بررسي عنصر حمايت مالي از عناصر آميخته بازاريابي ورزشي

Investigation of Sport sponsorship as elements of sportʹs mix marketing

companiesʹ financial support has been increasing as an element of marketing communications. Sponsorship has become a major source of funding special and non-going sporting events. However, sponsors may question return to their investment in such events. The present study investigates the main objectives of the sponsoring companies and compares views of company and sport managers. The data collection instrument was a highly reliable tailor-made questionnaire (a=0.84). The statistical population of this study was all managers of factories and private companies, club manager and sport headquarters in East Azarbaijan. Data was analyzed through the descriptive as well as the non-parametric U-Mann-Whitney inferential statistics with P<0.05. Results indicated significant difference among managersʹ views regarding: product-related goals (discovering new market sector), sales targets (development public awareness and gaining more profit), extensive general goals including media coverage (better relationship with the government, obtaining tax-exemp-tions due to economic advertising in sports), criteria to select sports (close relation of the company product to sport type), While there was no significant difference(P<0.05) among the groups in terms of the other goals related to product, sales objectives, general objectives and the criteria to select group sports. Finally, to attract more sportsʹ financial supporters, proper measures should be taken. It is suggested that appropriate plans can be designed in order to attract more financial supporters. This can help promote private companiesʹ attention to sports so that one can benefit form their financial support.