This study examined interscholastic football sponsorship to determine the types of companies most likely sponsor, the impact of school size on the number and types of sponsorship, and the activation methods utilized.
Method:
A purposeful sample of 32 Texas high school football programs, stratified by enrollment and geographic location, was examined. Five coders were trained in observing and documenting on-site sponsorship activations, and then independently coded sponsorships at one high school football game to test inter-rater reliability using Scott’s Pi according to Pierce and Petersen (2011). Results exceeded .85 for all variables. The coders subsequently traveled to games across the state using coding sheets for systematic data collection. SPSS version 19.0 was utilized for frequency count, t-test, chi-square, and logistic regression analyses.
Analysis/Results:
A total of 549 sponsorship activations were observed with a mean of 17.1 activations per school. This included both local sponsors (57%) and national sponsors (43%). The most prevalent sponsors were all national including: Coke (22), Dr. Pepper (20), Gatorade (16), and Chick-fil-a (13). The top industry segments were beverage (16.9%), food and dining (16.6%), financial services (16%), medical (6.4%), contractors (5.8%), and autos (5.1%). Small schools accounted for 28.4% of the sponsorships while large schools netted 71.6%. The sponsorship activation methods included: signage (50.8%), banner (29.0%), digital text (9.8%), promotional items (8.6%), and full screen video (1.8%). The stadium locations utilized for sponsorship activation included: fences not visible from stands (30.6%), scoreboard (24.4%), fencing visible from stands (17.5%), concessions (15.5%), playing surface (7.5%), parking lot (2.2%), bleachers (1.5%), and press box (0.9%).
Significantly more sponsorship was observed at large schools than small school, t(30) = -3.52, p = .001, and significantly more sponsorship occurred in non-rural schools than rural schools, t(30) = 2.69¸ p = .012. Food and beverage firms were more likely to be national in scope, while professional services, more likely to be local in scope, χ2 = 187.8, df = 6, p < .001. Logistic regression predicted the type of sponsors based upon school type. The regression for “location” was significant χ2 = 17.4, df = 7, p = .015. Local companies were twice as likely to sponsor rural schools as national companies (Exp (B) = .49, Wald = 7.7, df = 1, p = .006).
Conclusions:
As corporate sponsorship becomes increasingly important to the funding of interscholastic sport, the need for these and similar research findings becomes magnified for sport administrators.