Implications for corporate sponsors arising from scandals in sport : the case of Adidas and FIFA

• Autor(a) principal: Giese, Stefanie Barbara
• Data de Publicação: 2016
• Tipo de documento: Dissertação
• Idioma: eng
• Título da fonte: Repositório Científico de Acesso Aberto de Portugal (Repositórios Cientìficos)
• Texto Completo: http://hdl.handle.net/10400.14/20568
• topic: Domínio/Área Científica::Ciências Sociais::Economia e Gestão

This dissertation assesses how sponsorship managers should evaluate sponsored-entity related scandals. To achieve this, a content analysis of secondary sources is conducted, which evaluates how scandals affect corporate sponsors and analyses different factors that have to be considered before deciding on whether to terminate a sponsorship or not. Firstly, a literature review covers sponsorship, corporate reputation and corporate governance in the sport context. Secondly, scandal implications are evaluated by assessing how the current FIFA scandal affected corporate sponsor Adidas. Lastly, a multitude of aspects which ultimately influence sponsorship managers’ decision making processes with regards to the termination of a partnership due to scandals are analyzed. These aspects are also applied to the Adidas - FIFA case. It is shown that assessing scandals from a purely ethical perspective is not feasible and a holistic approach should be employed. Research exemplifies that Adidas did not suffer any negative implications from the FIFA scandal and that a termination of the sponsorship would have been the wrong decision. It suggests that many factors, such as the potential to overcome a scandal unharmed, potentially negative effects from exiting a sponsorship and especially the separation between organisation and actual event are more important than ethical considerations, and that those aspects were in favour of Adidas not terminating the sponsorship. Ultimately, this dissertation shows that any company which is faced with the decision on whether to terminate a sponsorship due to a scandal should reach a business related decision, rather than a moral one.