Apparel Sponsorship in FBS College Football: Effectively Utilizing Sponsorship to Grow Purchase Intentions

This study examines the effectiveness, as applied to marketing theories, of apparel companies’ sponsorship of Division I FBS college football programs. The sponsorship contracts in Division I college athletics now average $6 million a year per institution (Kish, 2014). The importance of studying these sponsoring relationships is crucial to determine whether the 3 major apparel companies of college athletics (Nike, Adidas and Under Armour) are effectively marketing their brands through developing new purchase intentions. (Crompton, 2004) This study aimed to measure the effectiveness of sponsorship of the three apparel companies as applied to commonly recognized theories of marketing. To do this, four contributing marketing theories and how each company utilizes these theories through revenue data and sponsorship relationships were evaluated based upon their subsequent effect of growing purchase intentions. The results of this study determined that each of the three companies utilizes different marketing theories in order to maximize the effectiveness of their sponsorship relationships. Nike was found to be the most effective of the three major apparel companies when applied to the commonly known marketing theories evaluated in this study.https://encompass.eku.edu/swps_graduategallery/1101/thumbnail.jp