Abstract
Sports sponsorship is an area of marketing responsible for raising financial resources. This is a similar understanding within the realm of Esports as the fastest growing sport in decades. Recognizing the clear parallel between sports and Esports within the marketing realm, as ways through which to raise financial resources through sponsorship opportunities, there are also significant differences that apply, partially due to the digital comfortability of gamers as a novel and as yet unexperienced curiosity, as well as the native community competitive nature of the Esports realm that highlights parallels with many other sports. As such, sponsorship of Esports events has become a marketing communication tool as it is able to significantly impact the target audience, similar in nature to other sports while still introducing new marketing communications tools. The interaction between sponsor and sponsored has become a mutual benefit; it augments the brand awareness in the market while facilitating the communication with the target audience, and it supports sports events.
TopIntroduction
Sports sponsorship in general, which includes Esports sponsorship, is a long-term marketing strategy used by companies to strengthen their connection with a target audience. Sports and Esports fans and viewers are strongly involved in sports activities and are loyal and supportive of their teams and athletes. The reality, is that:
Brands tend to underestimate the fragmentation of esports fans among many games, leagues, teams, and players. As a result, they risk spending their money unwisely and ending up, like so many unseasoned gamers, getting “ganked.” (Singer & Chi, 2019, para. 8)
The term gank suggests a rather underhanded effort to overcome a competitor, specifically a gamer term suggesting a less knowledgeable or novice person in the field. From a marketing standpoint, this is an important recognition due to the misunderstanding between being a knowledgeable player within the Esports realm or merely a watcher or an enthusiast. Not knowing the Esports space is a major mistake, as online information that highlights popular gamer streamers is not the same information as what a marketer and sponsor require when making decisions as related to whether to spend money on popular online gamer streamers or spend money and focus upon Esports professional gamers, whether individual players or teams. There is not one preferential group of Esports gamers upon which to focus marketing and sponsorship attention; however, the recognition of the differentiation between sponsorship engagement and marketing funds is an analytic and financial consideration that the marketer and the sponsor must bear out.
Keshkar et al. (2019) define sports sponsorship as entrepreneurial philanthropy where sponsors provide financial or any other form of assistance to their favourite teams or athletes in exchange for the ‘halo effect’ of status and prestige arising from the relationship. Sports marketing create a business-to-business relationship where the sponsor benefits from awareness and publicity, which boost the corporate image and increase sales, while the sponsored benefits from the financial assistance, in-kind services, and publicity (Koronios et al., 2016). Sponsors are often wealthy individuals or brands who use the reputation gained from the association with sports and Esports organizations, teams, and individual athletes to uplift their status in the business community.
In addition, sponsoring sports / Esports events or the players’ influences people’s cognitive bias, which determines their overall impression of the sponsors and how they feel and think about them. In 2013, sports / Esports sponsorship had attracted approximately $53.1 billion in investments used to back sports teams, events, and players (Alonso-Dos-Santos, Vveinhardt et al., 2016). Financial analysts from Price Waterhouse Coopers (PwC), projected that by 2021 the global sports sponsorship marketing would generate approximately $73.5 billion in revenues (Keshkar et al., 2019). However, despite the rapid growth of the industry, limited research exist on the connection between sports sponsorship in general and sports marketing. Of interest is the misunderstandings around the fans to whom marketing firms and sponsors attempt to market their wares. As suggested by Singer and Chi (2019):
Only 13 percent of US efans in our survey said that “esports is the only sport I watch.” Even among those who said that esports is their favorite sport to watch, fewer than one in three said it was their only spectator sport. Research firm MRI-Simmons has estimated that 20 million of the 21 million US esports fans are also fans of traditional sports. (para. 19)
Key Terms in this Chapter
Sport Events: Events that have sport as their main theme or activity.
Sponsor: An individual or legal entity that assumes financial and assistance responsibility for the maintenance, marketing, and promotion, of a person or group, team, or events.
Fan: A person who expresses his admiration for a person, group, idea, sport or even an inanimate object (e.g., a car or a computer model).
E-Sports: Electronic sport, cyber sports terms used for electronic game competitions, especially among professionals.
Sports Sponsorship: A marketing tool used by companies to create a business relationship with an athlete or sports team in order to advertise or raise awareness.
Corporate Social Responsibility: A business model that encourages companies to be socially responsible.
Sports Marketing: Consists of all activities designed to satisfy the needs and desires of sports consumers.