46

2.19 - 2.42

2.08 - 2.30

TABLE 2 Opinions on doping – mean value (1 = doping is very rare, 10 = doping is very common). The brackets present the standard deviations.



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react, the respondents were asked to imagine asporting event with repeated doping scandals, such asthe Tour de France. The sponsor-related questionsspeak for themselves. Table 3 shows that the majoritywere in favour of tough reactions to athletes involvedin doping. Average values of 8.82 and 8.60 indicatedstrong backing for sponsors that either reduced theirsupport or withdrew from ‘doping sports’ such ascycling. For these two reactions (reduction of supportand withdrawal), 86% and 80% respectively gradedtheir agreements at 8 or higher. A large proportionsupported the idea that athletes and sports federationsthat were exposed in doping should pay back thesupport of their sponsors (average value = 7.37; 58% in the 8-10 interval).

Regression analysesThe variables in Table 3 were also potential candidatesas dependent variables in the regression analysis. Theresults tell us that an overwhelming majority did notaccept elite athletes using doping substances. Thisuniversal agreement also reduced the ability toinvestigate which variables affected their opinions.

However, it is likely that such questions stimulatepeople to answer in a manner of political correctness.Negative effects of doping are well documented.Therefore, very few (if any) openly declare themselvespositive towards the use of doping among eliteathletes. It was therefore necessary to dig a littledeeper into the material to explore differences inopinions. This does not mean that we distrustedpeople who declared themselves negative towardsdoping, but that we believe that a ‘no to doping’response can hide differences in attitude. Some willconsider doping as a more serious, and negative,threat to sport than others. One way of uncoveringsuch differences is to ask for opinions aboutappropriate reactions from commercial actors, such asTV broadcasters and sponsors. This is another reasonbehind some of the questions in Table 3.

We ran five alternative regression analyses. Theseregressions had different dependent variables butidentical independent variables. The results arepresented in Tables 4–8. The dependent variableswere related but of a different character. Thedependent variable in Table 4 measured to what

SPONSORS SHOULD REDUCE THE SUPPORT TO ATHLETES WHO ARE EXPOSED IN DOPING

SPONSORS SHOULD WITHDRAW FROM SPORTS WITH REPEATED DOPING EXPOSURES

TV BROADCASTERS SHOULD CONTINUE BROADCASTING THE EVENT – BUT USE LARGERESOURCES TO FOCUS ON DOPING

SPONSORS SHOULD DEMAND THE MONEY BACK FROM ATHLETES/SPORTS FEDERATIONS IN CASES OF DOPING EXPOSURES (TABLE 7)

SPONSORS SHOULD WITHDRAW FROM SPORTS AT FIRST-TIME DOPING EXPOSURE(TABLE 5)

I WILL BE LESS INTERESTED IN PURCHASING PRODUCTS FROM SPONSORS INVOLVED INSPORTS THAT ARE EXPOSED TO DOPING (TABLE 6)

TV BROADCASTERS SHOULD QUIT BROADCASTING FROM EVENTS WITH REPEATEDDOPING EXPOSURE (TABLE 8)

COMMERCIAL ACTORS (TV/SPONSORS) CONTINUING TO BE INVOLVED IN DOPINGSPORTS/EVENTS ARE ACCOMPLICES IN DOPING (TABLE 4)

95% CONFIDENCEINTERVAL

8.67-8.96

8.45-8.75

7.24-7.56

7.20-7.55

6.57-6.98

5.73-6.15

5.50-5.92

5.35-5.69

SD

2.303

2.355

2.500

2.732

3.020

3.176

3.213

2.620

MEAN

8.82

8.60

7.40

7.37

6.78

5.97

5.71

5.52

TABLE 3 What do you regard as appropriate reactions from commercial stakeholders towards athletes being exposed in doping


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TABLE 4 Commercial actors who continue to be involved in doping sports are accomplices in doping

ADJUSTED R-SQUARE

.154

UNSTANDARDISED COEFFICIENTS

B

4.472

.000

-.238

.156

.019

.157

STD. ERROR

.566

.000

.064

.048

.052

.047

T-VALUE

7.904

6.881

-3.692

3.234

.367

3.337

SIGN.

.000

.000

.000

.001

.714

.001

TOLERANCE

.965

.781

.980

.824

.920

VIF

1.037

1.281

1.020

1.213

1.087

COLLINEARITY STATISTICS

ST. ERROR OF THE ESTIMATE

2.46961

STANDARDISED COEFFICIENTS

BETA

.302

-.180

.141

.017

.150

DURBIN WATSON

2.058

R-SQUARE

0.164

CONSTANT

AGE2

SPORTS INTEREST

UNCERTAINTY

IDENTIFYING

CALCULATIVE

TABLE 5 Sponsors should withdraw from sport at first time doping exposure

ADJUSTED R-SQUARE

.029


B

5.871

.000

-.123

.124

.012

.131

STD. ERROR

.688

.000

.079

.059

.064

.057

T-VALUE

8.532

2.437

-1.555

2.107

.182

2.281

SIGN.

.000

.015

.121

.036

.856

.023

TOLERANCE

.963

.778

.980

.820

.923

VIF

1.038

1.285

1.021

1.219

1.083



3.024


BETA

.114

-.081

.098

.009

.109

DURBIN WATSON

2.085

R-SQUARE

.039

CONSTANT

AGE2

SPORTS INTEREST

UNCERTAINTY

IDENTIFYING

CALCULATIVE

TABLE 6 I will be less interested in purchasing goods from sponsors involved in “doping sports/athletes”

ADJUSTED R-SQUARE

.109


B

5.946

.000

-.226

.144

-.102

.208

STD. ERROR

.674

.000

.077

.057

.062

.056

T-VALUE

8.820

4.724

-2.936

2.512

-1.638

3.683

SIGN.

.000

.000

.003

.012

.102

.000

TOLERANCE

.962

.784

.978

.827

.924

VIF

1.039

1.276

1.022

1.210

1.083



2.956


BETA

.213

-.146

.112

-.080

.169

DURBIN WATSON

2.107

R-SQUARE

.119

CONSTANT

AGE2

SPORTS INTEREST

UNCERTAINTY

IDENTIFYING

CALCULATIVE

International Journal of Sports Marketing & Sponsorship l APRIL 2010 l



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degree the respondents regarded commercial actors,such as TV broadcasters and sponsors, who continuedto be involved in doping sports, as actual accomplicesin doping. The other regressions analysed what wereconsidered to be appropriate reactions in cases ofdoping, from the respondents themselves, as well asfrom sponsors and TV broadcasters. The idea thatsponsors should demand their money back fromathletes/teams exposed in doping scandals has beenaddressed in previous research, e.g. by Haugen(2004) and Eber (2006), which both focused on howto reduce the economic incentives to doping. However,

the regression analysis that used this suggestion asthe dependent variable was unsuccessful in explainingthe variance. The F-statistic was so low that theregression was rejected (p = 0.258).

Only one of the independent variables (uncertaintyof outcome) was significantly correlated with thedependent variable. Hence, the results in Table 3documented that the majority backed the idea (mean = 7.37), while the regression analysis wasunable to explain the variance of the variable.Additionally, the dependent variables weresupplemented with age and sports interest.

TABLE 7 Sponsors should demand the money back from athletes/teams exposed in doping

ADJUSTED R-SQUARE

.003


B

7.048

6.112E-5

-.076

.105

.049

-.022

STD. ERROR

.615

.000

.070

.052

.057

.051

T-VALUE

11.467

.781

-1.086

2.017

.871

-.436

SIGN.

.000

.435

.278

.044

.384

.663

TOLERANCE

.965

.787

.980

.831

.924

VIF

1.036

1.271

1.021

1.204

1.082



2.691


BETA

.037

-.057

.095

.045

-.021

DURBIN WATSON

2.046

R-SQUARE

.014

CONSTANT

AGE2

SPORTS INTEREST

UNCERTAINTY

IDENTIFYING

CALCULATIVE

TABLE 8 TV stations should stop broacasting from events with repeated doping exposure

ADJUSTED R-SQUARE

.106


B

5.087

.001

-.190

.147

-.040

.094

STD. ERROR

.709

.000

.081

.061

.066

.059

T-VALUE

7.173

6.145

-2.342

2.423

-.609

1.582

SIGN.

.000

.000

.020

.016

.543

.114

TOLERANCE

.963

.782

.980

.825

.922

VIF

1.039

1.279

1.020

1.213

1.085



3.124


BETA

.276

-.117

.108

-.030

.073

DURBIN WATSON

2.032

R-SQUARE

.116

CONSTANT

AGE2

SPORTS INTEREST

UNCERTAINTY

IDENTIFYING

CALCULATIVE



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AgeThe regression analyses clearly confirmed that theolder people were, the more negative they weretowards doping. The fact that a squared function hadthe highest explanatory power indicated that thecorrelation grew along the age axis. This patternapplied to all variables, with the exception of the ideathat sponsors should demand their money back fromathletes and teams involved in doping.

Interest in sportThe more interested people were in sport, the moreliberal were their attitudes towards doping. First, theytended to disagree that the commercial actors whocontinued to be involved in doping sports wereaccomplices in doping. Second, the same tendency ofdisagreement applied to the suggestion that TVstations should cease broadcasting events such as theTour de France that had had repeated dopingexposure. We can only speculate about the reasons forthis pattern. One alternative may be that for thisgroup, the desire to watch sport was stronger than thereluctance toward doping. Furthermore, they alsotended to be less motivated to reduce their purchasesfrom sponsors involved in sports where dopingoccurred than from others. For the remaining twovariables that were tested (sponsors should withdrawfrom sport at first-time doping exposures andsponsors should demand the money back fromathletes/teams exposed in doping), the regressionanalyses did not show any correlation with thedependent variable.

Uncertainty of outcomeUncertainty of outcome turned out to be the variablewith the strongest correlation with attitudes towardsdoping. The more the uncertainty of outcome wasemphasised, the more negative people were towardsdoping. Indeed, this pattern applied to all thealternative dependent variables. Our data do notprovide any information to indicate the reason for this.It may be that even if people have a preference for a

high degree of uncertainty, they do not wish thisuncertainty to be affected by artificial means, such asthrough doping. They only accept uncertainty that iscreated by legitimate factors, such as talent, trainingmethods, preparation and whatever permissible meanscan influence the ranking order of competitors.

Identifying with teams/athletesThe variable called identifying (with teams/athletes)did not show any correlation with the attitudestowards doping. Indeed, this applied to all thealternative dependent variables. This may indicate thatthose who strongly identify themselves with specificteams/athletes are less affected by doping scandalsthan others. These groups of fans support their heroesindependently of whether or not they are ‘clean’. Onereason for this may be that if the emotions are strong,then people are willing to forgive illegal behaviour.They continue to cultivate their sports idols,independently of whether those idols use illegalsubstances. Another potential explanation is that thisgroup of fans simply does not care as much as othersdo about doping and its negative effects.

Calculative motiveRespondents who emphasised the calculative motivewere more negative towards doping than the others, apattern that was reflected in three of the fiveregression analyses. We find such a pattern reliable forthe reasons discussed above. Those who are attractedto sport mainly because of betting motives want tooperate in conditions where they can handle the job ofpredicting the outcome without too many difficulties.Indirectly, it is the uncertainty of outcome that attractsthem to sport. Their aim is to handle this better thanothers. Doping, however, complicates this job. Fromthis perspective, the negative correlation that wasdocumented in the regression analyses makes sense.Assuming this pattern is correct, the sports which areunable to solve the doping problem may find it harderto recruit and keep fans that particularly emphasisethe calculative motive.




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Conclusion

The first section of this paper presented anecdotalevidence, indicating that commercial stakeholderssuch as sponsors and TV broadcasters have becomereluctant to become involved in sports that arerepeatedly involved in doping scandals. Thisdevelopment has caused problems for sports such ascycling, where sponsors and TV broadcasters havewithdrawn from events.

An empirical survey of more that 900 Norwegianrespondents, which investigated views and attitudestowards the use of doping in elite sport, supportedsuch reactions towards ‘doping sports’. Theoverwhelming majority expressed non-acceptance ofsubstances such as EPO, anabolic steroids andamphetamine, but had mixed attitudes towards so-called ‘grey zone’ substances and high-altitudechambers. The findings are similar to a long-termstudy (1995-2004) in Switzerland that documentedincreasing support for a comprehensive anti-dopingstrategy (Stamm et al, 2008).

Respondents were more suspicious towardsinternational athletes than towards national eliteathletes, and this pattern applied to all the 14 sportsmentioned in the research interview.

The majority of respondents were in favour of strictreactions from sponsors towards athletes and sportsinvolved in doping. This included reactions such asreductions in support to athletes. They also supportedthe idea that sponsors should withdraw from dopingsports. The same applied to the suggestion thatsponsors should demand their money back fromathletes and sports federations involved in doping.These findings correspond to recommendations fromHaugen (2004) and Eber (2006), which emphasisethe importance of reducing the economic incentives touse illegal substances.

The regression analyses showed that the olderpeople were, the more negative their attitude towardsdoping. Older people supported sanctions towardsathletes to a much higher degree than did youngerpeople. The fact that a squared function had thehighest explanatory power indicates that the negativeattitudes grew with age.

By contrast, people who were interested in sportexpressed more liberal attitudes towards doping thanothers. They were less eager to punish the athletesand the sports governing bodies exposed in dopingscandals. Furthermore, they did not blame to thesame degree as other respondents TV broadcastersthat continued to broadcast from doping events.

Finally, it is important to keep in mind that theregression models displayed low adjusted R-squaredvalues, which is an indication of a poor model fit. Thegeneral model (including both genders) displayed asignificantly lower degree of explanatory power thanthe pure ‘male model’. Our model provides someexplanation of men’s attitudes towards TV broadcasterand sponsor involvement in sports and events withdoping problems, but it was unsuccessful in explainingwomen’s attitudes. Overall, this indicates that thetheoretical framework and empirical modelling ourstudy is built upon is somewhat limited in explainingvariation in the dependent variables selected.

Despite successfully explaining demand for sport,the study has only limited success in explaining whatforms people’s attitudes towards doping in elite sport.Hence, further research is needed to provide insightinto this phenomenon. This would also involveinvestigation into the reasons behind the correlationsthat were uncovered in our analyses. Future researchshould also consider factors and theoreticalperspectives other than those presented in this paper.





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Biographies

Harry Arne Solberg is a professor of sports economicsat Trondheim Business School, Sør-TrøndelagUniversity College. He has been involved in researchinto the economic impacts of sport and sportsactivities, particularly for sporting events, sport andthe media and, more recently, team sports economics.

Dag Vidar Hanstad is an associate professor in theDepartment of Cultural and Social Studies at theNorwegian School of Sport Sciences. His researchinterests include sports politics, doping and anti-doping, media, elite sport and organisational change.

Thor Atle Thøring is an assistant professor atTrondheim Business School, Sør-Trøndelag UniversityCollege. His research interests includes analysis of thedemand for sport.

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Negative sponsor behaviour, team response and how this impacts fan attitudes

Keywordssports sponsorshipteam identificationsponsor behaviour balance theoryfan attitude

Executive summary

Sponsorship has flourished within the sports industryin recent years, with Howard and Crompton (2005)reporting that sports organisations received 69% of all sponsorship investments, totalling more than$10 billion dollars, in 2007 (Sport Business Journal,2007). However, there has been little consideration of the consequences of these sponsoring relationshipswhen one of the organisations is involved in a public scandal.

Corporate scandals or impropriety are not a new oruncommon phenomenon. A quick glance at the dailynews often provides stories of companies involved innegative activities ranging from the mistreatment ofworkers to upper-level management greed,

environmental disregard or severe productmalfunction. The rise of corporate sponsorship ofathletic events and teams has thrust such ‘offences’ orcontroversies into the sports world spotlight, andsports managers must determine the best method tohandle such situations so as not to disenfranchisetheir core fans.

This research examines the fan-team-sponsorrelationship with particular focus on the consequencesof negative sponsor behaviour and the impact of thesports team’s response to such behaviour onfan/spectator attitudes towards the sponsor. Anexperimental design was employed with participants(N=323) from a Midwestern university. Participantswere given a short questionnaire assessing their

Abstract

This research examines the fan-team-sponsorrelationship. It focuses on how the sports team’sresponse to negative sponsor behaviour affectsfan/spectator attitudes towards the sponsor. Resultsindicate that highly identified fans have significantlymore positive attitudes towards the team sponsor thanfans who are lower in identification. Highly identifiedfans informed of a negative action by a team sponsorfelt more favourably towards the sponsor if the teamcontinued, rather than terminated, their relationshipwith the sponsor.

Heidi M. ParkerAssistant Professor, Department of Sport Management, SyracuseUniversity, 810 Nottingham Road, Syracuse, NY 13224 USATel:+1 315 443 9881Email: [email protected]

Janet S. FinkAssociate Professor, University of Connecticut

Peer reviewed

11.3 Paper 2 Neg Sponsors 200-211 KT2 7/4/10 22:30 Page 200


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identification level with a regional NFL team. Twoweeks later participants in the groups were randomlyassigned one of four treatments consisting of a creatednewspaper article. The article established therelationship between the team and sponsor, providedinformation about the sponsor and gave the teamresponse to the information. The four conditionsincluded:

1. control group, in which information about the teamsponsor was provided that was neither positive nornegative (N=80)

2. negative information with no team response(N=76)

3. negative information with team continuing theteam-sponsor relationship (N=83)

4. negative information with team terminating theteam-sponsor relationship (N=84).

Data were analysed using analysis of variance(ANOVA). Results indicated highly identified fans hadsignificantly (p< .033) more positive attitudes towardsthe team sponsor than those lower in identification.Additionally, the results revealed a significantinteraction between the level of team identification andthe type of team response on fans’ attitudes towardsthe sponsor (F(2, 162) = 3.35, p< .037, η=.04).Highly identified fans who were told their team wascontinuing the relationship with the sponsor despitethe sponsor’s negative behaviour had a significantlymore positive attitude towards the sponsor than thosewho thought the team was terminating therelationship.

The results of this study indicate the positive aspectsof team sponsorship. Once the relationship betweenteam and sponsor is established, the sponsor becomesa member of a tight network of fans. Simply by beinga member of this ingroup, the sponsor is looked uponmore favourably by highly identified fans. Even in thewake of unflattering press, highly identified fansexhibited more favourable attitudes towards thesponsor than less identified fans.

Of particular importance, however, was the reaction

of the team to the negative information. When the teamshowed support and continued their relationship withthe sponsor, highly identified fans felt much morefavourably towards the sponsor than when the teamdecided to terminate the relationship. Sponsoringorganisations must understand that being a member ofthe ingroup (i.e. having a sponsoring relationship with ateam) provides a great deal of security for the sponsorwhen negative events become public. Therefore,nurturing the team relationship is essential, and workingto remain associated with the team following negativepublicity or actions is imperative to the continuedsupport of highly identified fans of the team.

Introduction

Meenaghan (1991, p.36) defined sponsorship as “aninvestment, in cash or in kind, in an activity, in returnfor access to the exploitable commercial potentialassociated with that activity”. One of the biggestdifferences between sponsorship and traditionaladvertising involves the development of a relationshipbetween sponsor and consumer. Crompton (2004)stated that sponsors design messages “to establish anintimate and emotionally involved relationship(s) witha target audience” (p.270). While sponsorship hasflourished within the sports industry in recent years,with Howard and Crompton (2005) reporting thatsports organisations received 69% of all sponsorshipinvestments, which totalled more than $10 billiondollars in 2007 (Sport Business Journal, 2007), therehas been little consideration of the consequences ofthese sponsoring relationships when one of theorganisations is involved in a public scandal.

For instance, in 1999 Enron Energy Services agreedto a contract worth more than $150 million dollars forthe title rights to the new Houston Astros stadium(Muret, 1999). However, by late 2001, Enron hadfiled for bankruptcy amid an investigation of criminalactivity and the Astros were left scrambling todetermine the best course of action. The Astrosoriginally stood by their corporate sponsor, stating:

Negative information on a sponsor



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“Until there’s no longer a company, it’ll be calledEnron Field” (Sports Illustrated, 2001). Yet just a fewmonths later, with continuing controversy surroundingEnron, the Astros paid $2.1 million to buy back thenaming rights to their stadium and began the processof distancing themselves from the sponsor (Isidore,2002), a move Astros’ officials said was necessary“because it felt negative public perception wasreflected upon the team” (Bruss, 2002, p.82).

The Enron case may be considered an extremeexample, but is not an isolated incident of‘sponsorship gone wrong’. For instance, athleticsponsors such as Nike (Global Exchange, 2006),Coca-Cola (Killer Coke, 2006) and PNC FinancialServices Group, Inc. (Leone, 2002) have all foundthemselves subjects of public controversy. Corporatescandals or impropriety are not a new or uncommonphenomenon. A quick glance at the daily news willoften provide stories of companies involved in negativeactivities ranging from the mistreatment of workers toupper-level management greed, environmentaldisregard or severe product malfunction. However, therise of corporate sponsorship of athletic events andteams has thrust such offences into the sports worldspotlight, and sports managers must determine thebest method to handle such situations so as not todisenfranchise their core fans.

The purpose of this research was to examine fans’affective responses to negative information regarding asponsor of a sports team. Further, it examined howvarious team responses to sponsor impropriety affectfan attitudes. In other words, how does a report of anillegal or immoral incident involving a team sponsorimpact fans? And how does the team’s response to theallegations (i.e. either continuing or terminating thesponsor relationship) impact fan attitudes?

The research considers a relationship between fan,team and sponsor conceptualised in terms of teamidentification and based in social identity theory (Tajfel& Turner, 1986) and balance theory (Heider, 1958).The following sections will elaborate on these theoriesand lead to specific research hypotheses.

Fan-team-sponsor relationship

Understanding the fan-team-sponsor relationshipprovides the basis for understanding how sponsoringassociations impact consumer attitudes andbehaviours. Together, social identity theory andbalance theory provide the conceptualisation of thethree-component relationship between fan and teamand team sponsor.

Rooted in social identity theory, team identificationis defined as the “oneness” a person feels towards agroup (Ashforth & Mael, 1989). People use sportfandom to derive self esteem by attaching themselvesto a sports team containing characteristics that theydesire to associate into their own identity. Central tosocial identity theory is the concept of ingroups andoutgroups (Hogg & Abrams, 1990). Social identitytheory suggests people make social comparisonsbetween groups in an attempt to increase self esteemby categorising outgroups as inferior to the ingroup towhich they belong. For instance, highly identified fansare more likely than lower identified fans to derogateopposing team fans (Branscombe & Wann, 1994),demonstrate ingroup bias or favouritism towards otherfans of their team (Wann & Branscombe, 1995) anddisplay biased perceptions, in favour of their team, ofgame events and outcomes (Wann & Dolan, 1994).

In conjunction with social identity theory, Heider’sbalance theory (1958) can be used to explain therelationship between highly identified fans and teamsponsors. Balance theory (Heider, 1958) suggestsindividuals strive to maintain a sense of balance intheir lives, and that people’s actions, beliefs andjudgments are influenced by the need to preservesuch balance. In essence, the adages ‘your friends aremy friends’ and ‘the enemy of my enemy is my friend’explain balance theory.

Balance theory is also helpful in explaining findingsconcerning the relationship between a fan, a team anda team sponsor. For instance, Dalakas and Levin(2005) surveyed NASCAR fans and found a positiverelationship between attitude towards the fans’favourite driver and attitude towards the favourite



driver’s sponsor. Dalakas and Levin also found arelationship between fans’ least favourite driver andthe least favourite driver’s sponsor. Fans felt muchstronger dislike for a brand that sponsored a driverthey did not like.

