Abstracts Vol. 6 (No.1 / 2009)

Hannu Itkonen, Kalervo Ilmanen and Pertti Matilainen
Sponsorship in the Finnish sports culture

The theoretical assumptions explored with this paper are based on previous sociological studies concerning change in the field of sports. According to previous studies, international top-level sport is characterized by professionalism and a dissociation from the voluntary organizational field of sport. Top-level sports have become professional activities in internationally significant sports. In contrast to this, children’s and youth sports are still based on voluntary participation in Finland. The links between sports and economy have become even stronger since sport has become more professional, especially where sponsorship in top-level sports has increased. However, sponsorship is not a new phenomenon, since economic support by businesses has always belonged to sport to some extent.
The purpose of our article is to firstly clarify the position of sports sponsorship as a part of Finnish sponsorship as a whole. Secondly, we ask what are the goals and expectations of the businesses sponsoring sports. Thirdly, the aim is to find out what kind of risks sports sponsorship might involve. In order to find out the national features of sponsorship, on the one hand we take a look at the international change in sports publicity. On the other hand, we describe the context in which Finnish sports sponsorship takes place. Our research data consists of a questionnaire that we sent to 1,500 Finnish companies. This random sample included the 550 largest companies and 50 companies from every province of Finland. After the second and third surveys, we had 561 answers or 37% of the total sample. The main findings of our research are:
Two out of three Finnish companies practise sponsoring.
Sports are clearly the most favoured targets of sponsorship.
Among sports, team sports receive the most sponsor support.
Companies seek mainly visibility through sponsorship.
Doping and negative images attached to sports are viewed as the greatest threats to sports sponsorship.

Content Vol. 6 (No.1 / 2009)