The key to this relationship is in the strength of therelationship to the team. Fans highly identified with ateam will also feel the need to have positive feelingsregarding a team sponsor. A number of researchstudies have supported this positive relationshipbetween team identification and attitude towards asponsor, as well as increased intention among highlyidentified fans to purchase sponsor products (Cornwell& Coote, 2005; Gwinner & Swanson, 2003; Madrigal,2000, 2001). These results suggest a sponsor canconnect to a sports organisation and capitalise on therelationship between consumer and team (Madrigal,2000). A sports organisation is a part of a highlyidentified fan’s self-conceptualisation, and by attachinga product or brand to the team, sponsors becomeintertwined in part of a “consumer’s extended self”(Madrigal, 2000, p.22). This leads to the firsthypothesis:

H1: Highly identified fans will have more positiveattitudes towards the team sponsor than thoselower in identification.

Negative sponsor information

Given the potentially strong relationship between afan, a team and a sponsor, it seems natural toconsider the reciprocal effects that might occur when asponsor commits an immoral or incompetent act. Infact, Kuzma et al (2003) examined the effect ofnegative sponsor information on consumers’ attitudesand purchase intentions. The results revealed thatnegative information about a sponsor resulted innegative attitudes towards that sponsor and thesponsored university, and also negatively impactedpurchase intention for the sponsor’s product. However,the research failed to consider the impact team

identification may have had on attitudes andintentions, as the participants of the study were notaffiliated with or attached to with the team orsponsored university: it did not take team identificationinto consideration and essentially only measuredoutgroup (i.e. non-fan) attitudes and intentions.

Research has shown that highly identified and lessidentified group members respond differently whenpresented with negative information about anythingassociated with the group (Cohen & Garcia, 2005;Ellemers et al, 2002). Specifically, highly identifiedgroup members tend to cope with a group threat byreaffirming their group membership (Cohen & Garcia,2005; Ellemers et al, 1997), while lower identifiedgroup members respond by distancing themselvesfrom the group (Cohen & Garcia, 2005; Lickel et al,2005). Thus, if presented with negative informationabout a team’s sponsor, highly identified fans shouldreact differently than those with lower levels ofidentification. Balance theory suggests that highlyidentified fans would need to reconcile any negativeinformation about a team sponsor in order to maintaintheir ‘balanced’ state so they maintain their positivefeelings about the sponsor.

Team responseHowever, the response of the team would be key forthis ‘balanced’ equation. That is, the team’s responseto sponsor impropriety should impact fan responsessince it is the connection with the team that impactsfan attitudes towards sponsors (Gwinner & Swanson,2003; Madrigal, 2000). If a team denounces asponsor after an impropriety, fans may no longer seethe sponsor as an ingroup member and may no longer need to feel a balance between the team andthe sponsor.

Additionally, a team response to continue the team-sponsor relationship should act to maintain theingroup status of the sponsor, at least for highlyidentified fans. As stated earlier, literature has shownthat highly identified group members partake iningroup bias and feel more favourably towards ingroupmembers (Wann & Branscombe, 1995; Wann &


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Dolan, 1994), even when presented with negativeinformation about something connected with the group(Cohen & Garcia, 2005; Ellemers et al, 1997). While the failure of a group member is a threat to the group’s identity, groups have numerous copingmethods for reconciling the action of the sponsor withthe ideals of the group, including the ability to engagein biased attribution processing (Cohen, 2003; Wann& Dolan, 1994; Wann, 1995) or actually altering theinformation provided to make it more palatable(Cohen, 2003).

Whatever mechanisms highly identified groupmembers use, the fact is, they typically maintainpositive feelings about other ingroup members,especially if other members of the group maintainallegiance to them (Fink et al, 2009). Thus the teamresponse to sponsor impropriety is very important. Ifthe team supports the sponsor, the fan shouldcontinue to see the sponsor as an ingroup member. If the team denounces the sponsor, the fans may viewthe sponsor as an outgroup member. This leads to thesecond hypothesis:

H2 There will be a significant interaction effectbetween level of team identification and teamresponse on fan attitudes towards the sponsorwho commits an impropriety.

Methodology

This research implemented an experimental designand data were collected from students (N=323)enrolled in sport, fitness and health classes at a largeMidwestern university. Participants were given a shortquestionnaire assessing their identification level with aregional NFL team. Results were used to group theparticipants into high (top 33%) (N=107, M=7.49)and low (bottom 33%) (N=112, M=1.00)identification groups (Haugtvedt et al, 1992). Twoweeks later participants in the groups were randomlyassigned one of four treatments consisting of afictional newspaper article. The article established the

relationship between the team and sponsor, providedinformation about the sponsor and gave the teamresponse to the information. The four treatmentsincluded:

1. control group, in which information about the teamsponsor was provided that was neither positive nornegative (N=80)

2. negative information with no team response(N=76)

3. negative information with team continuing theteam-sponsor relationship (N=83)

4. negative information with team terminating theteam-sponsor relationship (N=84).

Random assignment was utilised to ensure internalvalidity. Participants were then asked to respond to a questionnaire measuring their attitude towards thesponsor.

ManipulationsFour fictional newspaper articles were created for thisresearch. The format and layout of the articles wereidentical and resembled an actual online article fromthe town newspaper. Three of the articles included theexact same negative information about the sponsor ofan NFL team. The negative information implicated thesponsor in a series of unethical and inhumane events(i.e. unsafe working conditions, low pay and extremehours for their employees). The only difference in thethree articles was in the response by the NFL team.One article stated that the team was aware of theimpropriety but was remaining loyal and continuing itsrelationship with its sponsor. Another article statedthat the team was terminating its relationship with thesponsor in light of the negative events. The thirdarticle did not include a comment or position from theteam. The fourth article consisted of neutralinformation about the team sponsor – a new CEO hadbeen hired – and was used as a control. The sponsorname in all of the articles was covered using a blackmark and the participants were told the sponsor couldnot be revealed due to privacy reasons.


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A manipulation check was conducted, using a panelof experts followed by a pretest, prior to thecommencement of the study. The panel of expertsincluded sports management faculty members whoexamined the negative information for believability,soundness of argument and perceived level ofnegativity. Suggestions from the experts were used toalter the manipulation prior to the pretest.

The pretest used 60 students who were similar to thepopulation used in the study. Pretest participants readone of the four scenarios and were asked to complete athree item scale (α=.83) drawn from the work of Johnset al (2005). The items were measured on a seven-point summated scale and were worded as follows:

How severe did this event seem to you? (not very severe at all / extremely severe)

How much damage or harm did this event have forother people? (not harmful at all / extremely harmful)

Regardless of what others might have thought, howwrong did you think this event was? (I didn’t think the event was wrong / I thought the event was very wrong)

Additionally, the manipulation check examined the twodifferent team responses to ensure each was clear andunambiguous. The manipulation check consisted oftwo items which stated:

1. Are the (NFL Team) aware of the incident theirteam sponsor is involved in?

2. Did the (NFL Team) choose to continue or endtheir relationship with their sponsor?

Results of the manipulation check revealed that thenegative information manipulations were, in fact,deemed negative and participants accurately identifiedthe NFL team’s response to the negative information.Specifically, reliability for the four-item negativity scalewas high (α= .94) and a t-test revealed significantdifferences (p< .001) between the participants who

read the irrelevant information (M= 2.6, SD= 1.23)and those who read the negative information(M=5.61, SD= .95). Additionally, 99% of theparticipants correctly indicated that the NFL team wasaware of the incident and 98% of the participantscorrectly indicated the NFL team’s response(continuing or terminating sponsor relationship) to thenegative incident. Thus the manipulations weredetermined to be successful for this experiment.

VariablesThis study included three independent variables(information about a sponsor, team identification andteam response) and one dependent variable (attitudetowards the sponsor). Independent variables are:

Information about a sponsor This variable included two levels: negativeinformation and irrelevant information. These aredescribed above in the manipulation section.

Team identificationThis variable is operationally defined as thesummated score on a four-item scale drawn fromthe work of Trail and James (2001). The items‘Regardless of whether the (NFL team) win or lose,I will continue to support them’, ‘I wouldexperience a loss if I had to stop being a fan of theteam’, ‘I consider myself to be a real fan of the(NFL team) and ‘Being a fan of the (NFL team) isvery important to me’ were measured on eight-point scale ranging from strongly agree (1 or 8?) tostrongly disagree (8 or 1?). The measure wasdeemed reliable (α=.98).

Team responseResponse of the team to the sponsor’simproprieties was the third independent variableand consisted of three levels: no team response, ateam response terminating the relationship withthe sponsors and a team response reaffirming therelationship with the sponsor. These are describedin the manipulation section above.



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The dependent variable is:

Attitude towards the sponsor This was the dependent variable in the study.Attitude towards the sponsor was operationallydefined as the mean score of a three-itemsemantic differential scale (α=.99) which followedthe work of Roy and Cornwell (2003). The stemasked for feelings towards the sponsor and theanchors for the eight-point scale were‘favourable/unfavourable’, ‘bad/good’ (reversescored) and ‘positive/negative’.

Results and analysis

Descriptive statistics (mean, standard deviation andfrequencies) were calculated to describe the variablesof interest. The means and standard deviations ofvariables of interest can be seen in Table 1.

Hypothesis 1 predicted that highly identified fanswould have more positive attitudes towards the team

sponsor than those lower in identification, and wastested using a one-way ANOVA to compare means ofparticipants in the irrelevant information treatmentgroup. The irrelevant information (i.e. control) group(N=55) was used for this analysis as this was theonly group that did not receive negative informationabout the fictitious sponsor. Thus any differences inattitudes towards the sponsor could be attributed tothe independent variable. Identification level (i.e. high,low) was used as the independent variable andparticipant attitude towards the sponsor was thedependent measure. The overall model was significant(F(2, 76) = 3.61, p<.03, η2 = .09) and there wasa significant difference (p< .04) in attitudes towardsthe team sponsor between highly identified fans(M=6.03, SD=1.34) and lower identified fans(M=5.06, SD=1.49). Highly identified fans felt morefavourably towards the team sponsor than loweridentified fans. Thus H1 was supported.

Hypothesis 2 predicted that there would be asignificant interaction effect between the level of teamidentification and team response on consumer

HIGH IDENTIFICATION

N

107

107

MEAN

7.49

3.49

SD

.733

2.08

N

112

112

MEAN

1.00

2.71

SD

.05

1.89

LOW IDENTIFICATIONVARIABLE

1. PRETEST IDENTIFICATION

2. SPONSOR ATTITUDE

TABLE 1 Means and standard deviations of variables by higher and lower identified groups

TYPE III SUMS OF SQUARES

54.05

24.80

17.60

11.90

df

5

1

2

2

F

6.09

13.97

4.96

3.35

SIG.

.000

.000

.008

.037

PARTIAL ETA SQUARED

.16

.08

.06

.04

MEAN SQUARE

10.81

24.81

8.80

5.95

VARIABLE

OVERALL MODEL

IDENTIFICATION

TRTMT GROUP

ID X TRTMT GROUP

TABLE 2 Identification, treatment group, ID x treatment group tests of between-subjects effects for

attitude towards sponsor computed using α=.05



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attitudes towards the sponsor. This was tested using aunivariate ANOVA. A 2x3 factorial design was usedwith identification group (high N=81, low N=83) andtreatment group (negative information/no responseN=53, negative information/terminate N=58,negative info./continue N=53) serving as theindependent variables and attitude towards sponsorserving as the dependent variable. The overall modelwas significant (F(5, 159) = 6.09, p< .001, η2 =.16). There were significant main effects for treatmentgroup (F(2, 162) = 4.96, p< .008, η2 = .06), asthose in the ‘continued relationship’ group had thehighest mean scores. There was also a main effect foridentification group (F(1, 163) = 13.97, p< .001,η2 = .08), as those higher in identification had morepositive attitudes towards the sponsor. However, mostimportantly, there was a significant interactionbetween treatment x identification group (see Table 2): (F(2, 162) = 3.35, p< .04, η2 = .04). Thus H2was supported. Follow-up analysis revealed asignificant difference (p<.005) in attitudes towardsthe team sponsor between highly identified fans in thenegative information/continue response condition(M=3.46) and highly identified fans in the negativeinformation/terminate response condition (M=2.01).Thus, as expected, highly identified fans who thoughtthe team was continuing the relationship with thesponsor had significantly more positive attitudestowards the sponsor than those who thought the team

was terminating the relationship, and this explained4.1% of variance in the attitude scores. Interestingly,the mean score for the group who received no teamresponse was lower (M=2.56) than the continuedresponse condition, but it was not significantly lower.Additionally, as expected, there was no interactioneffect for those lower in identification (See Table 3).

In summary, the analyses revealed support for bothhypotheses. Highly identified fans felt more favourablytowards the team sponsor than lower identified fans.Additionally, there was an interaction between the levelof team identification and the team response forconsumer attitudes towards the sponsor. Specifically,the interaction indicated that highly identified fanspresented with negative information regarding a teamsponsor felt more favourably towards that team sponsorif the team chose to continue their relationship with thesponsor that when the team chose to terminate therelationship with the sponsor. These results arediscussed more fully in the next section.

Discussion

Previous work has reported that fan attitude towards ateam sponsor is partially dependent on the strength ofthe fan connection to the team (Cornwell & Coote,2005; Gwinner & Swanson, 2003; Madrigal, 2000).This research supports these findings. Analyses

IDENTIFICATION GROUP

HIGHER IDENTIFICATION

LOWER IDENTIFICATION

TREATMENT GROUP

NEGATIVE INFO / NO RESPONSE

NEGATIVE INFO / TERMINATE

NEGATIVE INFO / CONTINUE

NEGATIVE INFO / NO RESPONSE

NEGATIVE INFO / TERMINATE

NEGATIVE INFO / CONTINUE

MEAN

2.56

2.01*

3.46*

1.89

1.83

1.97

STD. ERROR

.26

.25

.26

.26

.24

.26

TABLE 3 Treatment group x identification group mean scores for attitude towards sponsors.

* indicates the mean difference is significant at the .05 level



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revealed that highly identified fans felt significantlymore favourable towards a team sponsor than loweridentified fans. These findings were constantregardless of the assigned treatment group. That is,more highly identified fans felt more favourablytowards a sponsor than less identified fans whenpresented with neutral or even negative informationabout the team sponsor. It appears that simply being afan of the team positively altered fans’/spectators’attitudes towards the team sponsor.

These findings are not surprising considering socialidentity theory (Tajfel & Turner, 1986) and balancetheory (Heider, 1958). Given the positive relationshipbetween the team and the sponsor, highly identifiedfans must also feel positively towards the sponsor inorder to balance the relationship. This study lendssupport to Madrigal’s (2000) argument that sponsorshave the ability to become connected to a consumer’ssense of self through their affiliation with theconsumer’s team. This is important information fororganisations considering sponsoring a sports team, asit would seem the first step in capitalising on asponsorship investment is to establish oneself as aningroup member – an extended part of the team.

However, while this study lends support to theargument that sponsorship is effective due to anaffiliation with a popular other, it did not examine thepossibility that consumers also feel more favourablytowards the team sponsor because sponsors arecontributors to the team. In other words, fans seesponsors supporting their team and therefore may feelfavourably about a sponsor and may buy the sponsor’sproduct as an ‘extension of goodwill’ – or as a way torepay the sponsor for supporting their team.Understanding exactly why highly identified fans feelmore favourably towards a team sponsor, whether it isdue simply to the affiliation or if it is dependent on thetype and amount of actual support an organisationoffers a team, is an important question to answer.That is, do fans feel more favourably towards asponsor due to the connection they see between teamand sponsors or are these favourable feelingsdependent on the amount a sponsor contributes (i.e.

money, gift in kinds, equipment etc.) to the team.Hypothesis 2 predicted an interaction between team

identification level and treatment group andparticipants attitudes’ towards the sponsor. Thishypothesis was supported as results of the studyrevealed that highly identified fans felt significantlymore favourable towards the badly behaving sponsorwhen the team continued its relationship with thesponsor than when the team terminated therelationship.

When the sports team reaffirmed its relationshipwith the sponsor, this indicated a positive relationshipbetween the team and sponsor. To maintain abalanced relationship, an individual must either feelnegatively towards both the sponsor and the team orfeel positively towards both the sponsor and team.Feeling positive about the team but harbouringnegative attitudes towards the poorly behaving teamsponsor would result in an unbalanced state. Thiswould be particularly true when the team re-affirmedits relationship with the sponsor, creating salience forthe sponsor’s ingroup status. Thus, the most naturalchoice for highly identified fans would be to embracethe sponsor as an ingroup member.

However, when the team decided to terminate therelationship with the sponsor, the sponsoringorganisation immediately became an outgroupmember and essentially lost all ‘protection’ afforded toingroup members. That is, fans no longer felt the needto remain loyal to the sponsor. Further, since thesponsor’s bad behaviour was no longer a reflection onthe team, fans did not feel the need to rationalise orignore the behaviour. Additionally, research has shownthat ingroup members often display hostility towardsoutgroup members (Hogg & Abrams, 1990; Wann &Branscombe, 1995) and when the sponsor wasdismissed by the team, they became vulnerable tosuch treatment.

It should be noted that some of the effect sizes inthis study are low, so replicating this study with largersamples is of paramount importance. However, it isinteresting how fragile the fan-sponsor relationshipappears to be in this situation. Immediately upon



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being dismissed as a team sponsor, fans of the teamdisregarded the sponsor and felt significantly lessfavourably towards the sponsor. This could be due tothe role that the team and sponsor play in forming afan’s social identity. Garza and Herringer (1987)describe four dimensions – emotion, evaluation,importance and stability – that contribute separatelyand uniquely in the construction of a social identity.They argue that individual identities (i.e. gender,political affiliation, team identification) vary on each ofthese dimensions and the dimensions must beconsidered in unison to fully grasp and evaluate anidentity. For instance, an individual may rate theirgender identity on these four dimensions verydifferently than they rate their political affiliationidentity. Therefore, the two identities would function indifferent manners. In fact, Garza and Herringer founddifferences among participants on the varyingdimensions of common identities and, particularly, onthe stability dimension.

When discussing a fan’s relationship with a teamand a sponsor it is therefore important to consider themultiple dimensions of such identities. Identificationwith a favourite team may be viewed as relativelystables while identification with a sponsor may bemuch more tenable – particularly in this study, wherethe sponsoring organisation remained anonymous,thus precluding participants from truly establishingany connection outside of the sponsor-teamrelationship.

However, better understanding of the nature anddimensions of the fan-team-sponsor relationship isimportant. While research has shown thatorganisations can improve their status with highlyidentified fans if they become a sponsor, it has yet toexplore the importance and stability of this affinity.Conceivably, this might vary with the particularorganisation and individual. In other words, a fan whois highly identified with a sponsor irrespective of thesponsor-team relationship (e.g. a fan that only buysNike gear regardless of whether Nike sponsors theirfavourite team) would have a much more stablerelationship with the sponsor in the face of criticism

than a fan whose connection to a sponsor rests mainlywith the team-sponsor relationship. Likewise, a fan ofa team who also happens to be an employee of asponsoring organisation may have a vastly differentresponse to organisational troubles resulting in thetermination of sponsorship because two core identities(i.e. organisational versus team) are put at odds witheach another. The internal struggle for such a fan tomaintain a ‘balance’ in the wake of team criticism ofthe sponsor will be a much more complex process.

The key for sponsoring organisations might be toleverage their team sponsorship in such a way thattheir brand becomes a stable part of a fan’s identity,rather than only an extension of their teamidentification. Madrigal (2000) noted that sponsorshipmay allow an organisation the opportunity to “capturea consumer’s ‘share of the heart’” by capitalising ontheir passion for supporting their favourite team andthus the team’s relationships. Perhaps sponsorship isa way to initially gain access to a population and get‘in’, but what the sponsor does once they are there iscrucial to creating and maintaining a fan’s long-termidentification.

Conclusion and limitations

The results of this study indicate the positive aspectsof team sponsorship. Once the relationship betweenteam and sponsor is established, the sponsor becomesa member of a tight network of fans. Simply by beinga member of this ingroup, the sponsor is looked uponmore favourably by highly identified fans. Even in thewake of unflattering press, highly identified fansexhibited more favourable attitudes towards thesponsor than lower identified fans.

Of particular importance, however, was the reactionof the team to the negative information. Highlyidentified fans felt much more favourably towards thesponsor when the team showed support andcontinued their relationship with the sponsor thanwhen the team decided to terminate the relationship.Sponsoring organisations must understand that being



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a member of the ingroup (i.e. having a sponsoringrelationship with a team) provides a great deal ofsecurity for the sponsor when negative events becomepublic. Therefore, nurturing the team relationship isessential, and working to remain associated with theteam following negative publicity or actions isimperative to the continued support of highly identifiedfans of the team.

Additionally, teams can use this research finding asanother selling point for sponsorships. The fact thatthe sponsored organisation was ‘protected’ againsttheir own bad behaviour is a perk that might not besalient through other means of advertising.

A limitation of the current study is that it used ananonymous sponsor. While fans were told that theinformation was about an actual team sponsor, thesponsor’s name was never revealed to the studyparticipants. This allowed the researcher to control forparticipants’ brand loyalty which could prove to be avitally important variable in consumers’ response tonegative information about a sponsor. Thus futureresearch should replicate this study using a namedsponsor.

Further, future research should closely examinevarying dimensions of the fan-team-sponsorrelationship, such as importance and stability.Additionally, research should look to determine if certainnegative behaviours are deemed more egregious thanothers. While this study only examined one type ofnegative action (poor treatment of plant workers by thesponsor), previous research has hinted that the type ofnegative action by an organisation may determine howthe action is perceived (Votolato & Unnava, 2006). Forinstance, do fans feel differently about immoral actsthan they do about incompetent acts?

This research has extended previous research onsports teams, sports sponsors and sports consumers.Specifically, it has examined the impact negativesponsor behaviour has on consumer attitudes towardsthe sponsor, while also taking into consideration theteam response to the negative event.


Biographies

Heidi M. Parker is an assistant professor in theDepartment of Sport Management at SyracuseUniversity. Her research interests centre on sportsconsumer behaviour and gender issues in sport.

Dr Janet S. Fink is an associate professor at theUniversity of Connecticut. Her research interestsinclude diversity issues in sport, sports consumerbehaviour and the impact of sports media on thesetwo areas. She is a NASSM Research Fellow and wasawarded Ohio State University’s DistinguishedTeaching Award.

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The inevitability of scandal: lessons for sponsorsand administrators

Keywordsscandal sponsorship rugby league

Executive summary

The scandalous behaviour of sports people is beingincreasingly reported by a media that seekssensational copy to sell its product. Sport itself hasshifted from amateur ideals and reportage to a full-blown commercial enterprise. This commodification ofsport is a result of several inter-related processes.First, sports administrators and owners realised theyhad a marketable product – and aggressively soughtsupport. Second, the style of media reporting haschanged, from the old ‘buddy’ system, in which thereporter agreed to stay quiet in return for access, to a

reporting culture that seeks out scandal to sell copy.Coupled with this changed relationship is the shiftin technology that allows for immediate reporting ofbehaviour by anyone equipped with a phone andinternet. Thus the increased scrutiny, coupled with a need to report behaviour, has resulted in a significantincrease in the exposure and discussion of scandal in sport.

Further, the process of media interest coupled withthe construction of marketed stars, for the purpose ofselling products, inevitably leads to a focus on

Abstract

Why has the reporting of scandal in sport beenincreasing? This paper focuses on thecommercialisation of sport and changes in the medialandscape. A case study of the Australian RugbyLeague competition and its long-running series ofscandals concludes that scandal is inevitable in sport,and that marketing strategies must incorporate this.The authors propose a new strategy – embracement –as an effective way of mitigating scandal andleveraging for sponsor market position.

James M. ConnorLecturer, School of Business, University of New South Wales at AustralianDefence Force Academy, Northcott Drive, Canberra ACT, Australia 2600Tel: +61 2 62688799Fax: +61 2 62688450Email: [email protected]

Jason MazanovSenior Lecturer, School of Business, University of New South Wales atAustralian Defence Force

Peer reviewed

11.3 Paper 3 Managing Scandal 212-220 KT2 7/4/10 22:31 Page 212


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behaviour. The use of sports people as role modelsand ‘heroes’, especially within marketing, allows foreasy critique of any behaviour that does not live up toan idealised image. Problematically, cases of poorbehaviour are inevitable given that sports peopleoperate within a totalising social space, a club orteam, where bonding rituals push the boundaries ofacceptable behaviour. The nature of high-profilecompetitive sports such as the football codes is suchthat they offer varied yet extreme rewards with littletime commitment to young men at the ‘peak’ of poorsocial behaviour.

The Australian National Rugby League (NRL)competition offers an illuminating case study of the reporting of continuous, damaging scandal. In2009 the NRL experienced one of the worst seasonson record for player, coach, club and official poorbehaviour. However, they did not lose any sponsors.They maintained their sponsorship levels for tworeasons: first, by the successful employment ofabatement strategies such as education and diversion;and second, through offering alcohol sponsors a legaladvertising outlet in an otherwise tightly restrictedbroadcast environment. The irony is that many of thescandals are directly or indirectly related to theexcessive consumption of the very product beingmarketed.

A number of lessons can be drawn from the casestudy. First, some strategies to mitigate scandal,especially ‘panacea’ options like education, only offershort-term reprieve and can end up further damaginga sport when another scandal occurs. Second, somesports have unique marketing opportunities because oflegislative loopholes or specific permissions; sportsand sponsors can and should take advantage of these.Third, we offer a new sponsor strategy – that of‘embracement’ – which acknowledges the inevitabilityof scandal occurring within and around sports. Savvysponsors should take advantage of the possibilitiesscandal can offer, especially around brand image(where ‘tough’ or ‘rebellious’ might be brand attributesthey seek) or around the possibility of their product‘fixing’ or ameliorating a scandal.

Introduction

Sport and scandal have, it seems, become synonymous,and this poses a significant problem for sponsorsattempting to promote their wares. The essence of sportssponsorship for the sponsor is the attachment of theirbrand to a successful team/player/competition to draw apositive emotional response from that connection. Thedrawing of meaning and emotion from the relationship,to create a synergy between sponsor and sponsee, iscritical for gaining a return on investment. However,sponsorship is inherently risky, as the sponsor cannotcontrol the actions of the players, administrators andfans. While the literature tends to focus on ameliorationstrategies (Benoit, 1997; Bruce & Tini, 2008; Wilson etal, 2008), this paper takes a different view and exploreshow scandal can be useful for the sponsor and whyother factors may keep a sponsor aligned with a sport inspite of ongoing scandal. We seek to address thequestion of why it is so rare for a sponsor to walk awayfrom a marketing agreement.

We explore the question of sponsor resilience by firstexplaining the inevitability of scandal in sport. Thisallows for a re-framing of ‘scandal’ not as an aberrantevent but as a predictable, foreseeable and unavoidableoutcome of sport today. The case study of theAustralasian rugby league competition, the NationalRugby League (NRL), illustrates the continuingconnection between scandal and sport and demonstratesseveral management strategies – denial, apology andeducation. The NRL and its sponsors’ actions illustratetwo lessons for sponsorship in sport. First, that somesponsors, in particular brewers and distillers, createrelationships with sport because this offers a way ofavoiding regulations and advertising laws – much as thetobacco industry did historically (Lavack, 2003).However, this situation is being opposed aggressively bysome lobby groups and sections of media andgovernment, indicating a limited use in future. Second, anew strategy – that of embracement – should beconsidered, in which a sponsor takes advantage of thepredictability of scandal and makes use of it for brandformation and advertising.

The inevitability of scandal



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Sport and controversy

The profound and rapid change in sport over the lastthree decades has both invigorated and challengedsports administrators, players, the media and sportsfans. Sport has shifted from amateurish ideals (invarying degrees and at varying speeds over the pastcentury) to become ‘corporatised’ and ‘mediatised’.Dimitrov (2008, p.91) notes that during the 1980s“three entwined processes – privatisation,professionalisation and mediatisation – changed thefoundations of football in Australia”. The process ofmedia interest, coupled with the construction ofmarketed stars for the purpose of selling products, hasinevitably led to a focus on behaviour. The effects ofthis ‘commodification’ of sport are well established,especially in relation to the value of sports marketingto commercial firms and also in the inherent dangersof such a move, including corruption and exploitation(e.g. Whannel, 1992; Hughson et al, 2005;Giulianotti, 2005; L’Etang, 2006; Horne, 2006).Moral and ethical questions aside, what is of note forour argument is that this synergy is crucial tounderstanding the inevitability of scandal and sport.Players are now part of a media complex thatscrutinises their activities; they are feted as heroes andstars worthy of adoration and, hence, more in-depthexamination; at the same time, they have a surfeit oftime and money at a time in life when they areparticularly vulnerable to deviant behaviour. These arethe preconditions that lead, inevitably, to scandal.

This increase in scrutiny is accounted for by anumber of factors. First, new communication formsallow for the capture and reporting of events thatwould previously have remained unknown. Theprofusion of camera and video phones, instantmessaging and social networking (services such asFacebook and Twitter) all contribute to this greaterscrutiny. Walter (2004) noted as far back as 2004that “in an era of text messages and emails, someplayers still struggle to understand the potential for anybad behaviour to leak out on a massive scale”. NRLplayer Brett Seymour was suspended for two matches

because mobile phone footage appeared of himwandering drunkenly outside a nightclub andcollapsing (Walter, 2009). Second, the symbioticrelationship between journalists and sports has brokendown, and the code of silence – ‘what goes on on tourstays on tour’ – no longer applies. Third, increasingcompetition in the media marketplace has pushededitors and sports writers to focus upon the ‘bad’deeds as a way of selling copy. McCleneghan (2006)in a study of newspaper sports writers notes that theyno longer write descriptions of sporting deeds, butwrite about the controversy attached to sportingendeavour.

As Plate (cited in Silverman, 1999) notes, “what haschanged, at least it seems to me, is the omnipresenceof the technological mass media. What used to bewhispered or spread through word-of-mouth is nowavailable instantaneously to millions of people”. Fourth,the emergent immediacy of new information-sharingtechnologies fosters immediate reporting. Finally, with ashift from paid, accredited sources relaying events to asituation where unpaid, blogging and tweetingjournalists (and non-journalists) are reporting, thecontrol that administrators once had is eroding. Sportsstars are increasingly scrutinised and it has becomemuch harder to hide transgressions; increasingly,anything that is captured will also be reported.

The construction of sports women and men as role-models, heroes and brand icons inevitably leads toclose scrutiny of their behaviour. The sports starsthemselves realise that they have become marketablecommodities and seek such exposure, just as sponsorsrealise the role for the attraction to the sporting hero inbrand uptake and meaning construction (Shuart,2007; Charbonneau & Garland, 2006). This ischallenged by some who attempt to resist suchcharacterisation, such as US basketball professionalCharles Barkley’s famous 1993 Nike advert were heclaimed: “I am not a role-model. I am not paid to be arole-model”. Of course the clever re-appropriation ofthese ideas within an advert demonstrates that he isindeed a powerful brand model. Nike’s re-appropriation of meaning highlights the mixed



message and contested codes that the concept of ‘role-model’ implies. As Smith and Hattery (2006, p.215)note, “many of the same athletes whose images areused to send messages via their corporate sponsorsbehave in ways diametrically opposed to thosemessages, on the playing fields and off”. The role-model concept, which embodies close scrutiny of theathlete, allows the fan and viewer to gaze intimately atthe actions of the sports star. This is in turn fed by theshift in media representations and by the actions ofstars themselves.

High-profile competitive sports such as the footballcodes offer varied yet extreme rewards with little timecommitment to young men at the peak of poor socialbehaviour. For example, men aged 20-24 are chargedwith public order, drug and dangerous acts offences ata higher rate than any other age group (Roach &Sharyn, 2006). Elite sport is an accuraterepresentation of Goffman’s (1961) total institutionconcept, where individuals are subsumed within anall-encompassing social structure that limits theirexpression and tightly controls their actions. The effectof a total institution is to remove individual agencyfrom the actor and leave them beholden to socialprocesses of control. Athletes within this system havetheir behaviour governed by group norms embeddedwithin the social structure around them. As Anderson(2009, p.8) notes, “sport approximates a ‘near-total’institution”. What this means in the context ofscandalous behaviour is that it is well documentedthat athletes and sporting teams conduct themselvesin particular ways that pre-dispose them to scandal,especially when it comes to ‘team-bonding’behaviours, substance-fuelled celebrations andaggressive masculinity. Davis (2008, p.98) arguesthat “money, not enough mentors and grappling withlife in the spotlight is the cocktail threatening thecareers of young footballers”. While no excuse forindividual behaviour, the social circumstance of sportcreates and fosters an environment where scandalousactivity appears to be inevitable.

Case study: Australian NRL

The purpose of this case study is to take a high-profilesport that has had a series of scandals and assesssome of the responses from the players, clubs,administration, sponsors and government. This forayinto scandal management illustrates several strategies,including denial, apology and education programmes.The NRL also has a special relationship with alcoholsponsors by virtue of government advertisingregulations.

The Australasian NRL competition comprises 16teams from Australia and New Zealand. Thecompetition traces its lineage back to 1908, despiteseveral challenges from other codes and breakaway ortakeover attempts, including the Superleaguecontroversy of the late 1990s (Connor, 2008). TheNRL receives around AU$100 million per year inbroadcasting rights. Merchandise revenues wereapproximately AU$113 million in 2007, with AU$8.5million going to the clubs in royalties (NRL, 2008).The principle sponsor of the NRL, an Australiantelecommunications company, is estimated to payaround AU$12 million annually for ‘official sponsor’rights (Wall, 2009). Alcohol company sponsorship isworth at least AU$15 million to the NRL (Wall,2009). In the Australian context, the NRL is third insponsorship revenue, behind Australian Rules Football(AFL) and cricket. The revenue is small in terms ofglobal sports sponsorship and marketing, but thisreflects Australia’s market size.

Rugby league in Australia is synonymous with theidealised working class values of ‘mateship’ anddrinking, tied to a misogynist world view encapsulatedby the constructs of masculinity (Schacht, 1996).These value systems permeate club, player and fancultures to such an extent that particular behaviourshave become normalised (Anderson, 2008) and haveonly come under sustained criticism in the pastdecade as the rising toll of indiscretions andincidences of obnoxious behaviour has been playedout in an increasingly hostile media. The chiefexecutive of the NRL, David Gallop, noted that “the


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game’s stakeholders are tired of seeing the game inthe headlines because of incidents involving playersand alcohol” (Walter, 2009). The shift in mediarepresentations of player behaviour is a key aspect ofthis article. We do not suggest that the behaviours ofplayers are in any way novel; indeed, what evidencethere is suggests that poor player behaviour hasalways been part of the sport (Heads, 2004). What isnovel is the change in media and, hence fan, sponsor,commentator and government scrutiny.

It is beyond the scope of this article to catalogue thenumber, type and reporting of all the scandals thathave embroiled the NRL in the past decade. AsHoneysett (2006) notes, “since the NRL formed in1998, there have been more than enough alcohol-related incidents to fill a book. Unfortunately it is abook that is getting more tedious by the year” – andthis was three years ago at preparation of this paper,with no slowing in the rate. It is sufficient for ourargument to establish that scandal is ubiquitous. Thefollowing snapshot of newspaper headlinesdemonstrates the NRL’s problem with playerbehaviour:

‘Skipper called lout in latest league scandal’(Ritchie, 1999)

‘League: NSW Origin camp scandal deepens’(Harvey, 2004)

‘Police visit Bulldogs homes over rape case’(Kogoy, 2004)

‘League star grope claim’ (Kogoy & Ong, 2005)

‘Sexual scandals won’t go away – team ofdetectives probe Bathurst complaint’ (Kogoy & Honeysett, 2005)

‘League drowning in an ocean of booze’ (Sunday Telegraph, 2007)

In the first half of 2009 four separate incidentsresulted in suspensions and/or fines for the players(s)involved. This series of crises (some new, othersemerging from the past) prompted the NRL chiefexecutive to comment in relation to sponsorship: “Ourclubs and our players are acutely aware that this kindof issue damages those commercial relationships…Our sponsors accept that from time to time the gamewill have to deal with off-field behaviour but they wantto see that dealt with appropriately” (Honeysett,2009). To date, the NRL response has been to slowlyincrease the penalties it applies to both individualsand clubs. These include fines for clubs and fines,suspensions or cancellation of contracts for players.

Sponsors have repeatedly asked the NRL and itsclubs to address the poor image of the game.McCarthy (2005), reporting on a scandal in 2005,noted: “A potential major sponsor made it plain thatbusiness is fed up with bad boy league antics, servingthe club with a notice asking it to ‘show cause’ whysticking with the Knights [an NRL club] was such agood idea.” Honeysett (2009) notes: “While a scandalhas not cost the game a major backer yet, there is afear the game cannot keep taking hits and it is only amatter of time before someone withdraws theirsupport.” Unreserved apologies from the NRL, asissued by their chief executive in response to another2009 crisis, merely indicate that the NRL has failed toheed the consistent warnings about conduct and theeffect (Walter & Jackson, 2009).

These containment strategies are merely fingers in arapidly collapsing dyke. The media, government andfans have become increasingly unsatisfied by thisresponse and the lack of effect it appears to have hadon player behaviour. For example, the continuingincidences of sexual assault allegations againstfootballers in Australia has led to the formation of fanadvocacy groups at grassroots level, including Footballfans against sexual assault (Dimitrov, 2008). In 2004a series of sexual misconduct cases led the NRL torespond with a new player education strategydesigned to inform players how they should behavearound women. The NRL employed an Australian


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academic, Professor Catharine Lumby, prominent forher comments in the media on sex and women, toinvestigate the culture of the league and suggest waysto make players more aware of issues around sex andbehaviour. This project and report, Playing by theRules, was completed but has never been released bythe NRL. An education strategy was part of thisinitiative but has been heavily criticised.

As Dann (2005, p. 17) notes: “... using educationhas its place in increasing knowledge about an issuewhere there is an existing lack of knowledge. Do weassume the average sportsman needs to be briefed onthe law related to murder, bank robbery or road safety?No, but we assume people who mostly treat theirmothers, sisters, aunties or wives with respect requireregular briefings on how to deal with women.”

While the ‘education’ answer has been constantlylauded by the NRL as a panacea, the field results ofthe experiment seem to confirm it as a failure – giventhat there has been no diminution of sexual scandalssince 2004. The real lesson is that as a media andsponsor management strategy, the education responseworks well in the short term but offers increased riskof scrutiny and adverse commentary in the mediumterm if the results are not clear. Further, our argumentis that scandal is inevitable, hence the surety ofadverse commentary on strategies like education whenthey are seen to publicly ‘fail’.

The NRL’s responses – ignore the problem, set upan education programme, increase sanctions andapologise profusely – are limited in their effectivenessin controlling the potential damage to their image. Theone moderately successful response from within theNRL was the use of diversion by the CanterburyBankstown club (taking advantage of fan commitmentto mitigate threat; Bruce & Tini, 2008).This particularscandal was also quite specific – involving the loss ofcompetition points for a team because of rulesbreaches – but the hydra-like reappearance of scandalpoints to the need for the NRL and like organisationsto embrace alternate risk management and sponsorengagement strategies to both change cultural valuesand embrace the inevitability of scandal.

Lessons for sponsors and administrators

Given our argument that poor player behaviour isinevitable in modern mediatised sport, the problemshould be re-framed not as ‘prevention’ of poorbehaviour but as management of the likelihood of badbehaviour and control for the consequences. Therehave been a number of attempts to categorise thevarious management strategies available, such asBenoit’s (1997) image restoration theory – denial,evading responsibility, minimising the offensiveness,corrective action and mortification – which offers anumber of possibilities. Wilson et al (2008, pp.103-104) provide an insightful study and commentary onhow to manage the public relations of sport andsponsorship, and suggest that “strategic selection ofsponsors, the management of sponsor expectations,effective communication strategies, transgressionprevention, media management and environmentscanning” are crucial (see also Westburg et al, 2008).Given the contributions already available in theliterature on scandal management, this paper focuseson several lessons that are less explored.

What is not often acknowledged in the debatesaround sponsorship and scandal is that there are ahost of reasons for some sponsors to stay involved in aparticular relationship, even in the face of scandal andperhaps to even build a sponsorship strategy thataccepts and uses controversy. Further, some sponsorsalso derive secondary benefits from a particularassociation that goes beyond traditional naming rights.We wish to explore two reasons for the continuedinvolvement of sponsors: regulation or rule avoidance,and branding.

Regulation/rule avoidanceThere are strict regulations around the globe thatrestrict when and how particular products can bemarketed. This is the case in Australia in relation toalcohol sponsorship and advertising. Alcoholadvertising is restricted on Australian television by theCommercial Television Industry Code of Practice (FreeTV Australia, 2008) and can only be shown during ‘M’



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rated (mature audience) programming, which inpractice means after 8.30 in the evening. However, aclause permits alcohol advertising during live sportbroadcasts at weekends and on public holidays at anytime (clause 6.7.2). Through sponsorship of sport,alcohol advertisers thus have a unique opportunity topush their products to audiences to which theynormally have limited access. When this is combinedwith sponsorship of sporting teams, the impact isenhanced by matching advertisements with the on-field sports, creating a synergistic marketing effect.Alcohol companies are quick to claim that they are nottargeting young people with this strategy, and theypoint to a voluntary industry code that prohibits this(the Alcohol Beverages Advertising Code, AdvertisingFederation of Australia, 2004). This has beenquestioned repeatedly in academic and popularliterature as well as by governments (King et al,2005). The secondary benefit associated with thespecial rules around sports advertising allows asponsor to overlook scandal to retain this advantage.The lesson here is that alcohol companies need toeffectively engage lobbying strategies and maintain atleast a semblance of positive coverage in the widermedia regarding their sponsorship and advertisingactivities or risk losing this option.

Combining the sport and sporting star with theproduct is the traditional marketing strategy of sportssponsorship. For alcohol sponsors, the scandal threatappears when too much of their product is ‘endorsed’by players and the results become problematic. Thishas progressed to such a point in the NRL thatrepeated calls for a drinking ban on players have beenmade. As far back as 1999 the possibility of banningalcohol consumption was raised (Lazarus & Stevens,1999) and this call has been renewed by the spate ofrecent scandals, to the point that one club is seriouslyconsidering a ban (Proszenko, 2009). It is notunheard of in the Australian sporting context to havealcohol banned. Australian swimming’s head coach inthe 1990s, Don Talbot, successfully introduced such aban (Heads, 2004). However, alcohol companieswere never a major sponsor of Australian swimming.

BrandingIn some ways it is beneficial to companies to beassociated with certain boundary-pushing behavioursthat also support core product messages andmeanings. If we wanted to market a beer as ‘rugged,manly and tough’ then having sportsmen who fit thatmould consuming it, even to excess, helps maintainthe message. This appears to be the re-brandingstrategy that Carlton and United Breweries isemploying with their VB beer product. It becomeseven stronger if ‘rebel’ is a meaning we seek toassociate with the product. A distinct opportunityexists here for savvy marketing strategies that seek toexploit a scandal and its associated ‘bad boy’ imagery.(For an analysis of the complex messages sports starsoffer, see Burton et al, 2000.) This may be aparticularly fruitful strategy for the NRL, given the‘hard-man’ image it likes to portray (Bruce & Tini,2008, p.109).

To the authors’ knowledge, no brand image hasbeen constructed in sport that takes advantage of theinevitability of scandals occurring. Perhaps thisembracement strategy could employ a ‘we’ll fix it’message. Insurance would be an obvious candidate,except for the industry’s reluctance to market in anyway that is not staid. The popular confectioneryMinties ran a similar message with their Moments likethese campaign – highlighting the need for a sweetreprieve from troublesome events. There is certainlyscope for savvy marketing strategies to use theinevitability of scandal to push a brand message.

Conclusion

Sport and sports people are under increasing scrutinyas a result of the Faustian bargain that has been madebetween sports administrators and owners wantingmore media coverage and exposure and the push fornews reporting to become sensationalised. Thisprocess of commercialisation, coupled with intensescrutiny, has resulted in scandalous behaviour beingincreasingly reported. Our position is that sports



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marketers must now consider scandal to be inevitableand manage their relationships accordingly. Theexperience of the Australian NRL competition isillustrative of how continuing scandals can threatenthe viability of sports when incorrectly managed.However, some sports can take advantage ofregulatory frameworks that encourage certainmarketing agreements. This is the case in Australiawith television advertising and alcohol. Finally, giventhat scandal is inevitable, more consideration shouldbe given to the strategy of embracement. Takingadvantage of scandal to frame the messages around aproduct, image and brand means that sponsors arenot under threat from scandal but actually takeadvantage of it. This particular strategy needs to befield-tested with a brand whose marketers and ownersare brave enough.


Biographies

James Connor is a lecturer in the School of Business,UNSW@ADFA and is a sociologist specialising insport and emotion-based decision making. He hasresearched and written extensively on sport, includingon doping in the British Journal of Sports Medicine.His work on how emotion guides social actionincludes The Sociology of Loyalty (Springer, 2007).

Jason Mazanov is a senior lecturer in the School ofBusiness, UNSW@ADFA. His research interestsinclude the social science and management ofperformance-enhancing technology in sport, with afocus on drug use in sport.

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A critical mass of corruption: why some footballleagues have more match-fixing than others

Keywordsfootballcorruptionorganised crimegamblingmatch-fixingrelative exploitation

Executive summary

This paper is about match-fixing in football. Itexamines two questions: Why do some leagues havemore match-fixing than other leagues? and Why dosome leagues collapse because of high levels ofmatch-fixing but other leagues that are equally corruptmanage to continue without loss of either sponsorshipor public support?

The subject of corruption in sport and its link tosponsorship has long been ignored. It should not be.Some of the football leagues that I examine in this

paper have lost hundreds of millions of dollars insponsorship money because of corruption.

The data for this paper were gathered in two ways:qualitative, in interviews with more than 220individuals; and quantitative, through construction of aseries of databases of fixed and non-fixed matches,corrupt and non-corrupt players, in order to determinegeneral trends.

Three factors are involved in widespread corruption:the players are paid badly, they perceive that their

Abstract

This paper examines what drives match-fixing infootball and why some leagues collapse fromcorruption. Based on more than 220 interviews withplayers, referees, sports officials and law enforcementofficers, the gambling industry and corrupters, threefactors presented when high levels of match-fixing wereobserved: strong illegal gambling networks, high levelsof relative exploitation of players, and perceived corruptofficials. Leagues collapsed if the public became awareof high-level corruption and an alternative marketcompetitor was introduced.

Declan Hill Department of Sociology, University of OxfordOxford, [email protected]

Peer reviewed


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bosses – the league or team officials – are corrupt,and there are large networks of illegal gambling. Ineffect, players are paid badly to do their jobs well, butthere is an alternative market that is willing to paythem very well, to do their jobs badly.

The concept of an alternative market is important inthe question of why some leagues collapse. It is notthat they are highly corrupt: it is that the public knowsthe league is highly corrupt and there is an alternative,non-corrupt sports league that can draw fans andsponsors away from the highly corrupt league.

Introduction

On 2 October 2004, Yang Zuwu, the manager of theChinese team Beijing Hyundai, did something odd. Inthe 85th minute of the game against the provincialteam Shenyang Jinde, he ordered his team to walk offthe pitch. He then stood outside the dressing roomdoor and announced that his team was not onlyrefusing to take part in the rest of the match, but alsorefusing to take part in any more matches in theChinese Super League (CSL). Beijing Hyundai,sponsored by the Korean car company, was one of therichest teams in the league, and several other teamsfollowed its lead, pulling out of the league and causingthe CSL to effectively collapse (Blatter, 2008;China.org.cn by Shao Da, 31 October 2004; SO10).Yang Zuwu and the other protesters were infuriatedbecause in less than five months the league hadproven to be rife with corruption and match-fixing(SO10; Watts, 2004; Gidney, 2007). The bribing ofreferees, players and teams had, they claimed,become so widespread and so blatant, that it wasimpossible to play honestly in the league.

The collapse of the CSL follows a trend acrosssouth-east Asia. In the past 15 years the footballleagues of Singapore, Malaysia, Thailand, Vietnamand Indonesia have all effectively collapsed due tomatch-fixing (SO10; Blatter, 2008; Jakarta Post,1998; Agence France Presse, 2004).

The effect of corruption on sponsorship has been

ignored in sport. It should not be. In the words of onetennis executive, match-fixing “is the ultimate threat tothe credibility of the sport” (SO 8). Once credibility isgone, the sponsors pull out. The collapse of the CSLand other Asian football leagues because of corruptionamong the players and referees was accompanied bya loss in corporate sponsorship of hundreds of millionsof dollars (SO 1-4, 9, 10). It has taken Chinesefootball years to recover, and many of the corruptedleagues have never been able to regain either the fansupport or sufficient sponsorship money.

This paper analyses two questions: what are thesocial mechanisms that lead to high corruption insidesome leagues but not in others, and what does‘collapse’ mean and what factors lead to a sportsleague losing its credibility and sponsorship money?

I argue throughout the paper that widespread matchcorruption is not a cultural phenomenon: Chinese,Singaporeans and Asians in general are no morewilling to take bribes for ethnic or cultural reasonsthan any other group. I find that the data indicatesthat when similar conditions exist in a football leaguein a different country with a different culturalbackground – England in the 1950s, players alsoengaged in match-fixing. I argue that it is theintroduction of new market alternatives, combinedwith situations of relative deprivation and expectationsof corruption, that lead to high levels of corruption andthe eventual collapse of the leagues.

Methodology

Much of the primary research for this paper wasconducted in Asia, particularly Malaysia andSingapore, because both countries have had a longhistory of match-fixing. The latest example of footballfixing began in the late 1980s. In 1989 the FootballAssociation of Malaysia (FAM) and the SingaporeFootball Association founded a joint professionalleague. There were 16 teams, composed of 14Malaysian state teams and two teams from theneighbouring countries of Brunei and Singapore

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(Seneviratne 2000, p.108). The league enjoyedconsiderable financial support for infrastructure fromboth the Malaysian and the Singaporean governments.The two federal governments helped build modernstadia (Williams, 1998, p.115). Dunhill Tobacco andother private companies also sponsored the league(Seneviratne 2000, p.104). A well endorsed televisioncontract ensured that the M-league was broadcastnationally with a potential viewing audience in themillions (Mony, 1998). Teams were allowed to importforeign stars to improve the quality of the play. Theleague became so popular that some matchesattracted more than 50,000 people to the stadium(Seneviratne, 2000).

The M-league became “a complete disaster” (R1,SO1). In 1993 Malaysian journalists wrote a series ofnewspapers articles alleging that the league was hometo widespread match-fixing. Purportedly the fixes werearranged by a series of Singapore-based corrupters(Fernandez 1993; LE5). Fans began to complainloudly during the games that the results were Kelungor fixed (SO10).

In the summer of 1994 a police investigationbegan. It is a source of some controversy as to whichcountry launched the official investigation. TheMalaysian authorities claimed that they had initiatedthe crackdown (SO1 & SO5), while the Singaporeanadministration claimed that it was their CorruptPractices Investigation Bureau (CPIB) that had startedthe investigation (LE5: Williams, 1998, p.111).However, once the separate police actions had begun,they became “the most professional and organisedinvestigation into match-fixing in the history of thegame” (Williams 1998, p.112). Police forces in bothcountries arrested more than 150 players, coachesand officials from the league. During the course of theinvestigation the Royal Malaysian Police publiclyannounced an estimated 90% of the games in theleague had been fixed (Williams 1998, p.115). Therewere also a series of high-profile trials of match-fixingplayers and referees in Singapore (Abbas versusSingapore PP; Rajmanickam versus Singapore PP;Manat versus Singapore PP; Kanan et al versus

Singapore PP; Maran versus Singapore PP). Thecontroversy between the two countries became sogreat that the FAM expelled the Singaporeans from theleague, which effectively collapsed in 1995. Therewere even wider diplomatic problems, with theSingaporean and Malaysian governments exchangingangry words about the collapse of the league (SO 1).

Much of the data were collected in Malaysia andSingapore, through a combination of qualitative andquantitative methods. The qualitative work relies, inpart, on interviews with players, referees, sportsofficials and corrupters who have experience in fixingmatches. Most of the interview subjects reported thatthe topic of match-fixing in football was immenselycontroversial and that they feared recriminations fromeither the corrupters or the authorities if they spokeout. Because of the controversial nature of the subject,almost all of the interviews are ‘off the record’. Inparticular, people who are still serving in the gameemphasised that if they were to be quoted, eitherpublicly or in such a way as to allow people to guesstheir identity, they would lose their job or possibly facemore severe consequences. Accordingly, the interviewsubjects, in this paper are identified by their professionin the following fashion: Players (P); Referees (R);Sports Officials (SO); Journalists (J); Law Enforcement(LE); and Corrupters (COR).

Some of the evidence used in the article is from theFixed-Match Database (FMDB). I constructed theFMDB by finding in newspaper articles, interviews orfrom court and police files examples of fixed matches.The database, currently comprises 301 fixed matchesin 60 different countries and 55 different leagues orcup games. The FMDB consists of 39 variables. There are 11 general informationvariables (date of match, name of team, league etc), 22 categorical variables (things like ‘Was organisedcrime involved in the fix?’, ‘ Was the home teamfixing?’), two continuous variables (e.g. total number ofgoals scored in the game) and four ordinal variables(e.g. degree of certainty of the fix).

There were a number of important challenges toovercome in the construction of the FMDB. The most




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important of these was how did one know that agame had actually been fixed? After all, almost everySaturday there was some complaint from an outragedmanager or a disgruntled fan that their team had onlylost because someone, somewhere had been ‘got at’.So it was necessary to be clear about how certain itwas that the game had actually been fixed.Accordingly, I developed a variable ‘degree of certaintyof fix. The first, and highest, degree of certainty was ifthe game had been declared fixed in court or somelegal proceedings. The next degree was if a footballassociation hearing had declared it fixed. The thirdwas if a number of people who had activelyparticipated in the fix confessed to the fix. The fourthwas if there had been a law case or policeinvestigation that had been suspended or notcontinued. The fifth was if an inside participant in thegame, say the other team or an honest referee, hadalleged that other parties were fixing. The final level,with least certainty, consisted of games that werealleged to have been fixed by a source that I did notconsider particularly reliable.

Because of the lack of reliability of the fixes in thebottom three levels of this variable, I developed asecond database, the Fixed-Match Database 2(FMDB-2), which included only the games that had adegree of certainty of level 3 and above. For eachgame, I found at least two match reports: a statisticalone, listing times of goals, number of yellow/red cardsand substitutions; and an anecdotal report, listing anypossible missed penalties or own goals that thestatistical report may have missed. Any game forwhich these reports could not be found was excludedfrom the database (88 games in all), so there are 137 games in the FMDB-2 database.

The second challenge was to ensure that there wasa control group built into the database. Becausefootball games vary so greatly in terms of culture, styleand era (there are fewer goals scored in the Spanishleague than in the Italian league and, generally, fewergoals scored in contemporary games than in matches50 years ago), the games in this database were thenmatched with games from a control group of

purportedly honestly played games of an equivalentculture, playing style and era. For example, in FMDB-2 there are 12 games from the German leaguein 1971 that were fixed. To match these games, I randomly selected 12 games from the presumedhonest Norwegian league of the same year. I did thisfor the games, and found match reports – bothstatistical and anecdotal – for these games. FMDB-2consists of 137 fixed matches and 130 controlmatches.

I also used another database as a ‘control group ofthe control groups’. This control group consists of fiveEuropean leagues – England, Scotland, France,Germany and Holland – from the 2005-06 season. Icontrasted the variables from this second control groupwith those in the other groups to ensure that thestatistical patterns did actually represent a significanttrend in the data.

There are two important limitations to the database.First, I am in no way implying that all the fixes thatmay have occurred in a league are represented in thedatabase. Because match-fixing is a covert activity, itis not always apparent when it has occurred. Second,because not all corrupt activity is shown, I cannotmake comparisons on the rates of match-fixingbetween various leagues.

A number of academics, using mostly quantitativemethods, have explored match corruption in sport.Most famously Levitt and Duggan (2002) examinedcollusion in Sumo wrestling, but there have also beenpapers by Taylor and Trogdon (2002), Wolfer (2006)and Nye and Moul (2006). Two other economists, IanPreston and Stefan Szymanski, used police reports towrite on match-fixing in cricket (2003), and Boeri andSevergnini (2008) wrote specifically on match-fixing infootball in their exploration of the importance of mediaperception in the Italian Calciopoli scandal. Althoughthe work of some of these commentators is notspecifically cited in this paper, all of their work washelpful in the framing of the research.

Before beginning the exploration of widespreadmatch-fixing, two definitions are needed: ‘highlycorrupt’ leagues and ‘collapsed’ leagues.



Leagues that I define as ‘highly corrupt’ have thefollowing characteristics:

l divisional championship and relegationcompetitions that were influenced by bribery

l regular illegal gambling and match-fixing thatoccurred throughout the season

l a nexus between gambling corrupters and internalcorrupters that led to an institutional paralysis.

A ‘collapsed’ league is:

l a league where there is a widespread publicperception that the sport is not a competition, buteffectively a theatrical exercise

l this public perception is marked by a significant(over 40%) decline in attendance, an equally largeloss in private sponsorship money and a reorderingof the administration of the league.

Why some leagues and not others?

The answer to this question is not simply ageneralised cultural and societal acceptance ofcorruption. If it were so, measuring corruption infootball leagues would only be a question of looking attheir countries’ ranking in the Corruption PerceptionIndex (CPI) (see Lambsdorff, 2007, p.20-26 for moreon CPI). As countries declined in their levels ofperceived honesty and transparency, so their footballleagues would become more corrupt. However, thecase study of Singapore and Malaysia shows that amore detailed analysis is needed.

These two countries are geographically contiguousbut their cultures are vastly different. Malaysia is anIslamic democracy, Singapore an almost aggressivelyagnostic state. The per capita GDP of Singapore isapproximately three times higher than its neighbour.Malaysia has a series of royal families and a crownedmonarchy. Singapore has no titled aristocracy and itshead of state is a president. More pertinently, in the2006 CPI ranking, Singapore’s position was 5; only

Finland and three other countries have a higherranking for honesty in the world. Malaysia, on theother hand, is ranked 44th in the anti-corruptionleague, roughly equivalent to Italy and belowBotswana and Jordan (CPI 2006). However, the twocountries do share a similarity: their shared footballleague collapsed due to match-fixing and both leaguesare still generally assumed to be full of corruption(SO8; SO1). What then are the common features ofleagues that allow corruption to flourish?

For a precise response to this question, examinationof another football league is useful. This league usedto have high levels of fixed matches but now there arecomparatively few. The country also has a relativelyhigh standing in perceived honesty: England.

In the popular literature, there are few books onfootball that mention match-fixing. In general, thegame is portrayed as a noble pastime, free from thepettiness and spite of everyday life. This idealisation isparticularly true of books on English football in the1940s and 50s. For example, the National Museumof Football in Preston refers to this time as “the GoldenEra” in its publications, and James Bartholomew(2005), in his book on the general decline of Englishsociety, even wrote a chapter lionising this “goldenera”. He writes that football of that time was a halcyonsport played by gentlemen like Stanley Matthews, whoenjoyed a tough, clean game, but now the game isplayed by teams of cheating thugs.

The primary sources indicate that this view, at leastof the English game in the 1950s, is simply a myth.Harry Gregg, one of the interview subjects who playedfor Manchester United during this era, replied whenasked of Bartholomew’s views: “I don’t know whatsport he is talking about, but it certainly wasn’t theone that I played.”

Ken Chisholm, Trevor Ford, Brian Clough and HarryGregg were all prominent internationals of that era andeach represented one of the ‘Home Countries’:Scotland, Wales, England and Northern Ireland. Eachplayed in the English first and second divisions; andeach would write of the match-fixing that occurred. Allwould claim that match-fixing was relatively common.


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Here is an excerpt from the writings of Ken Chisholm,describing a fixed match he participated in betweenLeicester City and Cardiff in 1953:

Before people get hot under the collar this kind of‘arrangement’ was commonplace [emphasis added]towards the end of every season in those days,and I know of many similar cases where pointswere given away to save clubs who commandedgood support from being relegated, and also to getpromotion… (Quoted in Inglis, 1985).

Clough and Gregg also wrote of the gambling match-fixing that was going on in their own prominent firstdivision clubs. Gregg’s case is perhaps more surprisingas he played for Manchester United, who were then,and still are, the richest and most popular club inEngland. Their testimonies are not exceptions. Ian St. John, another Scottish international, wrote ofhis own match-fixing in the Scottish League (St. John,2006, p.62-65). P3, an interview subject who alsoplayed in England in the 1950s, said:

I played in the UK for XXX and YYY. In those daysmatch-fixing was very obvious. It was easy to calla manager to arrange a match. In those days itwas very obvious (P3).

In the interviews and primary data, there are another26 players’ confessions from that era discussing eitherwhy they fixed matches or how they were approachedto do so. But perhaps the most convincing of thesources is one of the highest league officials of thetime, the Secretary of the English Football League,Alan Hardaker, who wrote:

There are many men in football today, amongthem respected and celebrated managers, whohave good reason to remember the great briberyscandals of the early 1960s. They were deeplyinvolved in the mess but escaped because the Law and the League could not get the evidence tonail them. Corruption was rife in the league

[emphasis added]. I received calls from directors,managers, players, bookmakers and the Pools. Thetrouble, moreover, did not stop at coupon swindles[gambling fixes]. There were club-to-clubpayments being made to swing matches affectingpromotion and relegation. I did not believe all Iheard. Much of it I guessed to be rumour orhearsay, but even if only a portion of theinformation fed to me were true, it still meant thatthere was a significant problem (Hardaker, 1977).

It is difficult to quantify how many games were fixedin England and whether they were greater or lesser innumber than in present-day Malaysia and Singapore.However, the general trends were roughly comparableto some of the contemporary Asian leagues: therewere gambling networks fixing matches throughout theseason; at the end of the season, many of thedivisional championship and relegation competitionswere affected by match-fixing, and the corrupters, bothgambling and team officials, were forming linksbetween themselves to maximise profits. Currently,English football is assumed to have far less match-fixing. What has changed?

Illegal gamblingThe first condition that leads to widespread match-corruption is the presence of illegal gamblingnetworks. SO11 grew up in 1950s England:

I remember in England in the 50s there wereillegal bookies on every street. The only way youcould make a bet legally if you lived inBirmingham was to go to the Doncaster Races. So,every street had their own gambling ring (SO11).

Wray Vamplew and Simon Inglis, in their examinationsof corruption in English football in the earlier parts ofthe last century, show that even the Pools companies(who organised a form of sports gambling regarded asrelatively benign in contemporary times) in the periodbetween the 1930s and 1960s had to print theircoupons in Holland or Belgium to get around English


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laws (Vamplew, 1988; Inglis, 1985, pp.20-30).Betting in person in a shop, now a societal norm inthe UK, was completely outlawed until 1961.

Preston and Szymanski (2003) show that thepresence of illegal gambling networks is a strongcontributory factor to match-fixing. Their theory is thatif gambling is illegal, than the people who run it willbe criminals. Professional criminals will be more likelyto turn to match-fixing than will established legitimatecompanies. This is also the view of the SingaporeFootball Association which, after the collapse of itsfootball league, campaigned for the establishment of agovernment-run sports gambling industry (SO11;Moore, 1999; Cor1; SO8). According to a number ofinterview subjects, the fact that match-fixing continuesin the Singaporean football leagues is an indicationthat the government-run company has been unable tocompete successfully with the illegal gamblingindustry (SO8; Cor2). In the other Asian countrieswhere their football leagues collapsed – China,Malaysia, Vietnam etc – sports gambling is vastlypopular but officially illegal. It is this dynamic whichgives both organised crime and match-fixing much ofits impetus. This is similar to the situation in theprohibition-era United States, when alcoholconsumption – a vastly popular pastime – wasdeclared illegal, thereby fuelling a massive rise inAmerican organised crime (Lupsha, 1986).

Relative deprivationIf 1961 signalled the beginning of widespread,publicly available, legal gambling in England, it wasalso the year of a significant legal controversy inprofessional English football, the latent function ofwhich (Merton 1967, pp.71-76) was to reduce theprevalence of match-fixing. George Eastham, a forwardplaying for Newcastle United, wanted to play for theLondon-based team Arsenal. As was then the industrynorm, his club refused to allow him to transfer. Hetook them to court and won. This legal decision wasthe beginning of the end of a system that has beencalled “legal slavery” by some commentators (Imlach2005, p.55). Not to over-simplify a long and complex

socio-economic battle that lasted from the Easthamdecision, through a threatened large-scale labouraction by the players, right up to the Bosman case inBelgium in the 1990s, but essentially, before 1961,English football players had very few employmentrights. The clubs controlled whether they played ornot. If players were injured the clubs frequently paidthem no compensation or benefits; even when acontract ended, a player was prevented from signingfor another club unless they had the permission oftheir first club; and all players – regardless ofexperience or playing ability – had a maximum wagesalary cap that determined how much they were paid.Some of the players responded to these conditions byfixing matches. Ian St. John, a footballer in the 1960sScottish First Division (whose conditions were roughlyequivalent to the English league of the time), sums upthese motivations in his description of his arranging afixed game:

The temptation for lads gleaning such meagrerewards, who despite drawing huge crowds hadno security, no chance of buying a house, wasmaybe stronger than it should have been... (but)did one match matter against the chance ofhaving a little money in the bank, the possibilityof putting something down on a small car ortaking a holiday in the sun, something beyondany of our dreams as we were growing up? All wehad to do was throw a game... (St. John, 2006).

There is also the issue of non-payment of wages, acommon occurrence in both contemporary Asianleagues and British leagues of the 1950s. P6 playedin an Asian league with corrupt team-mates, but as aforeigner he received a regular salary, while many ofhis team-mates did not:

… back in those days some of those guys didn’tget paid for three months. It was fundamentallythe excuse they gave, ‘Look we have to pay rent ormortgages. We have to pay for our cars. We haveto put food on the table for our families. We



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haven’t been paid for three months. And someonecomes up to us and offers us 10,000 MalaysianRinghit for one game. We have no choice. Wehave to take the money’ (P6).

Even one of the senior policemen, LE4, who helpedlead the investigation into match-fixing, wassympathetic to the players that he caught fixing games:

I don’t blame the players. There were two systems– foreigners were very well paid. Domestic playerswere not particularly well paid (LE, 4).

There were similar conditions in the English leagues ofthe 1950s. Harry Gregg, in his interview, described adiscussion on the idea of labour specialisation andskill that occurred at a 1961 meeting among theEnglish league’s players, held to decide whether theplayers would launch a strike. The meeting was in anauditorium at the White City, in west London. On thestage was a table with the organising committee. Infront of them was a room crammed with many of theleague’s players, from the famous Stanley Matthews tothe journeymen players of the lower divisions. At thebeginning of the meeting there was a generaldiscussion about the merits of industrial action, withthe leaders on stage urging for a strike. Harry Greggremembered what happened:

And one young man stood up and said, “I do notagree with you; my father works down the pit andhe only gets eight or ten pounds a week and Ithink that my father does a better job and weshould be happy with what we get.” The youngfella killed the room completely. It went dead.Tommy Banks, the Bolton left back, a really broadLancashire man, said, “Mr. Chairman, can Ianswer that man? Lad, tell thy dad that I’ll do hisfucking shift down the pit between 3 o’clock andtwenty to 5 on a Saturday afternoon, if he canmark Brother Matthews here…” (Gregg, 2005).

According to Gregg and others (P32), most of theplayers in the room laughed in agreement with Banksand soon afterwards agreed to take a strike vote.However, the underlying point about these excerpts isthat the players were trying to determine whatRunciman (1967) and others (see Merton, 1950;Yngwe et al, 2003) call their “professional referencegroup”. In the discussion about whether they shouldgo on strike, the young man thinks their referencegroup should be coal miners. It is the older player –Tommy Banks – who points out that the players haveprofessional skills and talents that the ordinary persondoes not have, and should be rewarded appropriately.

The relative exploitation of the workers in football isthe second phenomenon that drives widespreadmatch-fixing. It is not that paying players more moneymeans that there will not be some players who willcontinue to accept bribes to underperform. There arealways people who are motivated by greed; it is justthat by raising wages one can reasonably expect toreduce their number, so that widescale fixing is moreconstrained (Van Rijckeghem & Weder, 2001).

Given this caveat, the key dynamic that driveswidespread match-fixing in a league is the existence oftwo conditions – the relative deprivation of the playersand an illegal gambling market. Or the legal sportsmarket, which pays its actors poorly for doing theirjobs well; and the illegal gambling market, willing topay those same actors well for doing their jobs poorly.

Expectation of corruptionThere is a final point that needs to be made about theestablishment of high levels of match-fixing and that isabout the expectation of corruption. It is similar to thepoint that Pino Arlacchi makes in his exploration of thecontinuing power of the Sicilian mafia (1983):

Once they exceed a certain level… mafia murdersbegin to develop a powerful multiplier effect,which has devastating consequences for thestructure of society. The mechanism by whichmafia murder sparks off other murders… is notbased on any superficial imitation; it derives from



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a range of socio-psychological tendencies deeplyrooted in collective and individual life (Arlacchi,1983, p.158).

In quoting Arlacchi, I am not trying to contrast themoral severity of acts of murder with acts of corruptionlike match-fixing. Rather, I am trying to show thatthere are similar societal mechanisms at play in thesecases. In his essay on “the self-fulfilling nature” ofcorruption, Gambetta (2009) makes an importantpoint: beliefs fuel corruption. So when individuals incertain societies, be they inhabitants of Sicilianvillages or soccer players in a particular league, thinkthat deviant acts are actually the norm, they feel thatthey can join in. It is effectively Granovetter’s “tippingpoint” (1985) or Chang and Lai’s discussion of the“snowballing” effect of citizens deciding to cheat ontheir taxes (2004).

There is, however, an important distinction in thecase of match-fixing for both 1950s England andcurrent-day Singapore. There is a widespread beliefthat societal corruption is low. However, there was,and is, chronic match-fixing in both these footballleagues. So the expectation of corruption in this caseis not societal; rather it is the specific beliefs within anindustry that drive corruption. The specific belief thatdrives widespread corruption in football leagues is thatthere is official complicity. In other words, it is notenough that players and referees believe that otherplayers and referees are corrupt, it is that they believethe officials who run the sport are also corrupt. Almostall interview subjects – including players, referees andsports officials – believed that both league and clubofficials were involved in gambling and fixing inMalaysia and Singapore. So the situation is that theplayers and referees are relatively badly paid, and theyalso perceive that their bosses are involved in corruptactivities and there is an alternative market – illegalgambling – that is willing to reward them.

In summary, here are the factors that lead to wide-scale match corruption: leagues that have high levelsof match-fixing are marked by high relative exploitationof players, an ‘expectation’ of official corruption and

the presence of large illegal gambling networks. Itshould be noted that their ranking on the CPI indexdoes not affect the presence of high levels of match-fixing. Singapore, ranked fifth in the CPI index, had asoccer league that suffers from high levels ofcorruption as do countries like Vietnam, which is 106places below it on the CPI listings.

The ‘collapse’ of football leagues

I have written in this paper and throughout the thesis,about the ‘collapse’ or ‘complete disasters’ of footballleagues in Malaysia-Singapore and across Asia.However, these football leagues did not collapsebecause of high corruption. The Malaysian-Singaporean league had a culture of match corruption,both gambling and arrangements, dating back at least30 years before its demise (SO 1-4). In the Chinesecase, several years before Beijing Hyundai’s dramaticwalk off the pitch, both a team owner and a refereehad announced that there were high levels ofcorruption in the league. The owner, a provincialconstruction magnate, announced publicly that he wasretiring from football and going back to the morehonest world of the construction industry. He madethe choice, he claimed, because football was toocorrupt (Gittings, 2002; Shanghai Star, 2002).

Here is the important point of this section. Anequilibrium level of corruption – where corruption isthe norm, rather than a deviant act – did not causethe failure of these leagues. Rather what caused their‘collapse’ was the wider public’s awareness ofcorruption. The public puts their trust in the league todeliver an honest product. In the case of match-fixing,once they know about corruption they lose their trustin the sport, they then withdraw their support and theleague collapses.

Inglis (1985, p.vi) argues along similar lines whenhe writes of the “institutional public trust dilemma”which faces many leagues: if they investigate match-fixing in football, they erode public trust in their“product”; if they do nothing, they run the risk of



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allowing the value of the game to erode (Inglis 1985,p.viii). Szymanski and Kuypers (1999, p.7) write thatthe game is a “product” – the players “workers”, thespectators “consumers.” Under this analysis then,match-fixing is the equivalent of selling a ‘tainted’product to an unsuspecting consumer. But like theowner of a meat factory who discovers the workershave produced unsafe meat, there is a strong incentivefor sports administrators not to publicise the deedoutside their inner circle. Who, after all, wants to eatunsafe food?

I wanted to employ quantitative data to test whatthe response of football officials was to the public’sperception of corruption. I compiled a set of frequencystatistics to examine this (see Figure 1). The graphshows the role of ‘detector’, who first blows thewhistle on match corruption in football leagues. Thesample section was from FMDB-2, or the 137 fixedmatches that we know were fixed with a high degreeof certainty. There were seven categories of detectors:police investigation, media investigation, footballadministrators, spectators at a game, confession of aparticipant, confession of an outsider and bettingpatterns. There is, of course, a selection bias in theresults, since FMDB-2 consists only of games that arecertain to have been either fixed or attempted to havebeen fixed. Most of that certainty comes from a legaldecision and, obviously, cases that were investigatedby the police are more likely to have come to court.Therefore, to reduce that bias by as much as possible,each case was examined to see how they began. Sofor example, the Moggi case – or games in Italy thatwere arranged by the internal corrupter Luciano Moggi– began when police were investigating a seeminglyunrelated Camorra gangster who was arrangingmatches with various players. The police eventuallytook their findings to the Italian Football Association.The football officials did nothing for several months,until the police leaked the transcripts to journalists.After a number of high-profile stories, the ItalianFootball Association began a series of hearings thatfound Moggi guilty of match corruption (Burke, 2006;La Stampa, 2006). However, in FMDB-2 the detector

is listed as a police investigation because it was theirwork that initiated the inquiry.

There may also be a selection bias in FMDB-2towards the media. If a participant wants to garnermaximum publicity to expose match corruption, theymay choose to go to the media. For this reason I haveincluded three categories: ‘media investigation’, wherejournalists actively investigate match-fixing, ‘confessionof a participant’ and ‘confession of outsider’, wherecorruptees or observers go themselves to the media toannounce match corruption.

Figure 1 shows that the largest number of fixedmatches – 42% – were revealed by policeinvestigations. The next rankings are shared equallybetween the confession of a participant in the mediaand independent media investigations – approximately18% each. However, the detector, who is the veryleast likely to reveal match-fixing, with only one casein the entire database, was the football association.

There are some legitimate constraints on footballassociations that keep them from revealing to thepublic corruption in their leagues, and this may partlyexplain the low rate of initiating public investigations.A European football official stated that part of thereason for the low rate was legal:

I must repeat there is a big difference betweenknowing something and doing something…Knowing and saying are two different things. Thereare many things I’d like to say, but I can’t.Otherwise the lawyers would kill me! (SO28).

However, some leagues seem to go further thanmerely being bound for legal reasons, not to mentionmatch-fixing. They aggressively defend their productby actively sanctioning players or coaches whosuggest that any match corruption may be going on.An example of this form of sanctioning occurred whenUEFA fined Manchester United player Eric Cantona50,000 euros for suggesting that a referee was takingbribes to fix European Championship League matches.They did not investigate his allegations until two yearslater, when it was revealed, by the media, that the




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referee in question had in fact been selling games(Yallop 1999, p.89). UEFA has also on two occasionsthreatened to sue journalists who publicly raised theissue of fixed matches. This would not be particularlynoteworthy except that in both those cases it wasdiscovered later, by external law enforcement agencies,that the matches had been fixed.

A lawyer who tried to convict players for match-fixing had a similar experience with a nationalEuropean football association:

We [the law enforcement agencies] received nohelp from the Football Association. In fact quitethe opposite, they closed ranks. They do not wantto admit publicly that it [match-fixing] goes on(LE9).

Another reason for lack of public discussion of match-fixing is that some football associations themselvesmay be corrupt organisations. This is not in any wayto suggest that all league officials of every leagueorganisation are corrupt. But we have already seen thealleged links between league officials and gambling

corrupters in the Malaysian-Singapore and Chinesecases. And the same European official suggested thatsimilar situations existed in other European countries:

Hill: How much trust do you have in the nationalfederations?Officials: (laughter) We will be honest –sometimes they are the problem! In some casesthe leagues run the federations – and the leaguesare run by the clubs. So there is a conflict ofinterest right there. And we know that in some ofthe places there are irregularities in the leagues…In fact, unless you want to get killed, I wouldavoid Romania, Ukraine and Turkey. Verydangerous places – the mafia runs the place(SO29).

This allusion to organised crime involvement infootball associations is not new. There are many casesof a football association’s involvement in criminalcorruption: Jose-Juan Bellini, the head of theColombian Football Association, was jailed by the USDrug Enforcement Agency for “illegal enrichment” andmoney laundering for the drug trafficking group the


FIGURE 1 Who detects match corruption?

Source: Fixed-Match Database 2, (N = 137)

POLICE

MEDIA

CONFESSION OF PARTICIPANT

CONFESSION OF OUTSIDER

BETTING PATTERNS

SPECTATORS

FA ADMINISTRATION

0% 10% 20% 30% 40% 50%



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Cali Cartel (07; see also McAlister Hall, 1999 andPrice, 1994), and the former head of FIFA and hisson-in-law, the President of the Brazilian FootballConfederation, have been linked to illegal gamblinggang leaders (Yallop, 1999, p.73, p.210). This is notto suggest in any way that all football associations areengaged in corruption, but it is important tounderstand that the governing institutions of footballcan be corrupted and that corruption will lead,inevitably, to a critical mass of corruption.

The suppression of information about match-fixing,even by dishonest football associations, may have animportant, latent benefit. If the associations publicisedthe existence of match-fixing, it might lead to morematch-fixing as the expected rate of corruption wentup. Suppression of information may make it bothunexpected and more difficult to reach corrupters.

To counteract this suppression of information, for afootball league to collapse, its society must have areasonably free media, so that the public can becomeaware of the corruption. Presumably there are manycountries where corruption in sport is widespread, butthe press is unable to report this fact. However,football in Asia provides an interesting industry-specific exception to general societal conditions. Thehuman rights organisation Freedom House rankscountries around the world from “free” to the bluntly“not free” in terms of press freedom. Both China andVietnam rank very low on their scale. However, inarticles about corruption in match-fixing in south-eastAsia, many writers made a point of drawing adistinction between the reporting on general societalcorruption and corruption in football. This excerptabout Chinese football from The Guardian is typical:

Its governing body, the CFA [Chinese FootballAssociation], is accused of complicity in match-fixing, bribe-taking and gambling. These claimshave been widely investigated because the mediaare given more freedom to cover football – thecountry’s most popular spectator sport – thanalmost any other subject [emphasis added](Watts 2004).

The final factor which leads to the collapse of footballleagues is one of an alternative market. I wrote in thefirst section of this paper that illegal gambling marketsand relative deprivation were symbiotic partners increating large amounts of corruption in sports leagues.

However, one mechanism by itself may not havebeen enough to create large-scale corruption. Thesame phenomenon is seen in public awareness ofmatch-corruption. It is not just that the publicbecomes aware of high levels of corruption, it is thatthere is also a viable alternative market that ispresented to the public at approximately the sametime. Soon after the public exposure of high levels ofcorruption in Asian football leagues, various newtelevision stations began broadcasting Europeanfootball matches like the English Premier League (EPL)and the UEFA Champions League. There is a widegap in quality level between European and Asiangames, but if the local leagues had not been deeplycompromised by corruption, the new footballprogramming may not have had much effect (SO 1-4).

There were a number of logistical and culturalchallenges that European football faced in Asia. Forexample, most European games, if broadcast live,come on in Asia in the middle of the night. There arefew Asian players playing for European teams to givefans local heroes to support. European football alsomisses the sectarian rivalries which give football muchof its piquancy: there are no Singapore versusMalaysia or Shanghai versus Beijing games to drawpeople in. However, because the reputation of thelocal leagues had become so tarnished, EPL becamewidely popular at the same time as the attendancesfor local matches declined so dramatically (SO 1-3,10; Blatter, 2008; J3,40).

Wilson Li is typical of a large number of ordinaryAsian fans that I interviewed. When we met, he had atattoo of the English football club Liverpool over hisheart. I know because he was bare-chested, waving aLiverpool flag and singing loudly in an emptySingaporean car park with 80 of his fellow fans(Liverpool had just won a major championship).However, when I asked Li if he and his friends




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supported their local Singapore team, he replied:

We used to. Maybe ten years ago, we used to driveup to Kuala Lumpur when Singapore played. It wasgreat; there would be 60,000 people in the stadium.But, now? There is too much bribery. The fans, theypay good money for the game, suddenly their teamloses 2-0, 3-0 for nothing. Waste of money!

Li is not alone in either his enthusiasm for Europeanfootball or his dismay at the local leagues. ANovember 2007 Arsenal versus Manchester Unitedmatch attracted more than 500 million viewers in Asia(J7). In comparison, I watched a number of MalaysianPremier League matches and there were generallyfewer than 3,000 spectators in the stadium. Figure 2shows that this is a universal trend.

Before 1989 Malaysian football was largely anamateur game played only between states in thecountry. In 1989 attendance at games began to rise

as the new professional league, featuring teams fromacross Malaysia and Singapore, was founded. The1994 season was the peak for this league, however,and at the end of the season police discoveredwidespread match-fixing and attendance began todecline. The decline was exacerbated in 1997 whennew satellite television stations began to show liveEnglish Premier League matches. It is this introductionof new competition, which did not happen in Englandin the 1960s, that ensured that the league in thatcountry did not collapse (SO 1-4, 15).

Here then is a summary of the factors that lead to acollapsed league. Leagues that have been destroyedhave had high levels of fixed matches, a high level ofpublic awareness of the corruption and theintroduction of a new market that provides the fanswith an alternative form of sports entertainment.Leagues, like the UK in the 1960s, that have the firsttwo factors but not the introduction of new markets,have been able to prevent a collapse.


FIGURE 2 Total attendance in the Malaysian Football League 1989 – 2005

3000000

2500000

2000000

1500000

1000000

50000

0

AVERAGE ATTENDANCE OVER TIME

STA

RT

OF

SEM

I-P

RO

LEA

GU

E

DIS

CO

VER

YO

FW

IDES

PR

EAD

MAT

CH

-FIX

ING

EPL

TELE

VIS

ION

PR

OG

RA

MM

ESB

EGIN

1988

1989

1990

1991

1992

1993

1994

1995

1996

1997

1998

1999

2000

2001

2002

2003

2004

2005

ATTE

ND

ANCE

Source: Malaysian Football Association



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Conclusion

In this paper I have analysed why some leagues havemore match-fixing in them than others. In the firstsection, I have shown that the data indicates thatthere are three essential reasons that lead to highcorruption in football leagues: a wide network of illegalgambling, a high degree of relative exploitation of theplayers, and “an expectation” of official complicity withthe corruption. These factors feed into each other. Ifthe players were simply badly paid, there might besome match-fixing, but not a great deal. If there werean illegal gambling market and the players were wellpaid, again there might be some match-fixing but nota great deal. What really creates wide-scale corruptionis when the players are badly paid and another market– the illegal gambling market – is willing to rewardthose same players. At the same time, many of thoseplayers perceive the officials who run the league asbeing involved in corrupt activities.

In the second section, I examined how situations ofcorruption equilibrium, where corruption is the norm,do not lead to the collapse of football leagues. Rather,it is public exposure of such situations that lead totheir demise. I argue that because of the importanceof public perception, many football officials deliberatelysuppress reports of match corruption. They do soeither by failing to report it or by actively sanctioningany actor, internal or external, who raises thepossibility of match corruption. However, wide publicawareness is not enough to cause the demise ofleagues: it is a symbiotic relationship with anothermarket that causes the demise. In this case, just asthe public was becoming more aware of corruption inthe local leagues, television stations beganbroadcasting a new product – European footballmatches. These two factors led the attendance andsponsorships in the league to fall by more than 50%.

Overall, the issue of corruption in sport is ofparamount importance to sponsors and marketers.Once the public has a widespread perception that anevent is corrupt, they will abandon it as quickly asthey do last year’s fashions. If the public has begun toabandon a sport, the sponsors will be quick to follow.

Biography

Declan Hill is an investigative journalist and academicspecialising in the study of organised crime andinternational issues. His recent book The Fix: Soccer &Organised Crime examined the corruption at the heartof international football and has become a bestseller in13 languages.


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Insolvency events among English football clubs

Keywordsfootballsoccer financeinsolvencyAdministrationChapter 11soft debt

Executive summary

The seeking of protection from creditors by turning to the courts is perfectly legal, but for a conventionalbusiness would normally be ‘clutching at a last straw’.Increasingly since 1986, with the introduction of newinsolvency legislation, it has been a regular feature ofbusiness activity in English football. Among members of Football League Division 1 and Division 2for the 2008-09 season, more than half have suffered an insolvency event in recent years. Thispaper reports on the second phase of a major research project into insolvency events in English

football clubs, both professional and semi-professional.Through a review of the development andcommercialisation of football, the difficulty of applyingtheory developed for conventional profit-seekingsectors is identified, as is the need for a methodologythat incorporates both aggregative quantitativeapproaches and qualitative approaches that recognisethe uniqueness of each club.

From the findings of both the first phase of theproject, reported initially as Beech, Horsman andMagraw (2008), and the more intensive second

Abstract

This paper identifies five types of insolvency in Englishfootball: clubs that have failed to cope with relegation;failed to pay monies due to the UK government; seen‘soft debts’ become ‘hard debts’; lost the ownership oftheir stadium; or have been ‘repeat offenders’. As thesecond of a three-phase research project, the paperconcludes with an indication of the final phaseresearch and implications of the findings so far forother professional sports.

John BeechHead of Sport and Tourism, Centre for the International Business of SportCoventry University, Priory Street, Coventry CV1 5F, UKEmail: [email protected]

Simon HorsmanSenior Lecturer, Department of Economics, Finance & AccountingCoventry University

Jamie MagrawIndependent Financial Consultant(formerly Head of the Compliance Unit, Football Association)

Peer reviewed

11.3 Paper 5 Insolvency 236-249 KT2 8/4/10 11:34 Page 236


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phase, a series of five types of insolvency areidentified: clubs that have failed to cope withrelegation; clubs that have failed to pay monies due to the UK government (in the form of taxes, NationalInsurance contributions etc); clubs that have seen ‘softdebts’ become ‘hard debts’; clubs that have lost theownership of their stadium; and the ‘repeat offenders’.

The paper concludes with an indication of the linesof research to be undertaken in the third and finalphase of the wider research project, and an indicationof the implications of the research findings so far forother professional sports.

Introduction

Facing financial difficulty is not a problem unique toEnglish football (i.e. Association Football) clubs. Thescale at which English football clubs now enterAdministration (court protection from their creditors),however, is now so great that it might almost be seenas a legitimate business tactic. Although clubs have,since 2003, faced points deduction for following thiscourse of action, there are increasing calls forautomatic relegation from the chairmen of some clubs,including Graham Turner of Hereford United and BarryHearn of Leyton Orient. They argue that clubs enteringAdministration have been ‘spending money that theyhave not got’, thereby gaining an unfair advantage.While this is not a universally held view, the fact thatit is promulgated is evidence that some see a scandalin the way that many English football clubs are run.

Football clubs facing financial difficulties arecertainly not a new aspect of the game. After theFootball Association reluctantly allowedprofessionalisation in 1885, and indeed for someyears before this, when illegal payments to supposedlyamateur players had become almost the norm in anumber of the clubs who would come to dominate theprofessional game, cashflow (and profit and loss)

became an inevitable issue. Most clubs changed theirlegal format to become limited companies because theresponsibility of maintaining payments to theiremployees, the now openly professional players, andto suppliers, placed the owners of the clubs in afinancially vulnerable position.

In the early days of the professional game thechallenge to balance the books, let alone make aprofit, proved too much and some clubs were woundup, unable to continue as viable businesses. By thetime of the resumption of professional football at theend of the First World War, however, the professionalgame had shaken down to a reasonable level ofstability among the surviving clubs. It was not until1962, when Accrington Stanley resigned from theFootball League because of debts of £63,000 whichcould not be met, that insolvency reappeared as a realthreat to English clubs.

From that time until the mid-1980s, the threat ofinsolvency remained a rarity. When a financial crisisloomed, clubs tended either to negotiate deals withtheir creditors or, in the more extreme cases, toliquidate themselves voluntarily, only to reappearpromptly with a new or even the same owner 1.Normally the club, in effect, reappeared with a newvariation of its name for the business, typically addingthe year in brackets to distance themselves from theclub’s previous manifestation yet maintain socialcontinuity for the sake of the fans. Examples includeWolverhampton Wanderers (1982), Charlton Athletic(1984), Middlesbrough (1986) and Fulham (1987).

The introduction of the 1986 Insolvency Act, andmore recently the 2002 Enterprise Act, provided a lessdrastic option for any business seeking protection fromits creditors. An Administrator could be appointed bythe courts with the brief to attempt to rescue thebusiness. While this might often still lead to a changein ownership, it allowed the business to continuetrading while the Administrator negotiated with thecreditors to find an acceptable level of debt settlement.

Insolvency in English football

1 Known in the accounting trade as ‘phoenixing’, this is a process which, despite various safeguards, is still wide open to abuse. The case of the £10buyout of Rover from BMW by the “Phoenix Consortium” is one of the most notorious, when Rolls Royce ran out of cash in 1971.



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Once this had been achieved, the business entered aCompanies Voluntary Agreement (CVA) with thecreditors, with a legally binding schedule forrepayment, and control of the company passed fromthe Administrator back to the owner(s), whether theoriginal owner(s) or new owner(s) who had bought thebusiness from the Administrator.

In English football today there are two specificconsequences of a club ‘going into Administration’ or asimilar insolvency event:

• Points deductionFor most leagues the sanction is the deduction of10 points, although the Premier League onlysanctions a deduction of nine points.

• Requirement to exit from Administration into a CVAThis sanction has been introduced to ensure thatan acceptable agreement has been reached withthe club’s creditors.

The term ‘insolvency event’ is used so thatcircumstances similar to entering Administration arealso covered. The definition of ‘insolvency event’ usedby the Football League is given in Exhibit 1.

Because the process of entering Administration isdesigned to help ailing businesses rather than hard-pressed creditors, it is seen as a relatively soft optionby football’s governing bodies. Perhaps more than inany other business sector, survival of the business, i.e.the club, is seen as highly desirable. That is not to saythat totally insolvent clubs have not been allowed togo to the wall, but it is a relatively rare event, with thetwo most recent cases (Aldershot Town and MaidstoneUnited) occurring as long ago as the early 1990s.

Sanctions were introduced following a spate ofinsolvencies in 2002 to act as a deterrent to clubsgoing down this route and potentially failing to meettheir debts in full – ‘spending money they didn’t have’.

Clubs such as Boston United, Leeds United andLeicester City were perceived as having exploited thenew rules in order to minimise the impact. If a club

entered Administration when it was already hoveringon the brink of relegation, it was desirable from theclub’s perspective to have the points deducted duringthe current season; in effect, the deduction wouldhave no impact. New regulations established a ‘cut-offpoint’ of the third Thursday in March, after which aclub entering Administration would suffer thededuction of points in the following season.

The literature contextAlthough the failure of a business is clearly a topicworthy of research, it was not until Argenti (1976)that a formal analysis of business failure was made.He highlighted the importance of distinguishingbetween the causes of failure and the symptoms offailure. This research project acknowledges that itsfocus is on the symptoms of failure, and that anycausal relationship between symptom and cause willbe, at best, tentative.

The project also draws to some extent on theapproach supported by Anheier and Moulton, whoargue that there are distinct approaches to the study offailure: organisational, political, cognitive andstructural (Anheier & Moulton, 1999a, 1999b). Thiswork in the football sector, however, suggests thatthese approaches are less distinct and are in fact inter-related. Anheier and Moulton further suggest thatthere are four aspects of failure to be explored:concept, cause, process and implications.

Because it involves a specific legal process,bankruptcy, which in the context of this study includesthe liquidation of incorporated bodies, is the moststudied form of failure, and many studies haveexplored organisations in this category. Related termsare ‘insolvency’, which is best thought of asbankruptcy without the legal process that pushes anorganisation over the edge, and ‘financial distress’, butthese states are not sufficiently clear-cut to be easilyresearched; indeed, such states are normallyconcealed as far as possible. Because we areconducting a qualitative study and are particularlyinterested in behaviour at the margins, we are going touse these words precisely and as follows:



• Bankrupt/in liquidation: the situation whereby duelegal process control of an organisation has passedfrom its directors to an outside independent party,normally known as an Administrator (hence thestate of being ‘in Administration’) or Receiver, whoacts in the interests of the creditors.

• Insolvent: unable to meet your obligations as theyfall due. The most high-profile recent UKinsolvency was the Channel Tunnel. The creditorbanks were owed billions of pounds but it suitedthem to influence the directors rather than toappoint a Receiver and, indirectly, to receiveownership of a hole in the ground. Broadly thisdefinition incorporates the definition of ‘insolvencyevent’ given in Exhibit 1.

• Financially distressed/illiquid: short of money. By their nature these are not precise terms.

• Liquid: with surplus cash, for example after asmall club sells a star player or has an unexpectedcup run.

Authors have tended to try and associate bankruptcywith the study of a particular business facet, such ascash-based fund flows (Aziz et al, 1988), agency andprospect theory (D’Aveni, 1989a, 1989b), governancestructures (Daily & Dalton, 1994), inter-organisationallinkages and financial leverage (Sheppard, 1994) anda variety of factors (Daily, 1994).

The prediction of bankruptcy through the use offinancial data has prompted considerable research.Altman developed a model that offered a reasonabledegree of success in predicting bankruptcy two tothree years ahead of the event (Altman, 1968). Thismodel was refined and adapted for use in the UnitedKingdom by Taffler and Tisshaw. Among the examples


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‘INSOLVENCY EVENT’ REFERS TO ANY ONE OF THE FOLLOWING:

A A MANAGER, RECEIVER, ADMINISTRATOR, ADMINISTRATIVE RECEIVER, LIQUIDATOR, PROVISIONAL LIQUIDATOR OR SUPERVISOR TO A

VOLUNTARY ARRANGEMENT IS APPOINTED IN RESPECT OF A FOOTBALL CLUB OR ANY PART OF ITS UNDERTAKING OR ASSETS

B A FOOTBALL CLUB APPLIES FOR AN ADMINISTRATION ORDER (AS DEFINED IN SECTION 10 OF SCHEDULE B (I) OF THE INSOLVENCY ACT

1986) OR AN ADMINISTRATION ORDER IS MADE IN RESPECT OF IT OR IT OTHERWISE ENTERS INTO ADMINISTRATION

C A WINDING-UP ORDER IS MADE IN RESPECT OF A FOOTBALL CLUB

D A FOOTBALL CLUB ENTERS INTO ANY ARRANGEMENT WITH ITS CREDITORS OR SOME PART OF THEM IN RESPECT OF THE PAYMENT OF

ITS DEBTS OR ANY OF THEM AS A COMPANY VOLUNTARY ARRANGEMENT (UNDER THE INSOLVENCY ACT 1986 OR INSOLVENCY ACT

2000) OR A SCHEME OF ARRANGEMENT (UNDER THE COMPANIES ACT 1985)

E A FOOTBALL CLUB PASSES A RESOLUTION PURSUANT TO SECTION 84 (I) (C) OF THE INSOLVENCY ACT 1986 TO THE EFFECT THAT IT

CANNOT BY REASON OF ITS LIABILITIES CONTINUE ITS BUSINESS AND THAT IT IS ADVISABLE TO WIND UP

F A FOOTBALL CLUB CEASES OR FORMS AN INTENTION TO CEASE WHOLLY OR SUBSTANTIALLY TO CARRY ON ITS BUSINESS SAVE FOR THE

PURPOSE OR RECONSTRUCTION OR AMALGAMATION OR OTHERWISE IN ACCORDANCE WITH THE SCHEME OF PROPOSALS THAT HAVE

PREVIOUSLY BEEN SUBMITTED TO AND APPROVED IN WRITING BY THE BOARD

G A FOOTBALL CLUB CONVENES A MEETING OF ITS CREDITORS PURSUANT TO SECTION 95 OR SECTION 98 OF THE INSOLVENCY ACT 1986

EXHIBIT 1 Definitions of ‘insolvency event’

Football League, 2004.


they said would have been predictable with theirmodel was the 1973 collapse of Court Line (Taffler &Tisshaw, 1977). Altman further developed hispredictive model (Altman et al, 1977), and it hasbeen still further developed more recently byZopounidis and Dimitras (1998).

Morris (1998) casts doubts, however, on theaccuracy of such models, because of the high rate ofmisclassification error, their self-fulfilling nature, andthe fact that many bankruptcies are due to‘unforeseeable’ circumstances.

The particular nature of sport as business –exemplified in the Commission of the EuropeanCommunities’ White Paper on Sport (2007), whichargues that there is a ‘specificity’ to sport – suggeststhat application of general theoretical frameworks maybe problematic. The general literature therefore offersless than might be hoped for and is unlikely to be afertile source for research in a sub-sector where theprofit motive is not paramount and is balanced withthe desire for sporting success. Many of the ‘investors’in football clubs do not expect a return or repayment.

The argument that individual sectors need individual‘recipes’ has been well rehearsed by Spender (1989,1998), and an objective of this project is to producean individual analysis of insolvency – individual in thatit is recognised from the outset that it is highly unlikelythat it will be generalisable beyond the sports industry.

Within the football sector, interest in theperformance nexus – on the pitch and in financialterms – grew as the post-commercialised phase ofbusiness evolution emerged following the formation ofthe Premier League and the first BSkyB broadcastingrights contract (Beech, 2004). Within a decade therewas an extensive literature (see, for example, Conn,1997; Szymanski & Kuypers, 1999; Hamil at al,1999; Morrow, 1999; and Hamil et al, 2000) but theemphasis was in general on success or on lack ofsuccess. Two more recent examples from the literaturedo focus on failure: Buraimo et al (2006) and Emery& Weed (2006). They are of particular interest in thatthey adopt strongly different approaches. WhileBuraimo et al concentrate on the analysis of

aggregated financial data with relatively littleconsideration of individual clubs, and are thus entirelyquantitative, Emery and Weed begin from thisperspective but then focus on a single case study (ofLincoln City), considering both the financial failure andthe subsequent recovery.

While both these contrasting approaches areattractive and insightful, it is clear that a methodologycovering both aggregated and individual data andquantitative and qualitative data is likely to give therichest analysis. This research project uses both andthus offers a new approach to the subject.

Methodology

The originally planned methodology for this researchproject has been described elsewhere (Beech et al,2008). It is summarised as a three-phase project:

1. An exploratory phase to define the scope of theproject. This included identifying the temporalscope – the date from which the study shouldbegin – and the spatial scope – in particular,whether to look at football in Britain or just inEngland. Once the temporal scope had beenidentified, a timeline of relevant external eventswas to be developed.

2. A phase of data gathering and analysis. Datagathering consisted of identifying all instances ofinsolvency during the chosen period, building amini case study of each instance, identifying thefactors which proved relevant in each case,mapping the data gathered together with anyfurther data identified as being needed for theinvestigation, and mapping this data into adatabase. The structure of the database would besuch that it could be sorted in ways that wouldlead to the identification of types2 of clubinsolvencies.


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2 The term ‘type’ has been chosen over ‘ideal model’ or ‘exemplar’ in order to avoid a positive connotation.


3. In a third phase, each type would lead to specificclubs being identified for deeper investigation,involving interviews with key decision-makers inindividual insolvencies.

The first phase has been reported in Beech, Horsmanand Magraw (2008). The current paper updates thefindings and then reports on the types that have beenidentified so far in Phase 2. It should be made clearthat the types are not mutually exclusive; rather, someclubs can be characterised under more than one type,suggesting that there may be causal connectionsbetween the types.

Scope of project

The original scoping of the project had defined thetime period to be investigated as being from theintroduction of the 1986 Insolvency Act. However, anumber of insolvency events that occurred in the early1980s have emerged. The timeframe has therefore

been extended as far back as to begin with the demiseof Accrington Stanley in 1962, the first collapse of amajor club since the early years of the game. This hasresulted in a database that includes 96 instances ofinsolvency events, involving 79 clubs. Of these clubs,69% had played in the top four tiers, and 85% in thetop five flights.

Figure 1 shows the distribution of insolvency eventsin each season in recent times, up to and includingthe case of Darlington going into Administration on 25 February 2009. At this point in the season onlyDarlington and Ringmer had entered Administration,although winding-up orders had been posted againstseveral other clubs and it is likely that by the end ofthe season a second peak will have emerged.

Although the collapse of ITV Digital on 27 March2002 received considerable coverage in the immediateaftermath as a cause of Administrations, the evidencefrom the current research suggests that its role wasmore as a catalyst than as a direct cause. The numberof Administrations per season was already on the rise,and examination of individual cases reveals that most



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FIGURE 1 Insolvency events by season

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8

6

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0

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1986

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1989

1990

1991

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SEASON START YEAR



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clubs that faced insolvency events in the year after theITV Digital collapse had debts that were considerablyhigher than the loss of revenue from broadcastingrights.

Before the data were reviewed to identify types, anattempt was made to establish whether there were anyfeatures of the circumstances of the insolvency eventsthat might be described as broadly symptomatic of allinsolvency events. In the absence of anybenchmarking data for other business sectors, itproved problematic to identify any that were unique oreven unusual for the football sector. However, thefollowing are noted as worthy of further research in amulti-sector context:

• Incidences of liquidation were unusual, especiallyamong clubs in the higher (professional) tiers.Where a club was liquidated, it was normallyresurrected through the efforts of supporters, re-entering the league pyramid several tiers down.Until the 1980s, however, liquidation andimmediate re-formation at the same point in thepyramid was not uncommon.

• The exit from Administration generally arosethrough a new owner buying the club from theAdministrator. The success of the new owner wasoften a function of the extent to which debts hadbeen written off, a process which lately happensthrough a mandatory Company VoluntaryAgreement (CVA).

• The football sector is increasingly being served byinsolvency practitioners who are specialising infootball clubs. Such specialists include BegbiesTraynor (7 occurrences), Kroll Buchler Phillips andtheir predecessors (10), and PKF (3).

Against this general background, five types have beenidentified.

Type 1: Clubs that have failed to copewith relegation

There is a cost to being relegated. There are the dropsin matchday revenues and merchandising that resultfrom fans drifting away from the club, and there is asignificant incremental drop in broadcasting revenues,the biggest of which results from relegation from thePremier League to the Championship.

Although parachute payments have been introducedas a softening of the blow, they may prove inadequatefor a club that has not planned for the possibility ofrelegation, and may in any case lead to the ‘bounceback’ or ‘yo-yoing’ phenomenon, where clubsrepeatedly move between the same two divisions inconsecutive seasons. To match these drops in incomea club must reduce its costs, most notably its salarybill. This is frequently problematic:

• Most contracts between clubs and players are mid-term in nature while playing success is short term,resulting in clubs having an inability to flex theircost base as their revenue changes.

• Many clubs never do scenario budgeting. Theystumble into a relegation plan rather than havingplans and flexibility based upon all eventualities.

• Clubs may have ‘panicked’ into purchasing playersthey can ill afford in an attempt to stave offrelegation. A notable example was the case ofBradford City, relegated from the Premier League in2001. Chairman Geoffrey Richmond described theperiod fighting relegation as “six weeks of financialmadness” (Guardian, 2002), a reference inparticular to the club’s purchase of Benito Carbonein August 2000 for a signing on fee of £2m and afurther £4m over four years.



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• Until very recently clubs failed to include negativeperformance-related clauses in players’ contracts.In the case of Bradford and Carbone, the club wascommitted to paying Carbone at the rate of£40,000 per week even after relegation.

By the summer of 2004 Bradford City were inAdministration for the second time and were having toask players to defer their wages.

A third characteristic identified was the high-riskstrategy and related phenomenon of clubs buyingplayers immediately after relegation in the hope that abolstered squad would enable the club to achievepromotion within one season.

In 20 cases the insolvency event occurred within ayear of relegation. A further five occurred in thesecond year and eight in the third year. In summary,33 of the 96 insolvency events (34%) occurred withinthree years of relegation.

In a smaller number of cases promotion had alsoproved problematic; indeed, ‘yo-yoing’ betweendivisions ensures a club lacks the stability for effectivefinancial planning. Swansea Town, for example, whowere promoted on five occasions and relegated on fivein the period from 1981 to 2008 faced insolvencyevents in 1985 and 2003. Similarly, between 1977and 1989 Wolverhampton Wanderers were promotedfour times and relegated four times; the club faced twoinsolvency events in this 12-year period.

Type 2: Clubs that have failed to paymonies due to the government

Clubs, like any business, incur liabilities to thegovernment. First, they collect Value Added Tax (VAT)for the services they provide. The monies collectedthus belong to the government and the club is merelycollecting and holding them on the government’sbehalf. Second, a series of payments which mightloosely be termed taxation, accrues. The largest ofthese is likely to be the income tax on employees,

notably from players’ salaries and normally deductedfrom salaries under the Pay As You Earn (PAYE)scheme. Other liabilities to the government includeNational Insurance deductions from employees’salaries. If a club sells its stadium or training ground,it may be liable to pay Capital Gains Tax.

Until April 2005 two UK government agencies wereinvolved – the Inland Revenue and Customs & Excise.Now the two bodies operate as a single agency, HerMajesty’s Revenue and Customs (HMRC). Under UKlaw the agencies used to enjoy a ‘preferred creditor’status – in the event of Administration or evenliquidation they had a right to monies due to them inpreference to other creditors. In September 2003 theylost this status following a change in the law. Inpractice this meant that since then they have had aless preferential status than ‘football creditors’ (forexample, clubs owed money as unpaid transfer fees).Football creditors include clubs, players and leagues,but not managers or other members of the club’s non-playing staff. This is a strong rule to enable the footballauthorities to prevent unfair use of Administration tobuy success on the pitch and then not pay for it. Onthe one hand it provides the governing body with astrong control mechanism, but it means that paymentswill be paid to football creditors in priority to, forexample, monies collected by the club on behalf ofHMRC in the form of VAT.

In response to this change in status HMRC hasincreasingly opposed proposed CVAs that would seethem forced to accept low levels of repayment.

In this context it might be expected that footballclubs would be conscientious in making payments dueto the government. Although details of debts due ininsolvency events are not always in the public domain,some information has been reported in 62 instances –52 (84%) of these included debts due to thegovernment agencies. There is little evidence to showany change in attitude either in 2003, with thechange in the law, or in 2005, with the change inorganisation of the agencies.

The picture that emerges is thus one of a cavalier



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attitude to payment and a willingness to drift intoconfrontation. There is very limited evidence thatwinding-up orders have been fought and a mutuallyacceptable payment schedule negotiated, for examplein the cases of Southend United in 2000 and GrimsbyTown in 2004. In the latter case the debt wasreported to be close to £500,000. This suggests thatfootball clubs not only tend to be reluctant payers butalso reluctant negotiators.

It may be the case that clubs are crisis managersrather than planners, a view supported by the industryobservations of one of the authors.

Type 3: Clubs that have seen ‘soft’ debtbecome ‘hard’ debt

A business model in which a football club becomesdependent on the largesse of a benefactor-owner hasbecome increasingly common. The most notableexample is Chelsea, where Roman Abramovich isreported as having sunk half a billion pounds into theclub in the form of ‘soft’ debt, i.e. debt which will notbe called in. While the Chelsea case is exceptional inits scale, many clubs operate business models thatwould be unsustainable without a benefactor. Thepresence of a benefactor has a secondary positiveimpact in that his presence on the Board of the clubfacilitates borrowing by acting as a guarantor.

The limitation of this business model is reachedwhen the ‘soft’ debt becomes ‘hard’ debt. It is thefrequent cause of an insolvency event as the speedwith which support is withdrawn may be dramatic.This instability in a club’s finances can result from anumber of circumstances:

• the death of the benefactor (e.g. Sir Jack Haywardat Wolverhampton Wanderers)

• the withdrawal of the benefactor through personalcircumstances (e.g. Thaksin Shinawatra atManchester City)

• the failure of a benefactor to provide the supportpromised (e.g. Spencer Trethewy, Aldershot Town)

• the withdrawal of a benefactor through age (e.g. Ken Booth, Rotherham United)

• the loss or shift in interest of the benefactor (e.g. Vic Green from Hendon to Stevenage Boroughand Graham Westley from Farnborough toStevenage Borough)

• the sudden loss in wealth of the benefactor (e.g. the Kumar brothers, Birmingham City, andMike Connett, Northwich Victoria).

All examples except the first two have triggeredinsolvency events.

Type 4: Clubs that have lost theownership of their stadium

The conversion of ‘soft’ debt into ‘hard’ debt is oftenprecipitated by the transfer in ownership of the club’sstadium, or less frequently its training ground, fromthe club to its owner, particularly in the case ofwithdrawing owners – Rotherham United andNorthwich Victoria noted above fall into this category.

Owning one’s stadium is a basis for better financialstability, and losing that ownership has three possiblenegative financial implications:

• the reduced asset base lowers the club’s creditrating, making it more difficult to take on loans orcontinue with an overdraft

• opportunities for income through stadium- andstand-naming rights are closed to the club

• unless the tenancy of the stadium has anexclusivity clause, the club may have to seerevenue-generating non-football events taking placein the stadium for the benefit of others.



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While the shift in ownership may be an enforced andunderstandable outcome of benefactor withdrawal, thedata revealed a worrying number of instances of badmanagement and even unethical and/or illegalpractices. Examples in clubs subsequently involved ininsolvency events include:

• Barrow Ownership of the stadium had passed to ownerStephen Vaughan’s company, Vaughan Promotions,and was only returned to the club following legalaction by the Administrator.

• Brighton and Hove AlbionThe Goldstone Ground was sold for developmentbecause the club was in severe financialdifficulties. However, this was completed beforealternative arrangements had been made, and theclub became nomadic for a number of seasons.

• Leeds UnitedAgain because of severe financial difficulties, theElland Road stadium and the Thorp Arch trainingcomplex were sold in 2004 on a sale-and-lease-back basis with an option to buy back. In 2009the stadium is in the ownership of the Teak TradingCompany, based in the British Virgin Islands.

• WrexhamThe then owner, Alex Hamilton, sold the club’sstadium for redevelopment. As in the case ofBarrow, the club only regained ownership throughlegal action by the Administrator.

These are in marked contrast to cases where thestadium has been used creatively in assetmanagement. Despite being unpopular with fans,mergers have been done successfully – Dagenham &Redbridge, Ebbsfleet (formerly Gravesend & Northfleet),Havant & Waterlooville, Hinckley United (formerlyHinckley Athletic and Hinckley Town), Rushden &Diamonds, and Solihull Moors (formerly SolihullBorough and Moor Green).

Type 5: The ‘repeat offenders’

A number of clubs have faced insolvency events onmore than one occasion. These are listed in Table 1.

There are thus 17 instances of an insolvency eventreoccurring. The frequency at which these re-eventshave occurred is set out in Table 2: 47% are withinfour years of the previous event; 68% are within sevenyears. The relatively rapid re-occurrence may, fromone perspective, be unsurprising – the first occurrenceimplies that the club was already in a weak financialposition; factors such as poor attendance at matches,with resultant poor revenue streams, might beexpected to be a continuing problem. However, itmight also be argued that lessons had not beenlearned. Table 3 shows the debts of the clubs at thetime of the insolvency events.

Only in the cases of Darlington (2009), Luton Town(2007), possibly Rotherham United (2008), SwanseaCity (2003) and Swindon Town (2002) were thedebts at a lower level than in the preceding insolvencyevent. This is a surprising outcome as in the precedinginsolvency it would have been typical for some of theambient debt to have been written off in agreementwith the creditors (paying perhaps as little as 10p inthe £), and again typically the club would have beenbought from the Administrator by a new owner withan injection of cash to put the club back on to a firmfinancial basis. Possible explanations for this arenaivety on the part of new owners (as for examplewith the 19-year-old new owner of Aldershot Town,Spencer Trethewy), inability to reduce costs (atRotherham United, for example, where the recovery ofthe stadium by the ex-Chairman, Ken Booth, in lieu ofrepayment of loans, resulted in a rent charge ofapproximately £200,000 a year, which the club feltunable to meet when attendances fell to below 4,000)and/or reduced revenues resulting frequently fromrelegation. It must be noted that falling intoAdministration may be the cause of a relegation withthe introduction of the 10 point penalty in 2003 (seeBeech, 2009, for a discussion of the dysfunctionaloutcomes of points deductions).



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ALDERSHOT (1990; 1992)

BOURNEMOUTH (1997; 2008)

BRADFORD CITY (2002; 2004)

CRAWLEY TOWN (1999; 2006)

DARLINGTON (1997; 2003; 2009)

EXETER CITY (1994; 2003)

HALIFAX TOWN (1987; 1999; 2002; 2008)

LUTON TOWN (1999; 2003; 2007)

ROTHERHAM UNITED (1987; 2006; 2008)

SCARBOROUGH (1999; 2003)

SWANSEA CITY (1985; 2003)

SWINDON TOWN (2000; 2002)

WOLVERHAMPTON WANDERERS (1982; 1986)

TABLE 1 Clubs with more than one insolvency event

NO. OF YEARS BETWEEN EVENTS

2

3

4

6

7

9

11

12

18

19

NO. OF OCCURRENCES

4

1

4

3

1

2

1

1

1

1

TABLE 2 Frequency of re-occurrence of an insolvency event

CLUB

ALDERSHOT

BOURNEMOUTH

BRADFORD CITY

CRAWLEY TOWN

DARLINGTON

EXETER CITY

HALIFAX TOWN

LUTON TOWN

ROTHERHAM UNITED

SCARBOROUGH

SWANSEA CITY

SWINDON TOWN

WOLVERHAMPTON WANDERERS

1

£0.494M (1990)

£4M (1997)

£33M (2002)

£0.4M (1999)

£5.5M (1997)

£4M (1994)

£0.4M (1987)

£3M (1999)

£0.789M (1987)

£0.6M (1999)

£1.5M (1985)

£3.5M (2000)

?? (1982)

REPORTED DEBTS

2

£1.2M (1992)

£5.8M (2008)

£36M (2004)

£1.4M (2006)

£20M (2003)

£4.5M (2003)

?? (1999)

£11M (2003)

£1M (2006)

£2.5M (2003)

£1.4M (2003)

£1.8M (2002)

?£0.75M (1986)

3

£5M (2009)

£0.6M (2002)

£4.5M (2007)

?? (2008)

4

£3M (2008)

TABLE 3 Clubs with repeat instances of insolvency events



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Conclusion

At this stage in the research project (Phase 2), anumber of general conclusions may be drawntentatively. It would appear that insolvency has indeedbecome almost a ‘legitimate’ tactic in a football club’sbusiness strategy. The scale at which it has happenedis summarised in Table 4.

It should be remembered that the figures in Table 4refer to the present constitutions of the tiers but thatthe insolvency events may have occurred while a clubwas in membership of a different tier. Table 5 shows abreakdown by tiers at the time of the insolvency event.

Clubs are thus at their most vulnerable in Tier 4.However, as this data includes the pre-commercialisedera of modern football, the tendency will be for thepeak to drift towards Tiers 5 and 6. At these levels,they were historically amateur clubs, which typicallyhave professionalised on promotion but are showing

no evidence of giving up professional status whenrelegated, thus putting themselves under financialpressure. For example, in the summer break of 2008Northwich Victoria paid its players £70,000notwithstanding that their average attendance duringthe previous season had been only 829 and the clubfaced debts reported to be millions of pounds.

Five types have been identified and will be exploredin the third phase of the research project. The typesare not mutually exclusive and any possible causallinks will be explored.

The overall impression of English football clubs isthat they face insolvency at an alarming rate and toofew have developed sustainable business models toavoid it, or even avoid a repetition of insolvency.

While the calls for further punishment such ascompulsory relegation are understandable, theyapproach the issue as a problem whose symptomsneed treating, rather than one whose causes need

TIER

1 – PREMIER LEAGUE

2 – CHAMPIONSHIP

3 – FOOTBALL LEAGUE 1

4 – FOOTBALL LEAGUE 2

5 – CONFERENCE NATIONAL

6 – CONFERENCE NORTH & SOUTH

NO. OF CLUBS

20

24

24

24

24

44

% THAT HAVE SUFFERED AN INSOLVENCY EVENT

20%

46%

54%

62.5%

33%

5%

TABLE 4 Percentage of clubs by current membership of tier that have suffered an insolvency event

TIER

1 – CURRENTLY PREMIER LEAGUE

2 – CURRENTLY CHAMPIONSHIP

3 – CURRENTLY FOOTBALL LEAGUE 1

4 – CURRENTLY FOOTBALL LEAGUE 2

5 – CURRENTLY CONFERENCE NATIONAL

6 – CURRENTLY CONFERENCE NORTH & SOUTH

7 – AND LOWER

% THAT SUFFERED AN INSOLVENCY EVENT WHILE IN THE TIER

0%

15%

21%

30%

15%

11%

7%

TABLE 5 Percentage of clubs by membership of tier when insolvency event occurred



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treating. Again, this issue will be further investigated inthe third phase of the research. Specific lines of enquiryinto the causes of club indebtedness will include:

• the extent to which indebtedness arises from ‘finitebenefaction’ – the cases where a benefactor hasmade substantial loans to a club in the form of‘soft’ debt but has ultimately sought the return ofthe loans

• the extent to which clubs prepare a ‘Plan B’allowing for the eventuality of relegation

• the extent to which the current disparity infinancial operating levels, i.e. the scale of revenuesand costs, between the different tiers in the football pyramid exacerbate the difficulty offinancial planning

• the extent to which clubs adopt realisticwages/revenues targets, and the extent to whichthey meet them.

English football is a sport that is well into the post-commercialised phase of its development (Beech,2004). As such, it is currently offering an exemplar ofhow not to run a sports business. By surfacing theroot causes of the problem it is hoped that lessons canbe learned for other sports at the height of theircommercialisation phase.

A note on the databaseThe database consists of data files on all clubsdiscovered to have faced an insolvency event. In thecourse of Phase 1 it became clear that a number ofclubs had come within a hair’s breadth of aninsolvency event (Coventry City, for example, comingwithin 30 minutes of Administration in 2007), andcurrently files have been built on the 116 clubs in thetop five tiers and a further 40 on clubs who have

suffered or nearly suffered insolvency events.Data have been drawn from the following

sources: BBC News website; Google; LexisNexis (thee-database of newspaper articles from 1985); clubwebsites; supporters trust websites; Wyn Grant’s ThePolitical Economy of Football website; the Clubs inCrisis website; and the current and archive websites oflocal and national newspapers.

For earlier insolvency events, club-specific books,such as Allan and Bevington (1996), have been used.

Data on promotion and relegation have been takenfrom the Football Club History database.


Biographies

Dr John Beech is Head of Sport and Tourism atCoventry University and researches in both the Centrefor the International Business of Sport (CIBS) and theApplied Research Centre for Sustainable Regeneration(SURGE). His sports research interests currently focuson the (mis)management of English football clubs.

Simon Horsman is a senior lecturer in Accounting,Strategy and Business at Coventry University, wherehe brings a holistic approach to business. His interestsinclude personal finance, accounting,entrepreneurship, organisational development andorganisational politics, strategy and informationsystems (old and new) and the teaching process.

Jamie Magraw joined the FA in 2000 to determinewhether the FA could improve financial standardswithin the game. This resulted in the FA FinancialAdvisory Unit (FAU) being established in March 2000.In August 2002 he became Finance Director of theFA, leaving in September 2003 to establish a numberof companies.



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References

Allan, D. & Bevington, A. (1996) Doom to Boom: Most DramaticDecade in the History of Middleborough FC. Edinburgh:Mainstream Publishing.

Altman, E.I. (1968) Financial ratios, discriminant analysis andthe prediction of corporate bankruptcy, Journal of Finance 23(4),589-609.

Altman, E.I., Haldeman, R.G. & Narayan, P. (1977) ZetaAnalysis: a new model to identify bankruptcy risk ofcorporations, Journal of Banking and Finance 1, 29-54.

Anheier, H.K. & Moulton, L. (1999a) ‘Organisational Failures,Breakdowns and Bankruptcies: an Introduction' in Anheier, H.K.(ed) When Things Go Wrong – Organisational Failures andBreakdowns, 3-16. Thousand Oaks: Sage.

Anheier, H.K. & Moulton, L. (1999b) 'Studying OrganisationalFailures', in When Things Go Wrong – Organisational Failures and Breakdowns, ed. Anheier, H.K., 273-290.Thousand Oaks: Sage.

Argenti, J. (1976) Corporate Collapse – the Causes andSymptoms. London: McGraw-Hill.

Aziz, A., Emanuel, D.C. & Lawson, G.H. (1988) Bankruptcyprediction – an investigation of cash flow based models, Journalof Management Studies 25(5), 419-37.

Beech, J. (2004) 'Introduction: The Commercialisation of Sport'in Beech, J.G. & Chadwick, S. (eds) The Business of SportManagement. Harlow: Pearson Education.

Beech, J. (2009) Points deduction as a sanction against Englishfootball clubs: a dysfunctional approach?, Centre for theInternational Business of Sport working paper no. 8, Coventry.

Beech, J., Horsman, S. & Magraw, J. (2008) The circumstancesin which English football clubs become insolvent, Centre for theInternational Business of Sport working paper no. 4, CoventryUniversity.

Buraimo, B., Simmons, R. & Szymanski, S. (2006) Englishfootball, Journal of Sports Economics 7(1), 21-46.

Commission of the European Communities (2007) White Paperon Sport. Brussels: European Commission.

Conn, D. (1997) The Football Business. Edinburgh: Mainstream.

D'Aveni, R.A. (1989a) The aftermath of organisational decline: alongitudinal study of the strategic and managerial characteristics ofdeclining firms, Academy of Management Journal 32(3), 577-605.

D'Aveni, R.A. (1989b) Dependability and organisationalbankruptcy: an application of agency and prospect theory,Management Science 35(9), 1120-1138.

Daily, C.M. (1994) Bankruptcy in strategic studies: past andpromise, Journal of Management 20(2), 263-296.

Daily, C.M. & Dalton, D.R. (1994) Bankruptcy and corporategovernance: the impact of board composition and structure,Academy of Management Journal 37(6), 1603-1618.

Emery, R. & Weed, M. (2006) Fighting for survival? Thefinancial management of football clubs outside the 'top flight' inEngland, Managing Leisure 11(1), 1-21.

Football League (2004) The Regulations of The Football LeagueLimited.

Guardian (2002) ‘Richmond: my financial madness’, 17 May.

Hamil, S., Michie, J. & Oughton, C. (eds) (1999) The Businessof Football ¬– A Game of Two Halves? Edinburgh: Mainstream.

Hamil, S., Michie, J., Oughton, C. & Warby, S. (eds) (2000)Football in the Digital Age: Whose Game Is it Anyway?Edinburgh: Mainstream.

Morris, R. (1998) Forecasting bankruptcy, ManagementAccounting (UK) 76(5), 22-25.

Morrow, S. (1999) The New Business of Football: Accountabilityand Finance in football. Basingstoke: Macmillan Business.

Sheppard, J.P. (1994) Strategy and bankruptcy: an explorationinto organisational death, Journal of Management 20(4), 795-834.

Spender, J.-C. (1989) Industry Recipes: The Nature and Sourcesof Managerial Judgement. Oxford: Basil Blackwell.

Spender, J.-C. (1998) 'The Dynamics of Individual andOrganisational Knowledge' in Edgell, D. & Spender, J.-C. (eds)Managerial and Organisational Cognition: Theory, Methods andResearch. London: Sage.

Szymanski, S. & Kuypers, T. (1999) Winners and Losers – TheBusiness Strategy of Football. London: Viking.

Taffler, R.J. & Tisshaw, H. (1977) Going, going, gone,Accountancy, March, 50-54.

Zopounidis, C. & Dimitras, A.I. (1998) Multicriteria Decision AidMethods for the Prediction of Business Failure. Dordrecht:Kluwer Academic Publishers.



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When does alcohol sponsorship of sport becomesports sponsorship of alcohol? A case study ofdevelopments in sport in Australia

Keywordsalcohol sponsorship alcohol marketingsportcultureyoung people

Executive summary

Sponsorship of sporting events by the alcohol industryis a common practice in Australia, perhaps even moreso than in other countries, and there is currently muchdebate between industry groups and public healthadvocates about the appropriateness of inexorablylinking sport with the advertising and promotion ofalcohol. The aim of this paper is not to provide asystematic audit of all alcohol sponsorships of sportingteams and events in Australia, but rather to providesome illustrative examples of current alcoholsponsorships that have been reported in the tradepress, and to review in detail a current case study to

appreciate the extent and nature of the complexrelationship between sport and alcohol sponsors.

It is not uncommon for professional sportingcompetitions to have more than one alcohol sponsor,although rarely in competing product categories.Australian cricket provides a good example of thisscenario. Foster’s VB has the naming rights forAustralia’s annual one-day cricket series, butcomfortably shares sponsorship with a brand of scotchwhisky. However, in this saturated market, competingalcohol companies develop a range of strategies toform a link in the minds of consumers between their

Abstract

Alcohol sponsorship of sport is common in Australia,with much debate about the appropriateness of linkingsport with alcohol advertising and promotion. Thispaper provides examples of such sponsorships toappreciate the extent and nature of the complexrelationship between sport and alcohol sponsors. Thepublic health and policy implications of alcoholsponsorship of sport extending to creating a sportingcompetition purely to promote an alcohol brand areconsidered.

Sandra C. Jones Associate Dean (Research), Faculty of Health & Behavioural SciencesDirector, Centre for Health Initiatives, Room G04, Building 41University of Wollongong, Wollongong NSW 2522, AustraliaTel: +61 2 4221 5106Fax: +61 2 4221 3370Email: [email protected]

Peer reviewed

11.3 Paper 6 Alcohol p250-261 KT2 7/4/10 22:38 Page 250


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brand and Australia’s national summer sport. Whilethese include marketing tools such as advertisingcampaigns, interactive websites, promotional materialsand devices that associate sporting teams andindividual players with the consumption of alcohol,Lion Nathan took this one step further by creating asporting competition (the XXXX Beach Cricket Series)purely to promote an alcohol brand. Despite someclaims of unethical conduct – mainly related toaccusations from Foster’s of ambush marketing – thismarketing campaign was welcomed and evencelebrated by the media, sports fans and governments(including local councils and even John Howard, thethen Australian prime minister).

It was suggested in the late 1990s that publicawareness of the impact of alcohol abuse on societywould lead to increasing pressure to regulate alcoholsponsorship of sporting events, and public healthadvocates having been calling for such regulation formore than a decade. However, the Australiangovernment does not appear to be heeding the call,despite mounting evidence that the symbioticrelationship between alcohol and sport in Australia isa key contributor to alcohol-related harm. Not only isalcohol sponsorship of sport thriving, we are nowseeing sports sponsorship of alcohol.

Alcohol and sport in Australia

Drinking behaviours and attitudes are stronglyinfluenced by social and cultural norms and by thesocial situation in which alcohol is consumed (e.g.Greenfield & Room, 1997; McDaniel et al, 2001).The close association between alcohol and sport isparticularly problematic, with evidence that youngpeople who watch televised sport are exposed toextensive alcohol advertising (Centre on AlcoholMarketing and Youth, 2003) and that those youngpeople who are sports fans drink more alcohol and

experience more alcohol-related problems (Nelson &Weschler, 2003).

Among Australian teenagers and young adultsconsumption of alcohol is typically associated withsport as an important component of post-gamecelebrations (McGuifficke et al, 1991). However, it isalso associated with the general ethos of being part ofthe team, and men in particular are more likely todrink excessively when socialising with members oftheir sporting team than with other groups of friends(Black et al, 1999).

Australia has been described as “a model casewhere alcohol and sport are united in a closepartnership” (Munro, 2000, p.199). For example, asurvey among Queensland-based surf lifesaving, rugbyunion and Australian Rules football club patrons foundthat 40% usually drank five or more alcoholic drinkson each visit, 22% drank seven or more, and 5%drank 13 or more (Connolly, 2006); this issignificantly more than the recommended maximum offour standard drinks (National Health & MedicalResearch Council, 2009).1 Australian studies haveshown that non-elite sportspeople consume excessivelevels of alcohol, and that members of male sportingteams feel pressured to drink alcohol because of themasculine image of sporting activity and mateship(Lawson & Evans, 1992).

Alcohol sponsorship of sport

Much of the focus of research and advocacy has beenon alcohol advertising during sports telecasts – forexample, an analysis of US media spend showed thatthe alcohol industry spent more than $540 million onadvertising in sports programmes on television (Centreon Alcohol Marketing and Youth, 2003). Alcohol, andthe promotion and advertising of alcohol, has beenassociated with sporting events for many decades andin most countries, to the extent where it has been

Alcohol sponsorship

1 The Australian National Health & Medical Research Council (NHMRC) recommends that adults drink no more than two standard drinks on any day toreduce the lifetime risk of harm from alcohol-related disease or injury, and no more than four standard drinks on a single occasion to reduce the risk ofalcohol-related injury arising from that occasion.



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argued that it would “be unusual to view a sportingevent without seeing some form of event signage or acommercial for an alcohol or tobacco brand”(McDaniel et al, 2001). A review of national, regionaland club-level sports sponsorships in New Zealandfound that sponsorship of those sports popular amongyoung people was predominantly for gambling, alcoholand unhealthy food, with rugby in particulardominated by alcohol sponsors (Maher et al, 2006).

Australian data shows that young people aged 13 to17 are exposed to only slightly less televisionadvertising for alcohol than those aged 18 to 29, witha large proportion of this occurring as a result ofviewing sporting events (King et al, 2005). While theinfluences on alcohol consumption, and particularlyalcohol consumption among young people, arecomplex and multi-faceted, there is clear evidence thatalcohol advertising is a key contributor. There is alarge body of evidence to demonstrate that exposure toalcohol advertising influences alcohol expectancies(e.g. Grube, 1995; Stacy et al, 2004), drinkingintentions (e.g. Kelly & Edwards, 1998; Stacy et al,2004), and perceptions of drinking as a normativebehaviour (e.g. Casswell, 1995; Lieberman & Orlandi,1987). Further, three longitudinal studies from theUnited States have confirmed the direct associationbetween exposure to alcohol advertising andsubsequent drinking. In particular, these studies haveshown that those who viewed more alcohol ads in theseventh grade were more likely to drink in the eighthgrade (Stacy et al, 2004) and to drink greaterquantities in ninth grade (Ellickson et al, 2005), andthat each additional dollar per capita spent on alcoholadvertising was associated with a 4% increase in theamount of alcohol drunk by young people (Snyder etal, 2006).

One of the arguments often given for the increasinglevel of alcohol sponsorship of sport is the difficulty ofobtaining other sponsors, particularly since the banson tobacco sponsorship. In Australia, tobaccoadvertising was progressively banned from the 1970s,beginning with a phasing-out of television and radioadvertising between 1973 and 1976, followed by the

banning of print advertising in 1993, outdooradvertising in 1996 and (with variations betweenstates) point-of-sale advertising from 1999 (Chapman& Wakefield, 2001). Tobacco sponsorship of sport wassubject to the same argument as alcohol sponsorship,that sporting groups were economically dependent onthis sponsorship (Chapman & Wakefield, 2001).However, in the 1990s several Australian statesintroduced legislation, and established healthpromotion foundations, to replace tobaccosponsorships with public health sponsorships. Thesefoundations (such as Healthway in Western Australiaand VicHealth in Victoria) used the funds raised by alegislated 5% increase in tobacco taxation to sponsorsport, racing and arts organisations that hadpreviously received tobacco sponsorship (Holman etal, 1997; Chapman & Wakefield, 2001). During therecent public and political debate over the proposed‘alcopop tax’ (an additional tax the Australiangovernment is proposing to be levied on ready-to-drinkalcohol products), the Greens (an Australian politicalparty) proposed, unsuccessfully, that this tax could beused to replace alcohol sponsorship of sport, as hadbeen the case with the buy-out of tobaccosponsorships (ABC News, 2009)

The sports sponsorship market in Australia isestimated to be worth $600 million per year, with anaverage sponsor ‘spend’ of $3.3 million in 2007(Cincotta, 2008). It has been estimated that each year$50 million comes from alcohol companies – makingthem one of the biggest spending industries – with80% invested by three companies, Fosters, LionNathan and Diageo (Lee, 2008).

In Australia, public health agencies and advocacygroups have been lobbying for: a ban on alcoholsponsorship of sport; tighter adherence to the ‘spirit’ ofthe self-regulatory code (Alcohol Beverages AdvertisingCode), which prohibits the depiction of the presenceor consumption of alcohol as contributing to sporting,social or other success; and removal of the currentprovision that allows alcohol advertising during livesporting telecasts on weekends and public holidays(Commercial Television Industry Code of Practice).

Alcohol sponsorship


This latter change would reverse the current counter-intuitive exception to rules that otherwise preventbroadcast of alcohol advertisements during children’sviewing times.

There is currently disagreement between industrygroups and public health advocates about whetherassociating alcohol with sport contravenes the ‘spirit’of the advertising codes of practice – particularly asthis association extends to sporting stars featuring inAustralian alcohol advertisements, further blurring theline between advertising and content. It has beenargued that such an association is inappropriatebecause of the potential impact on underageconsumers who tend to be frequent viewers of live and televised sporting events (e.g. Howard &Crompton, 1995).

At the heart of the debate lie three overlappingquestions: whether sports sponsorship enables thealcohol industry to target young drinkers, whetheralcohol and sport are a natural ‘fit’ or an inappropriate juxtaposition, and whether the removal of alcohol sponsorship would leave sporting groups without funds.

The argument as to whether alcohol sponsorshiptargets underage drinkers (or future drinkers) is not anew one. In an article in the Sydney Morning Herald,Jacobsen (2003) quoted both industry spokespeoplewho argued that they do not target underageaudiences and public health researchers who arguedthat they do. For example, Lion Nathan (whichsponsors horse racing, rugby league and union,Australian Rules football and golf) stated that itscompany “does not in any way target its marketing atthose under the age of 18”; whereas Professor CharlesWatson stated: “The industry is particularly interestedin reaching the older adolescent market and youngadults because they want to establish drinkers at anearly stage.” It is also important to note thatsponsorships of sporting events shown on televisionallow alcohol companies to avoid the usual restrictionson daytime advertising of alcohol products.

Public health advocates and organisations focusedon the wellbeing of young people are united in their

view that alcohol advertising and alcohol sponsorshipare harmful to young people. At an international level,the World Health Organization’s European Charter onAlcohol 1995 asserts:

All children and adolescents have the right to growup in an environment protected from the negativeconsequences of alcohol consumption and, to theextent possible, from the promotion of alcoholicbeverages (and) … no form of advertising isspecifically addressed to young people, forinstance, through the linking of alcohol to sports.

The Western Australian Department of Sport andRecreation has expressed concerns about theinappropriate association between alcohol and sport,and the anomaly in controls on alcohol advertisingduring children’s viewing times. The Department hasissued a position statement on alcohol sponsorship:

In the context of junior sport and to protect youngpeople from harm, the Department of Sport andRecreation does not support alcohol sponsorship.DSR strongly urges sport and recreation clubs andassociations to seek sponsorships from companiesother than those producing and promotingalcoholic beverages.

Paul Dillon from the National Drug and AlcoholResearch Centre has argued that sponsorship isdesigned to win brand loyalty among young drinkers:“It’s a very subtle message, but it’s a message thatyoung people get, that sports and alcohol go together”(Jacobsen, 2003). This is a message that industrygroups and advertisers argue is appropriate. Forexample, Craig Dodson from Sponsorship Solutions,has stated that the male demographic and the imagesof success and mateship make sport and alcohol a‘natural fit’ and that alcohol producers value “the sheernumbers of eyeballs that sports can deliver”. However, as Geoff Munro, director of the Centre forYouth Drug Studies, pointed out, this means thatathletes are sponsored by a product that they cannot


CASESTUDY

Alcohol sponsorship


use if they want to compete at the highest level(Jacobsen, 2003).

Perhaps not surprisingly, the recipients of alcoholsponsorship also speak in favour of it. For example,when asked to comment on a possible ban on alcoholsponsorship, West Australia Football League director offootball Grant Dorrington was quoted as saying:“Foster’s, dealing with [the WA Football Commission],have a responsible drinking policy,” and “They don’twant people to drink-drive, they don’t want people toget full and bash your mate” (Midland Reporter,2009). He also argued – as do industryrepresentatives – that the dependence on sponsorshipmoney should be the primary consideration: “Let’s saysomeone has research that says for the sake of ourcommunity it should be banned… Before they bring itout, they need to do a quick check – what communityclubs are getting money and who’s going to fundthem… Don’t do anything until you can answer thatquestion.” The underlying message here should be ofgreat concern to the community: even if we have clearevidence that alcohol sponsorship of sport is harmful,we shouldn’t ban it (and we shouldn’t even release theevidence to the community) unless we can guaranteeto replace the sponsorship dollars. Cricket Australiaentered into the debate in a manner that raisedeyebrows by claiming that “banning alcoholsponsorship would impinge on sport’s ability to delivercommunity programmes that had a positive impact onhealth” and “we’re paid in dollars, not in schooners” –an unfortunate comment given that it coincided withthe release of a study that showed alcohol sponsorshipwas associated with heavy drinking among athletes(Wall, 2008). Even more controversial was theCoalition of Major Professional Sports’ submission tothe senate inquiry into the Alcohol Toll Reduction Bill,in which they claimed that the Bill (which called for aban on alcohol advertising before 9.00pm) would“impact the ability of sporting organisations to directlyinvest in a range of programmes – particularly in theareas of sport participation and broader communityinitiatives... sport plays an important part... providingopportunities for indigenous Australians and access to

programmes for people with disabilities.” CricketAustralia went one step further, explicitly stating: “TheBill would affect our ability to deliver indigenous,women’s and disability programmes” (Munro, 2008).

Alcohol sponsorship of Australian cricket

Foster’s Australia’s VB (Victoria Bitter beer) has had thenaming rights for Australia’s annual one-day cricketseries since 2003 (Sinclair, 2006). Foster’s Australialaunched its ‘VB Boonanza’ campaign in conjunctionwith the commencement of the 2005-06 summer one-day cricket international series. While we do not havefigures on the total cost of the campaign, it wasrevealed that the prize pool alone was $2.4 million. Thecampaign was described by Foster’s communicationmanager, Jacqui Moore, as being part of “thereinvigoration of the brand with four months of summeraction around the cricket” (Williams, 2005). Thecampaign, which included television commercials,online, sponsorship, point-of-sale and a range of otherpromotions – was built around ‘Talking Boony’, a talkingfigurine about the same size as a can of beer. TalkingBoony was a caricature of David Boon, a formerAustralian cricketer, who was described in the tradepress as “an Australian icon, partly for being a greatAustralian athlete, but mostly for looking like he shouldbe sitting in the stands drinking beer, rather thanpadding up in the middle… But it was his effort indrinking 52 beers on a Qantas flight between Sydneyand London at the beginning of (another) successfulAshes Tour that truly elevated him to icon status”(Sinclair, 2006). The figurine contained a microchipand a timer that enabled him to ‘speak’ during thecricket; about an hour before the start of the first matchhe spoke his first words: “Hey, get me a VB, the cricketis about to start”, and throughout the cricket he mademany other comments to his ‘fans’ – some aboutcricket, but many about beer (such as “Have you gotany nachos? I like nachos. They go well with beer”).

The Boony campaign was criticised by public healthadvocates for exploiting Boon’s notoriety as a binge


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drinker, arguing that such a promotion could only havea negative effect on the entrenched drinking culture ofcricket clubs (Munro, 2006a). However, theadvertising industry applauded – and awarded – thecampaign. In May 2006 the agency that created theBoony campaign, George Patterson Y&R, won aprestigious Yellow Pencil award at the D&AD GlobalAwards in London in the New Uses of Broadcastcategory for its ‘innovative’ campaign for Foster’s(Alarcon, 2006a); and in June 2006 it won a Lion atthe Cannes International Festival for the Talking Boonypromotion (Jacobs, 2006a). They were equallypopular with consumers, with all 200,000 sold and1,900 sold on eBay, with one going for nearly $230(Patterson, 2006).

Not surprisingly, given the positive response fromthe industry and increased consumer sales, in October2006 Foster’s Australia announced an extension of theBoony campaign for the 2006-07 summer cricketseries. In 2006-07, not only did we have TalkingBoony, we also had ‘Talking Beefy’, modelled onformer English cricket captain Ian ‘Beefy’ Botham. Thefigurines were available as a pair with promotional VBcartons, and ‘The Battle of the Tashes’2 was billed asVB’s biggest ever promotion (Patterson, 2006). Thatseason’s 375,000 pairs of figurines, which used infra-red panels to verbally spar with each other, wereissued with replaceable batteries “in the hope they’llstay in people’s homes long after the Ashes are over”(Patterson, 2006). For the 2007-08 series, ShaneWarne became the ‘face’ of the VB campaign (and thetalking doll). Once again, the multi-million dollarcampaign featured mass media advertising, a website,competitions and promotions, and merchandise –including the VB Warnie figurine programmed withphrases including “Ahhh VB, drinking anything elsewould be un-Australian” (Anonymous, 2007a).

It is not uncommon for professional sportingcompetitions to have more than one alcohol sponsor,although rarely in competing product categories, andAustralian cricket provides a good example of thisscenario. While Foster’s VB has the naming rights and

remains the official beer sponsor of Cricket Australia,in September 2006 Johnnie Walker scotch whiskyannounced its increased involvement in Australiancricket, including both a lucrative $20m sponsorshipdeal with Cricket Australia and an on-packpromotional campaign. The five-year deal betweenCricket Australia and Johnnie Walker was described as“cement[ing] Johnnie Walker as the official scotchwhisky of Cricket Australia, and follows the successfulICC Johnnie Walker Super Series in 2005-2006,which attracted more than 900 million viewersworldwide” (Jacobs, 2006b). Johnnie Walker’smarketing director, Andy Gibson, was also quoted assaying: “Red Label Cricket demonstrates what JohnnieWalker can bring to the sport” (Jacobs, 2006b).

With so many alcohol brands and so few high-profile sports, some brands are looking outside theusual options. For example, in the bourbon market,sponsorships include Cougar’s sponsorship of theNRL, cricket and V8 Supercars; Jim Beam’ssponsorship of NSW rugby league, an AFL team (viaCoca-Cola Amatil), the V8 Supercars and (as of 2009)driver Will Davison; and Jack Daniels’ sponsorship ofthe V8 Supercars. Thus in 2006, Wild Turkey – at thatpoint fifth in the overall bourbon market in Australia –“restructured its marketing approach” to fully fund the‘branded content’ prime-time Joker Poker televisionprogramme (Alarcon, 2006b).

Cricket sponsorship of Australian alcohol

Advertising ‘clutter’ is seen as a major problem foradvertisers and sponsors, with companies looking fornew ways to stand out and attract consumer attention– leading to an increase in ‘experiential’ marketing and‘proprietary events’ (Cincotta, 2008). The relationshipbetween Australian sport and alcohol promotionreached a new low in September 2006 with thelaunch of the Fourex (XXXX) Gold Beach Cricketcampaign. The highlight of the campaign was “a competitive six-a-side beach cricket tournament


Alcohol sponsorship

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2 ‘Tash’ is a colloquial term for moustache, and both of these former captains sported moustaches



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which will feature 21 cricket legends from Australia,England and the West Indies slugging it out” (Buchan2006). The cricket series was part of the XXXX GoldBeach Cricket campaign which included TVCs, awebsite featuring an interactive game, themed XXXXGold packaging with vouchers for a free cricket ball,and discounts on other beach cricket merchandise, aswell the distribution of free beach cricket kits tothousands of grassroots cricket teams across Australia.

This international beach cricket series featuredfamous past players from Australia, England and theWest Indies, and was televised nationally, with therespective captains being Alan Border, Graham Goochand Courtney Walsh. The organisers expected crowdsof up to 7,000 at each of the games, andarrangements were made for the building of temporarystands for spectators (Lalor, 2006).

What makes the promotion unique is that thistournament, and the game itself, was contrivedentirely as a promotion for XXXX Gold beer.Lion Nathan owns the event and controls who plays,what the rules are, and where the events are held(McIntyre, 2009). It had “a new set of rules, and aworld-first high-tech technology ‘switch pitch’ whichallows slow or fast-paced bowling, developedespecially for the tournament”. Andrew Coates, XXXX Gold Beach Cricket director, was quoted assaying that “the campaign was the biggest promotionever held for the brand, and [he expected] thetournament to become a permanent addition to thesports calendar” (Buchan 2006). Lion Nathancommitted approximately 90% of XXXX Gold’smarketing budget to this ‘sporting competition’, aninvestment that was rewarded with a sales increase ofover 8% in its first year (Cincotta 2008). Equallyimportantly, unlike most forms of advertising, thecompany was able to recoup a substantial proportionof this marketing expense from the sales of eventtickets, merchandise, TV rights – and even on-sellingsponsorship opportunities to other companies (Collings, 2008).

The 2005-06 beach cricket ‘competition’ includedmatches in NSW, Queensland and Western Australia;

and the broadcasts attracted an average of 347,000viewers (Lee, 2007). Not surprisingly, Lion Nathancontinued the XXXX Gold Beach Cricket series in thesummer of 2007-08, attracting 21,000 spectators tothe live events and a far larger audience for the 16hours of live broadcasts (Collings, 2008).

In February 2009, after the third summer of theXXXX series, Lion Nathan attributed the 5% per yearincrease in sales to the competition (telecast on theChannel Ten Network across Australia). AndrewCoates reported: “If you look at XXXX Gold BeachCricket, it was a platform that helped take us to beingthe second-biggest beer in the country. Ultimately wewill be No. 1” (McIntyre, 2009).

So where’s the scandal?

With a few notable exceptions (Lee, 2007, 2008;Jones, 2007), the Australian media wholeheartedlywelcomed the XXXX Beach Cricket Series. InQueensland, journalists celebrated the transformationof Coolangatta beach into a ‘beach cricket haven’ andcommended local premises for erecting XXXX flags(Anonymous, 2007b); cheered the honouring ofcricket greats ‘in front of a capacity crowd’ (Williams,2009); and encouraged television viewers to watch‘legends of world cricket fight it out to become theXXXX Gold Beach Cricket Tri-Nations champions’(Tucker-Evans, 2008). They also reported uncriticallyon the council’s plans to repair the damage to the turfcaused by trucks setting up the event (Anonymous,2008); and called on ‘Australia’ to lift its game in the2008-09 competition (Anthony 2009), clearly viewingthis marketing event as a serious sporting competition.Lion Nathan, XXXX and key figures within thecompany were lauded for their successful marketingcampaign/sporting event; with Coates congratulated onhis ‘stroke of marketing genius’ (Date, 2007).

The incongruity of turning Australian beaches intoall-day advertisements for an alcohol brand escapedthe notice of the media; and John Howard, the thenprime minister, tossed the coin at the beginning of the



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game to help Lion Nathan launch their media blitz(Lee, 2007; Jones, 2007). Even the sight of youngchildren playing in the licensed bar hastily built on aSydney beach, and the iconic nippers (junior surf life-savers) parading with XXXX hats over their uniformcaps, failed to raise a stir among the media and thesporting public.

This is not to say that the XXXX Beach Cricket Serieswas without controversy and scandal, just that thescandal focused on the commercial questions ofdivided loyalties (due to saturation of alcoholsponsors) and claims of ambush marketing, ratherthan on the ethical boundary that appeared to havebeen crossed in the relationship between alcoholmarketing and Australian cricket.

In October 2006 Alan Border, a renownedAustralian retired cricketer and ex-captain, resigned hisposition as a national selector, not because he wasdisgusted at the increasingly symbiotic relationshipbetween cricket and beer, but because of a perceivedconflict of interest between his sponsorship by XXXX(as the captain of the Australian beach cricket team)and Cricket Australia’s sponsorship by Foster’s (Brown, 2006a). Foster’s claimed that the XXXXcampaign, involving Border, was ambush marketingand was un-Australian (Brown, 2006b). A similarsituation arose in the International Cricket CouncilChampions Trophy in Sri Lanka, nearly resulting in thecancellation of the tournament, and potential sponseeshave been cautioned that they should ensure that “no scope should be left for commercial competitors tobe sponsoring the same event” (Brown 2006b),including an overlap between the sponsorship ofcompetitions, governing bodies, teams and individualplayers. Cricket Australia reported having difficultyidentifying a replacement for Allan Border, and one ofthe key reasons cited for this difficulty was the gapbetween the earnings of a selector and the earningsfrom a media contract (Brown & Saltau, 2006). Again,the media seemed to miss the point, with the harshestcriticism of Border coming from an autograph-seekingjournalist who was snubbed by the great man at oneof many events where journalists were hosted and

provided with ‘refreshments in the XXXX Gold retreatalongside cricket greats’ (Gallagher, 2009).

Foster’s Group (manufacturers of VB beer, theofficial sponsor of Cricket Australia) accused Lion Nathan of engaging in ambush marketing(Tabakoff, 2006) – a claim that intensified when LionNathan purchased prominent signage at two of thegrounds during the Ashes cricket tour (McMahon,2007). Lion Nathan’s Andrew Coates countered thatbeach cricket is ‘totally different’ and ‘another version’of cricket; and their advertising agency described thecampaign as ‘guerrilla marketing’, making thedistinction that “Ambush marketing implies somethingbordering on unethical. Guerilla marketing issomething that is stealthy and of the world we live in.Beach cricket is definitely the latter” (Tabakoff, 2006).

It is important to note the dependence of the media– as well as the dependence of the major sportingcodes – on alcohol advertising revenue, and one couldquestion whether this contributes to the media’s lackof criticism of such blatant marketing campaigns. Aswell as the spend on alcohol sponsorship per se, theindustry spent an estimated $106 million on alcoholadvertising, a quarter of which was associated withsport (and it is estimated that advertisers pay$30,000 for a 30-second slot during major sportingtelecasts), which has a direct impact on the amountnetworks are prepared to pay for broadcasting rights(Stark, 2009). In an article in a trade publication, aconsultant reported on a range of sports sponsorshipsby wine brands, citing increases in brand awarenessand sales, and posed the question as to the potentialfor a ban on alcohol sponsorship of sport in Australia.She concluded: “I don’t think so. In a sports- anddrinks-mad culture like ours, I think common sense(and the lure of the almighty dollar) will prevail”(Smart, 2007).

Writing in The Australian newspaper, Mike Daube, aprofessor of health policy, commented on theinconsistency that saw the media, sportingadministrator and the prime minister willing tocondemn the use of illicit drugs by high-profile sportsstars, while their misuse of alcohol did not attract the



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same level of concern. Daube cited the regular reportsof drunken rampages, assaults, drink-driving andvarious other forms of unacceptable behaviour by thehigh-profile sports stars, but asked “how can thesports that employ them expect anything else? Ourmajor sports are afloat on a sea of alcoholsponsorship” (Daube, 2007). Daube dismissedindustry arguments that they do not target childrenand young people, and gave the example of ‘gamedevelopment’ links on Australian Football Leaguewebsites, where five of the seven sites for junior clubfootball promoted drinks industry sponsors.

There are many reasons why our politicians appearto be reluctant to tackle alcohol marketing. TheGreens’ Senator Rachel Siewert (2009), in asubmission to the Excise Tariff Amendment (alcopoptax) Bill stated that the government currently collectsover $7.1 billion per year in revenue from alcoholtaxation (excluding the estimated $1.6 billion over fouryears if the alcopop tax were passed). When theAustralian Electoral Commission released politicaldonation figures for 2006-07, Smith & Clennell(2008) questioned the independence of governmentdecisions on regulation of the hotel industry whenthey noted that the industry donated $610,000 andthe Australian Hotels Association was involved in a‘fundraiser’ that raised $492,000 for the Labour party.In a letter to the Sydney Morning Herald, the presidentof Democracy Watch cautioned: “The alcohol industryis the second biggest donor group after thedevelopment lobby” (Pedersen, 2007). A quick searchof the Australian Electoral Commission’s databaseidentifies regular contributions to each of the majorpolitical parties from the Distilled Spirits IndustryCouncil of Australia Inc, the Winemakers’ Federationof Australia, Lion Nathan Australia Pty Limited and anumber of other alcohol producers and industrygroups. It has also been argued that politicians areeager to criticise, and campaign against issues suchas illicit drugs, but are reluctant to be seen to criticisealcohol (despite alcohol causing more than twice asmany deaths as all illicit drugs combined), as this isnot a ‘vote winner’ (Stark, 2007).

Discussion

It was suggested in the late 1990s that publicawareness of the impact of alcohol abuse on societywould lead to increasing pressure to regulate alcoholsponsorship of sporting events, particularly in light ofseveral high-profile cases such as the National Councilon Alcoholism and Drug Abuse’s formal protest againstAnheuser Busch’s sponsorship of the 1996 OlympicGames in Atlanta, and the National Coalition ofHispanic Health and Human Services Organisation’sfirst formal protest over the same company’sinvolvement with World Cup soccer (McDaniel &Mason, 1999). However, it was also mooted thatorganising and regulatory authorities would be hesitantto regulate such activities due to their high degree ofdependence on income from alcohol sponsorships(Howard & Crompton, 1995).

In the UK in 2006, the Advisory Council on theMisuse of Drugs recommended – along withrestrictions on alcohol advertising and changes tosupply – a ban on sponsorship by alcohol companiesof sports or music events attended or watched byunder-18s. However, the proposals were rejected bythe government, with ministers arguing that “the banas suggested by the council would be disproportionateand would hit funding for grassroots sports projects”,as the alcohol companies that sponsor high-profilesporting events such as the tennis and footballchampionships also provide sponsorship to youthsporting groups (Burns & Hall, 2006).

The dependence on alcohol sponsors is notubiquitous, and many sporting codes and sportingevents thrive in the absence of alcohol sponsors.Australian soccer has a number of lucrativesponsorships with non-alcohol products. For example,in the lead up to the World Cup, the Socceroos’ majorsponsors included Qantas (which also has the namingrights for the team, hence the Qantas Socceroos) andWeet-bix breakfast cereal (Robertson, 2006); currentsponsors include Qantas, Foxtel, Nike, Hyundai,National Australia Bank, Powerade and Optus. The2008 Beijing Olympics sponsors included financial



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services, electronics and computer products, personalcare products, car manufacturers, telecommunicationsand transport services; and the Australian Olympicteam’s sponsors similarly included financial services(such as Bankwest and Visa), electronics andcomputer products (GE, Panasonic, Acer andSamsung) and sporting apparel and fitness centres(Adidas, Speedo and Fitness First). Felt (2002) notesthe increasing involvement in sports sponsorship of arange of other entities, including political causes,sports apparel companies, telecoms and media,corporations and global consumer brands.

However, many major Australian sports – notablycricket, rugby league, Australian Rules football andmotor racing – continue to be dominated by alcoholsponsors. Unfortunately, the XXXX Beach CricketSeries is not the most inappropriate alcoholsponsorship in Australia in recent years, perhapsdemonstrating how complacent we have becomeabout alcohol sponsorship. The 2006 ‘Movember’campaign – a men's health campaign designed toincrease awareness of prostate cancer, maledepression and testicular cancer, and to raise funds byhaving men grow a moustache sponsored by friends’donations – was criticised for its links with alcohol andsport (Munro, 2006b). Foster’s VB was a majorsponsor of the Movember campaign, and VBpromotions were evident in the promotional materials,and particularly the website. For example, the PoolRoom page on the website had a group of men in aroom filled with VB paraphernalia and all drinking thebeer, along with a large poster on the wall whichasked: “What sort of man grows a Mo? Of course, he’sa bloke who carries around a golden thirst.” Evenmore alarmingly, the page included a video entitled ‘AMo Bro never let someone drink alone’ and showed anunhappy man who cheered up when one of hisfriends bought him a drink. Finally, to the ire of publichealth advocates, the campaign’s registration formfeatured a photo of ‘archetypal binge drinker’ DavidBoon (Munro, 2006b). In case there was any doubtabout the link between cricket, VB and Movember, at

the launch of ‘The Battle of the Tashes’ campaign,VB’s marketing manager Ben Wicks said: “As a majorMovember sponsor, we’re hoping some of thecricketers will keep their mo growing into the Ashesseason. The two overlap nicely, because the first testis in late November” (Patterson, 2006).

In 2002 James Felt wrote that “the first high volumeconsumer brands to be involved in Formula 1 as wellas other sports were alcohol and tobacco brands…[but] it may be said that sport as a whole has reducedthe involvement of tobacco and alcohol, which hasbeen part of sports sponsorship since the nineteenthcentury” (Felt, 2002).

However, this does not appear to be the case inAustralia – where politicians and the media appearcomplicit in further promoting the association betweenalcohol and sport and our children are floating in asea of alcohol marketing. If we are to tackle theincreasing problem of alcohol-related harm inAustralia, particularly among young people, we needto break the seemingly inexorable link between sportsand alcohol. Not only are alcohol sponsorships ofsport thriving, particularly in the most high-profilesports – cricket and rugby – we are now seeing sportssponsorships of alcohol.


Biography

Sandra C. Jones is Associate Dean (Research) in theFaculty of Health and Behavioural Sciences, andProfessor and Director of the Centre for HealthInitiatives at the University of Wollongong. Herresearch interests include alcohol advertising andmarketing, the influence of mass media on healthbehaviours, and social marketing.



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EDIT

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International Journal of Sports Marketing & Sponsorship l APRIL 2010 l262

The Journal welcomes the submission of academicand practitioner research papers, articles, casestudies, interviews and book reviews. Submissionsshould aim to educate and inform and should ideallyfocus on a specific area that is pertinent to thesubject matter of the Journal, as detailed below.In all instances, the editorial team seeks to publishsubmissions that clearly add value to theory and/orpractice in sports marketing and sponsorship.

Aims and scope

The mission of the Journal is to bring togetheracademics and practitioners in one forum, with theintent of furthering knowledge and understanding ofsports marketing and sponsorship. The Journalinterprets sports marketing and sponsorship broadly,to include:l fans and customers l individual performers and endorsersl teams and clubsl leagues and competitionsl events and stadia l sponsors and propertiesl retailers and merchandisersl suppliers and intermediariesl broadcasters and the medial governing bodies and representative associationsl places, spaces and citiesl economic and social development initiativesl magazines, newspapers and websitesl betting and gambling servicesl sportswear manufacturersl gaming and collecting.

We encourage submissions from a wide variety of perspectives, including marketing, all areas ofmanagement, economics, politics, history, sociology,psychology, cultural studies and anthropology.

All articles should be written primarily to informacademics and practitioners directly or indirectlyinvolved in the sports marketing and/or sponsorship

industries. Articles that detail results of original work areaccorded high priority. The Journal also invites reportson new or revised business techniques, perspectives oncontemporary issues and results of surveys.

Case studies and reviews of books and/or reportsare welcomed. For these, we request that copies of thebook/report be sent to the Editor and to the Publisher.

Research articles should be well grounded conceptually and theoretically, and methodologicallysound. Qualitative and quantitative pieces of researchare equally appropriate.

The Editor is willing to discuss and advise onproposed projects. This is no guarantee of publication.

Submissions are double-blind peer reviewedaccording to the following general criteria:l clarity and content of the abstractl problem or issue definition and justificationl relevance and rigour of literature reviewl credibility, appropriateness and relevance of research

methodology and in the reporting of resultsl quality and relevance of conclusions and

recommendationsl value added by the submission to academic and

practitioner understanding of sports marketing.

Format and style

Research articles should normally be no less than4,000 and no more than 8,000 words. Case studies of no less than 2,500 and no more than5,000 words should be objective rather thanpromotional and should follow the following format:Background / Objectives / Implementation / Results /Conclusion. Interviews are welcomed, but should bediscussed with the Editor. Book reviews shouldnormally be less than 1,500 words.

Each article submitted for consideration shouldinclude an executive summary of up to 500 words,which gives a flavour of the article and includes therationale for the study, methods used, key findings,conclusions and value added. A shorter abstract, of nomore than 100 words, must also be included.

Editorial policy

11.3 Editorial Policy 7/4/10 22:39 Page 262

Footnotes and endnotes may be used but only whereappropriate and as sparingly as possible.

Tables, charts, diagrams and figures should be inblack and white and placed on separate pages at theend of the manuscript. Where data or image files havebeen imported into Word for tables, diagrams etc,please supply the original files. Authors must indicatein the main body of the text approximately where eachtable, chart, diagram or figure should appear.

Jargon should be kept to a minimum, with technicallanguage and acronyms always clearly defined.

The accuracy of references is the responsibility ofthe author(s). Authors should refer to the Journal forstyle or use the Harvard system of referencing foundat: http://library.curtin.edu.au/referencing/harvard.pdf

Submissions protocol

Submissions should be sent as Word documents byemail directly to the Editor. If this is not possible, threecopies of the manuscript should be sent by regularmail with a copy on CD (preferably) or computer disc.

Authors should submit their manuscripts with a covering letter. Receipt of submissions is noguarantee of publication. Submission of a paper to the Journal implies agreement of the author(s) thatcopyright rests with International Marketing ReportsLtd if and when a paper is published. The copyrightcovers exclusive rights to reproduce and distribute the paper.

The Journal will not accept submissions underreview with other publications. If the manuscript ispreviously published or copyrighted elsewhere, specific permission must be obtained from thePublisher before submission and the Editor of theJournal must be informed.

All research papers submitted will be double-blindpeer reviewed. Authors will normally receive anassessment from the reviewers within six to 12 weeks.

The Publisher reserves the right to sub editsubmissions for accuracy and consistency of style.

Based upon reviewer comments, the Editor will makeone of four decisions:l that the submission should be accepted for

publication without amendmentsl that the submission should be accepted for

publication subject to minor amendmentsl that the submission should be returned to the

author(s) with recommendations for major changesbefore publication is considered again

l that the submission should be rejected.

Submissions accepted for publication will normally bescheduled to appear within 12 months of the authorreceiving written confirmation of acceptance from theEditor. Rejected manuscripts will not be returned.

Professor Michel Desbordes, EditorInternational Journal of Sports Marketing & SponsorshipISC School of Management, Paris, France & University Paris Sud 11, FranceTel: +33 (0)1 69 15 61 57Fax: +33 (0)1 69 15 62 37Email: [email protected]

Submissions format

Page 1 l Title of the submissionl Author(s) name(s), affiliation, postal

address, email, telephone and fax l Up to six keywordsl Specify: academic/practitioner paperl Biography of author(s) (50 words)

Page 2 l Title of the submissionl Executive summary (500 words)l Abstract (100 words)l Author details MUST NOT appear

Page 3 l Title of submission; begin main text.

For more specific style questions, please consulteither a recent edition of the Journal or the Editor.

EDITORIALPOLICY

l APRIL 2010 l International Journal of Sports Marketing & Sponsorship 263

11.3 Editorial Policy 7/4/10 22:39 Page 263

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